Real Time Bidding (RTB) is a BIG buzz word in the media marketing industry, and yet is confusing to a lot of marketers. This article will shed some light on the term and will help you get better results when using it.

Real Time Bidding started at 2009 – as a method for buying and selling online advertising spots over the internet for Banners, popups, etc. The mechanism holds great advantages for both Advertisers and Publishers. Advertisers will enjoy higher reach for their campaigns as they are exposed to a lot more of them, while eliminating unproductive traffic sources and user types. Publishers will enjoy better prices for their traffic, Increasing the value of remnant ad space and get exposure to premium campaigns.

So, how does RTB works?

It all begins when a user is visits a website. At that point a bid request is sent to an ad exchange. The bid request can include demographic details about the user, age, browsing history, etc. The bid is evaluated by the advertisers connected to the ad exchange platform – and the auction starts. Each advertiser bids his price and the advertiser with the highest bid wins. So for example if Advertiser A bids 2.00$ CPM and Advertiser B bids 1.8$ CPM, Advertiser A will win the request and will pay 1.81$ (1 cent above the second highest bid) for the impression. The user will see a banner/popup from Advertiser A, all the process will take around 100 milliseconds.

The Advantages

Other than the advantages discussed above, RTB has two main advantages over traditional media buying. Trading media through a platform that have real time bidding technology will reduce administrative burden – and therefore operative costs. The second huge advantage is the ability to pay per request in real time – instead of buying big bulks of traffic manually. This allows the advertisers to target exactly the audience they look for, instead of wasting money on bad performing audience.

Where is RTB headed?

According to statista.com, here is the growth rate of real time bidding spending:

12.02 Biliion dollars expected in 2018. Numbers don’t lie, seems like RTB is here to stay.

How to make RTB work for you? 

Both as a publisher and an advertiser, you can connect AdMetix bidder to enjoy what real time bidding have to offer. Make more money from your traffic as a publisher and get better performance as an advertiser.