Real Time Bidding

With all the hype around thing like Programmatic Advertising it can be difficult to tell what’s what. There’s a lot of confusion around these terms espsecially for people who are not part of the online advertising industry. We hope to help find some clarity here.

Real Time Bidding (RTB) vs. Programmatic Advertising

Let’s get this part clear right out of the gate because I’ve heard people say that these two things are different… they really aren’t though. RTB is just the name for the technology that’s used to execute programmatic advertising.

There is definite confusion over this, even in the industry itself. I have seen some people say that… no, RTB and Programmatic are not the same: “some technology-driven ad platforms let publishers sell their inventory in advance for a fixed price, as opposed to auctioning it off.  This is sometimes referred to as programmatic direct or programmatic guaranteed.” — except that’s just a direct ad buy being done via a programmatic ad server. While you can technically call this a programmatic campaign due to the way it’s being server, real time bidding technology is what truly makes a campaign “programmatic” – not the ad server or platform the ad is shown through.

If you’re interested in learning more about programmatic advertising, read our full piece here.