What is Real Time Bidding? (RTB)

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Learn Digital advertising: What is Real Time Bidding?

If you breathe and live in the Online Advertising space, you most definitively have heard the term Real Time Bidding or more commonly known as RTB. This is a relatively new technology to even people who consider themselves to be veterans of the online advertising industry. It is not an easy concept to grasp and I have found it easiest to understand by looking at it from multiple angles and hearing it defined from multiple people. what is real time bidding?

Real Time Bidding Defined

RTB in simplest terms is an auction between an advertiser and publisher, with the advertising server being the middle man. An advertiser has certain parameters of a perfect targeted user and a publisher has the target user surfing the site in which the ad can be displayed on their inventory. When a user loads a web page, in milliseconds the ad server will place a bid determined by algorithms on how targeted that user is for the advertiser and  if the price is right an ad will be served to them.

Two sides of RTB: Suppy and Demand

There really aretwo main players in the game of Real Time Bidding. The Demand Side Platform or DSP optimizes the ad that will be shown on the network based on the advertisers expectations, this environment houses the advertisers and their campaigns. The Supply Side Platform or SSP, determines if the user is appropriate for the ad that will be shown based on ad quality, it is a habitat in which the publishers live. It’s a hard concept for me to even grasp because its so complicated but basically both the user and advertiser are simultaneous matched up based on the optimal circumstance. Still can’t answer the question what is real time bidding? Here is a video by TLVMedia to clear it all up

What is Real Time Bidding? (RTB)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q9mHW1c7nA&list=PLGwjkLM83mcV4aZ3LSxxRubc_q_2–DEU