real time bidding

Advertising Technology Analytics & Testing Marketing Infographics Search Marketing

What is Real-Time Bidding (RTB)?

Douglas Karr Last Updated: Monday, March 27, 2023

1 minute read

In both paid search, display and mobile advertising, there’s plenty of inventory to purchase impressions on. In order to acquire solid results, you should be testing the purchase of hundreds or even thousands of keyword combinations on paid search. If you’re doing display advertising or mobile advertising, the inventory may be spread amongst hundreds or thousands of sites or apps.

What is Real-Time Bidding?

To manually monitor and bid on the places you wish to advertise would be impossible. To remedy this, paid search and ad exchanges utilize real-time bidding (RTB). With real-time bidding, the marketer sets the constraints of their advertising and their budget, and the system negotiates for each placement in a real-time auction that happens almost instantaneously.

RTB can be both efficient and dangerous. If you’re not an experienced user, you may not set limitations on your ad purchases and lose your budget by advertising on ineffective keyword combinations or on irrelevant sites. Done well, though, RTB’s efficiency and effectiveness far outweigh any manual intervention.

How has Real-Time Bidding Advanced?

Big Data platforms that can extract and transform millions of records and real-time – including conversion data – are helping to advance RTB beyond just reducing bid costs and increasing click-through rates. By analyzing conversion data in real-time, visitor personas, and even cross-device behaviors, RTB platforms are even able to accurately predict the placement of the right ad, at the right time, in front of the right person, on the right device.

We spoke about real-time bidding capabilities in Programmatic Advertising on our recent podcast with Pete Kluge. Be sure to listen to the podcast – it was a great conversation.

Everything You Need to Know About Real-Time Bidding

Here’s a detailed overview of Real-Time Bidding in an infographic.

Real Time Bidding

Video from MediaMath.

Douglas Karr Last Updated: Monday, March 27, 2023

1 minute read

Douglas Karr

Douglas Karr is the founder of the Martech Zone and CEO of DK New Media. Douglas has helped dozens of successful MarTech startups, has assisted in the due diligence of over $5 bil in Martech acquisitions and investments, and continues to assist companies in implementing and automating their sales and marketing strategies. Douglas is an internationally recognized digital transformation and MarTech expert and speaker. Douglas is also a published author of a Dummie's guide and a business leadership book.

It all started as a book club.

Yes, I’m serious. I started my work on the web more than two decades ago. My first site was Helping Hand, which curated the best sites from around the web to help people with their computers and navigate resources on the Internet. Years later, I sold the domain to a company that helped folks quit smoking, one of my first big contracts.

I began blogging on Blogger and waxed poetic about everything from politics to Internet tools. I was all over the place and mostly wrote for myself – without much of an audience. I belonged to a Marketing Book club in Indianapolis that quickly grew out of control. Over time, I discovered that more and more of the group were coming to me for technology advice. The combination of my technology background and my business and marketing acumen was in high demand as the Internet rapidly changed the industry.

After reading Naked Conversations, I was motivated to better brand and control the content on the site. I also wanted more control over the look and feel of my blog, so I moved to my domain in 2006 and built my first WordPress site. Since I was focused on marketing technology, I didn’t want the domain with my name to get in the way, so I moved the site (painfully) to its new domain in 2008 where it’s grown ever since.

The Martech Zone is owned and operated by DK New Media, LLC, a company I started in 2009. After working with virtually every major online marketing department in my tenure at ExactTarget and launching Compendium, I knew there was a great demand for my expertise and guidance within such a complex industry.

DK New Media oversees my consulting, publications, podcasts, workshops, webinars, and speaking opportunities. Highbridge, my agency with two other partners, helps companies maximize their investment in sales, marketing, and related products. We offer integration, migration, training, strategic consulting, and custom development.

Thank you so much for your support over the years!

Douglas Karr
CEO, DK New Media