Everyone’s talking about real-time bidding capabilities
I remember the day I realized that media exchanges like Right Media had technology that facilitated the selling of inventory on a per-impression basis, by allowing bids to be made on each and every opportunity. I was so excited by it that I immediately kicked the guaranteed world to the curb, and jumped head first into Right Media.
The concept was simple: The highest bidder won the impression. I was amazed that bids could be evaluated so quickly and a winner chosen in real time, and even more so that the value of the inventory could be decided in real time based on market demand. Once I learned this, I was unable to focus on anything else transpiring in the industry, especially guaranteed or reserved buying.
Now we’re heading into a new era. It is still real time, but now it is real-time bidding. Advertisers are rushing to get set up with their own real-time bidding capabilities and hook directly into Right Media’s supply pool. In fact, it is a topic of discussion in every client meeting I attend. Every moment matters and they want to optimize their bids—in real time.
Bidding through third-party integration
Third-party integration requires two key platform capabilities: auction broadcasting and real-time bidding systems. What’s needed is the capability on the supply side to externalize the auction (auction broadcasting), while partners on the demand side provide the real-time bidding systems that are able to respond to that broadcast in real time.
If all of this sounds awfully similar to what Right Media already does on behalf of our demand and supply customers on every ad request, you’re correct: We’ve been doing real-time bidding for years. We were the first to offer it, we became the largest provider, and we are still the largest supply pool of real-time, bidded, non-guaranteed inventory.
What’s so special about this?
Externally broadcasting supply opportunities allow demand aggregators (large publishers, networks, agencies, and tech providers) to use their own predictive engines to decide on a unique bid value per impression. Traditionally these bid values were static, set per line within Right Media, and Exchange members relied on Right Media’s predictive technology to bid on their behalf within pre-configured constraints.
Today, Right Media’s dynamic pricing evaluates impressions and bids differently for every impression, based on many parameters in our predictive algorithm. In the new era of real-time bidding, external third parties will be able to use and control their own prediction mechanisms outside of the Exchange, and to use their own ad selection logic and optimization.
Who needs real-time bidding?
Real-time bidding won’t be for everyone. For many of our customers who bring demand to the ecosystem, using Right Media’s predictive algorithms is the best path to take, as it’s in real time and is dynamic. You won’t need to make large capital expenditures to build out the capabilities needed to participate in real-time bidding. Also, you’ll be able to get very sophisticated with your Yield Manager set-up, including automating the adjustments of bids per line item by using Right Media’s APIs.
Stay tuned for more on this exciting new technology, and please share your thoughts on real-time bidding by posting comments on this blog. Is this good for the industry, or bad? What are your concerns as an advertiser, or as a publisher? Will it raise publisher CPMs and performance? Comment below…
— Pedro Ponce de Leon, Senior Manager, Professional Services