RTB basics
Buying from exchanges
One way of picturing the ad-exchange is like a marketplace where Networks come to show their goods. Picture the list of companies below, all in one auction-room. - Google
- Yahoo
- Microsoft (incl. MSN.com, Skype, or even
the Windows 8 & 10 Start button)
- AOL network
- Facebook
- eBay
This is an "exchange".
You as a buyer sit in the middle and you can buy from any or all of them.
More recently some native networks have appeared on the exchange, like Taboola, ShareThrough, TripleLift, GumGum and more.
To understand what's happening when you launch your campaign, you need to remember the following:
The Networks have given their publishers their software to put ads on their site, eg: CNN, HuffingtonPost or Weather.com.
To stop
that webmaster from switching to a competitor, they need to sell as much of that ad-space as possible. What doesn't get sold in direct-deals gets passed to the open market. The price is usually determined by:
- top-dollar, spot-prices
- commiting to buying for many months
(It helps if you have a popular brand)
Now, that's great for Volume. But what about Quality?
Three ways of selecting the right audience:
1. You Buy an audience from:
- AdWords' in-market or affinity audiences section
- Facebook demographic data is unparraleled
- Amazon let's you target on what people's buying history
- Apple iAd: let's you match people
with what's already on their phone
Then you re-target into the exchange.
This means you first buy the exact demographic you need for your product. And then retarget them
2. Buy DATA.
You can actually reserve all of
that traffic and filter out those people you want such as HomeOwner, good credit score, etc. And only show your ad to the ones that fit that criteria - and you only pay for that.
3. Find publishers that mainly have that
audience, such as NewsMax has mainly male BabyBoomers, Snapchat has millenials, etc.
There are also combinations of the above, like: buy only NewsMax but filter out anyone not a HomeOwner
Of course the traffic divides into:
desktop, mobile and video.
So you could tag the NewsMax visitors and then show them a video when they go to Facebook or Twitter
You could segment a "car-enthusiasts" audience inside Facebook, and target them on Spotify or at the bottom of any news-article through the Taboola network.
You can tag affluent business owners on Bloomberg and target them on LinkedIn.
There are many, many combinations
To see traffic volumes view the inventory page
To see Audiences available inventory page