RTB Meaning, Explained: Everything You Need to Know About Real-Time Bidding

We’re not going to lie: Americans are set to spend almost $2.85 billion on digital lead generating ads next year. That means that RTB advertising is having a major moment right now. But what does RTB mean in advertising?

You might be wondering: “what is RTB in marketing?” Dive deeper into RTB meaning, how RTB works, and everything else you need to know about real-time bidding.

What is RTB?

Want to modernize your marketing? To do so, you’ll have to find out what “RTB” means first. But don’t worry, we’ll make it easy for you.

When it comes to real-time bidding, it’s starting to become a real competitor to the more traditional programmatic advertising trend. In fact, the real-time advertising craze is expected to grow even more throughout:

• America
• Europe
• Asia

On top of that, advertising and media companies in the U.S. are becoming more and more RTB-friendly, spending more cash on digital ads than ever before. With so many organizations investing in this marketing plan, it’d be crazy not to look into it for your own company.

Not only that, but real-time bidding is also a fantastic way to bid on an auction for something called “ad impressions.” In case you didn’t know, these transactions take place so quickly that you can barely place a bid before the ad impression is bought.

And guess what? After a particular marketer’s ad is selected, it’s automatically shown on the publisher’s website. Of course, other supporting platforms can be used as well for this process.

The point is that real-time bidding auctions typically focus on bidding on impression ads, whereas static auctions usually deal with group impressions. For those who aren’t in the know, that includes package deals for eager advertisers to bid on.

But how on earth does real-time bidding actually work?

How Does RTB Work?

Here’s the thing: optimizing your hybrid digital marketing is basically a no-brainer with real-time bidding tactics. This is how it goes down. Once a user navigates to a particular website, the proper bid request is delivered to something called “ad exchange.”

What’s the real deal about bid requests, anyway? We’re glad that you asked. For starters, they’ll normally contain a few essential things such as:

• Demographical data
• Location information
• Browser history

Now that we’ve got that covered, the ad exchange will send the bid request to its long list of buyers and advertisers who are more than willing to bid on its ad impression in real-time. Then, the buyer or marketer with the highest bid will take home the impression, getting it presented right in front of the user’s eyes.

To make a long story short, this repetitive cycle occurs over and over again, reaching ad units on a certain website’s property page. Although this RTB process might seem like it’d take a while, you’d be surprised that the whole thing occurs in less than 100 milliseconds.

Yes, you read that right. As if that’s not enough, that includes the time it takes for the bid to be requested and the ad to be served. Talk about not wasting any time!

Programmatic Ads Vs. RTB: Which is Better?

Okay, so you’re probably thinking: between programmatic advertising and real-time bidding, which one is better? Before we can dive into this discussion, let’s take a look at what programmatic advertising really is.

To put it simply, programmatic advertising is an automated way to sell and buy online advertisements. Using a single technology platform, programmatic platforms can be easily accessed from almost any device, including:

• Mobile devices
• Desktop devices
• Tablet devices
• Audio devices
• Digital outdoor TV devices
• Connected TV devices

That being said, programmatic ads also use special targeting strategies to identify audiences with data. The result is simple. Marketers are only shelling out cash for ads that are sent to the right person at the right place.

But if you think that ad exchanges and real-time bidding ads were the same things, you’d be dead wrong. As a matter of fact, ad exchanges have a huge role in the programmatic ads world, which impacts real-time bidding as well.

Let us explain. As we mentioned above, online ad inventory is sold and bought per ad impression. What we haven’t talked about is this: ad exchanges are a type of platform that advertisers and publishers combine to share digital advertising inventory.

For the uninitiated, an ad exchange is a marketplace where demand side platforms, or DSPs, are used to take a look at the advertising inventory that’s up for sale to the marketers. And if an ad impression turns out to be the right fit for a marketer’s target group, then a bid will be requested through the demand side platform.

The rest is easy. From there, the ad will be rewarded to the publisher who bids the highest, getting published on their website right away. Since you can’t have RTB without programmatic ads, we’d say they’re both must-haves!

Demand Side Platforms: Are They Worth It?

If you’re not sure if demand side platforms are worth it, you’re not alone. Here’s the breakdown. Demand side platforms also fall underneath the umbrella of programmatic advertising.

In case you’re still scratching your heads, companies that specialize in demand side platforms were made to help marketers with purchasing products. Plus, demand side platforms provide several different sources for media companies to buy from as well.

But here’s the catch: this so-called “self-serve approach” to buying media ads is much more impersonal for people on both sides of the screen. That’s because marketers are usually prompted to place ads through various platforms like display, mobile and video.

Besides this, there are supply side platforms out there that assist publishers with keeping track of their goods too. In addition, marketers use demand side platforms to buy ad inventory with real-time bidding. But wait – there’s more.

In a nutshell, demand side platforms are super helpful for several reasons. First things first, demand side platforms help marketers by giving them exclusive access to several real-time bidding exchanges. Using one access panel, advertisers are able to efficiently manage their ad campaigns.

How do demand side platforms even work? Essentially, they’ll use key information like behavioral data to figure out when to place a bid that a target audience will see. Clearly, this is a worthy investment for any small business or media company!

RTB Perks For Publishers

And now, for the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Are you asking yourself, what are the perks of real-time bidding for publishers? If so, then you’ve definitely come to the right place.

Admit it: finding out the difference between demand side platforms, ad exchanges, and programmatic advertising wasn’t as hard as you’d thought. However, you might be curious to find out why publishers love real-time bidding so much.

Nowadays, technology has made previously difficult things like fair pricing a lot more convenient to do. That’s why real-time bidding gives publishers a lot more bang for their buck by bidding on ads for the highest amount on their behalf. Naturally, publishers will need to use supply side platforms to get the largest benefit from real-time bids.

In addition, real-time bidding is a great way for publishers to make serious money off of their remnant inventory as well. With real-time, previously untouched inventory can be used by marketers who place bids on target audience information. Not too shabby, right?

As we talked about above, publishers need to rely on supply side platforms to place requests in real-time bidding auctions. But here’s the thing. That means that the publisher will have even greater control over their products, which include choosing with marketers can purchase their ad inventory.

Not to mention that real-time bidding enables publishers to set their own prices too. Besides this, real-time bidding gives publishers an inside look at what their audiences are searching for. Using real-time bidding procedures, publishers can quickly see what people are searching for.

With this valuable information, publishers can add more profitable segments to their sites in an instant, giving their inventory an overall boost in demand. How can you beat that?

RTB Advantages For Advertisers

For those of you who don’t know what the RTB advantages for advertisers are, allow us to enlighten you. As one of the top services for media companies, real-time bidding is essentially another form of pay per click advertising, or PPC.

In case you’re not tech-savvy, pay per click advertising is anything that has to do with marketing tactics like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads. Here are a few reasons why real-time bidding is so effective for displaying and buying advertisements.

The best part about real-time bidding is that it wastes way less money than traditional buying tactics. Since ads are bought on an impression by impression basis, then buying advertising inventory in large amounts is no longer a concern. And once that happens, advertisers can greatly reduce the risk of throwing cash at ads that will never reach the right audience.

Why is this? Because tools like bid forecasting and frequency capping can improve the effectiveness of every campaign by letting marketers evaluate, control, and test variables in their campaign in a safe way.

Let’s face facts: real-time bidding allows advertisers to manage and view their campaigns moment by moment on a single dashboard. Plus, adjusting bid requests to meet the right target audience is stress-free with this helpful technology. Can we be totally honest with you?

Running a real-time bidding campaign can give marketers more knowledge about their own marketing skills too. That’s because it can teach them how to read their audience and build a strategic and creative approach to advertising with ad impression information.

Lastly, real-time bidding is key for advertisers to protect their company’s brand as well. How do we know this? Using RTB tactics, marketers can choose where they want their services or products to be promoted.

Sounds good to us!

Sick and Tired of Googling “RTB Meaning?”

Are you sick and tired of Googling “RTB meaning” all the time? Luckily for you, we’ve got the inside scoop on everything you need to know about real-time bidding.

From discussing real-time bidding and programmatic advertising to breaking down demand side platforms, our useful guide has the 4-1-1 on what you can expect to experience. Are you just setting out on your real-time bidding journey?

Although it might seem intimidating, the more you know about the real-time bidding process, the better. And once you get the hang of it, the perks are tremendous for publishers and advertisers alike. If you’re still not understanding the whole real-time bidding thing, think of it this way.

The only thing that you have to know is that real-time bidding uses things like demographical data, location information, and browser history to find your target audience. Rather than shooting out an ad to anyone on the web, real-time bidding lets advertisers bid on the right ad at the right time.

The result? Their ad will be shown on the perfect publisher’s website, drawing in more revenue for both parties. Another perk for the publisher is that all of the newfound attention on their website can bring more attention to inventory that was previously thought to be worthless.

With both sides cashing in on this trend, it’d be ridiculous if you didn’t get into real-time bidding yourself. We wish you luck!

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