Real Time Bidding is a fast rising ad technology that is transparent and efficient. It is also changing the ground rules of online advertising
There's an old saying about newspapers: They aren’t delivering news to readers, but readers to advertisers.
But as many newspapers migrated to the web, where readers, in most cases, hate to pay for news at all, the saying evolved to: If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.
Dismal as it may sound, most people realise that is the way the media business operates. Readers rarely pay full or fair price for content—at least in the opinion of publishers—so bombarding them with targeted ads was the best way to make up for the shortfall.
But unlike search advertising (the ads you see on search engines) where ads have been tailored for individuals for years now, display advertising (the ads you see on web pages) has mostly been about showing the same ad to a bunch of users. Meaning, if you visit the website of, say, Times of India, you will see the same ads as the visitor immediately before or after you.
The remarkable thing about this entire process is how fast and how often it takes place. The entire series of to-and-fro communication between publisher and advertisers takes place in 300-500 milliseconds, causing no visible delay to the user. This process is repeated for every ad slot on a page, and often there are many like the leaderboard, skyscraper and button just to name a few.
(This story appears in the 02 March, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)