The Full Form of RTB is Real-time bidding.

Before we get into the finer details, I’d like to explain what RTB is and how it works. This will give you a better understanding of the processes and platforms talked about in the rest of this article.

If this is your first time discovering programmatic advertising be sure to take a moment to read our Programmatic Advertising For Dummies article here to get some background information on this tech-driven advertising industry.

Real Time Bidding is an auction setting where ad impressions are sold and bought, and transactions take place in a blink of an eye. Once an advertiser’s bid wins the auction, their digital ad is instantaneously shown on the website or property of the publisher. Supporting platforms such as Ad Exchanges and Supply Side Platforms are also used within the process. RTB auctions put the focus on impression-based bidding whereas static auctions tend to group impressions only allowing advertisers to bid on them in package deals.

How does Real Time Bidding work: When a user visits a website, a corresponding bid request is being sent to an Ad Exchange.

This bid request then contains different types information such as demographical data, location information, browser history, etc. The Ad exchange then passes the bid requests along to its list of advertisers/buyers who bid in real time for the ad impression as it gets presented to the website user. The advertiser that bids the highest amount wins the impression and gets its ad served in front of the site user.

This same process gets repeated time and time for every ad unit of the website property page. This procedure takes place within 100 milliseconds, including receiving the bid request and serving the ad. Talk about creating an efficient advertising ecosystem!