Real-time bidding is helping to propel the online ad market, as publishers and advertisers find more efficient ways to monetize inventory. But there may be a long way to go before media buyers and publishers are making the most of those efficiencies.
Less a third of US publishers (31%) offered media buyers the possibility of real-time bidding on their ad inventory in 2010, according to December research from real-time media management platform DataXu and DIGIDAY. That’s set to increase to 43.7% of publishers next year, but according to the report, they “still see it as a remnant resource.”
Publishers expect only 25.1% of all inventory to be available through real-time bidding this year. Display ads are most commonly put on the auction block, followed by rich media.
Publishers may be reluctant to step further into the space, with a quarter of respondents saying real-time bidding hurt their relationships with clients. While many publishers experienced the benefits of greater incremental revenues or better CPMs, some also reported losing money. Overall, 37% of respondents said real-time bidding increased their respective CPMs by an average of 31.7%, compared with 23% of publishers whose revenues declined by 37.5%.
On the media buyer side, advertisers and agencies alike are looking to put more dollars toward real-time bidding this year. Agencies said that on average they would shift 18% of their spending on ad networks in 2010 to demand-side platforms in 2011, and advertisers expected to move 11.3% of budgets in the same direction.
Among advertisers, 27.3% said they had used demand-side platforms, including real-time bidding, compared with 81.8% that used general ad networks. But more than a third of respondents (34.4%) said they would increase their use of demand-side platforms this year.
Companies in the real-time bidding space are attempting to open up the market further by teaming up to create efficiencies. Ad Age reported in December that several demand-side and real-time bidding platforms, including DataXu, created the group OpenRTB to have a single standard for bidding on inventory.
“For publishers,” Ad Age said, the new unit “will mean more potential buyers with access to their inventory; for agencies or marketers that buy online ad impressions, this coalition means more inventory at their fingertips.”
Keep your business ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about becoming an eMarketer Total Access client today.
Check out today’s other article, “Mobile as Critical In-Store Conduit.”
Get more articles like this one delivered every day.
Click here for the eMarketer Daily newsletter.
