SpotXchange Spotlight Blog

So You Want to Begin with Real-Time Bidding for Video…What to Look For

Buying in-stream video advertising has presented a few challenges to buyer over the past few years: lack of standards, few efficiencies of scale during the buying process, a cluttered space, content vs. audience targeting, lack of brand safety and inventory scale that wasn't guaranteed.

Yet video budgets still increased 48 percent during that time to $1.5 billion this year according to eMarketer, mainly because of demo targeting, in-market shopper targeting, behavioral targeting, keyword targeting, and retargeting. It is anticipated that video budgets will grow an additional 43 percent in the next two years. Expect even faster growth with the coming of age of real-time bidding (RTB) for video.

With real-time bidding, companies can tailor their bids on an impression-by-impression basis when bidding on video ad inventory, while ensuring that inventory matches their targeting criteria. Who is using real-time bidding and what benefits are they enjoying? Here's a list.

Advertisers, Agencies, DSPs and Trading Desks

  • Have impression-by-impression control as you bid on video ads

  • Improve targeting and optimization Maximize reach

  • Eliminate waste and increase ROI

  • Improve the web buyer's experience with better targeted advertising


Publishers

  • Enjoy higher revenue

  • Access to a new channel of buyers and campaigns

  • Increase CPMs within the marketplace by pulling RTB feeds

  • Maintain control over sale and pricing of your inventory


When you're looking for an RTB solution for video, know that the most advanced RTB marketplaces should offer the following features:

  • A simple self-service user interface so advertisers can create video ad campaigns quickly.

  • A managed solution in which the marketplace's account services team manages the RTB for the buyer.

    • Site, data and price transparency so buyers have control over placements and can optimize accordingly

    • Video completion rates by site that are reported at start, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%

    • A marketplace with integrated publishers that gives advertisers more control over ad placement

    • In-stream inventory that can scale. Q4 has seen very high demand so the subsequent bid price would be higher versus Q1, when there is less demand. It is still too early to tell if online video budgets will mirror TV budget spending by month. Advertisers are aware that using in-stream concurrently with their TV schedules increases overall brand awareness

    • In-stream ad units that now include multiple interactive links and industry standard ad units such as Ad Selector

    • Quality assurance system for creative and third-party auditing of ad placements

    • For publishers, the capability of setting floor pricing and multiple advertisers using third-party data to set stable bid levels on impressions.





  • A turn-key media buying solution that offers:



  1. RTB API VAST-compliant dynamic feed so multiple ads can be served

  2. VPAID-compliant site list

  3. Guaranteed impressions based on fixed pricing model for a specific flight

  4. Various bid pricing models

  5. No usage fees

  6. Offers hosting and serving of ads or allows buyer to host & serve themselves

  7. Third-party data can be used for targeting

  8. Robust reporting

  9. Geo-targeting by country, state, DMA or zip code

  10. Global inventory so buyers can advertise in multiple countries


Buyers are finding that real-time bidding solutions for video offer an efficient time management media buying solution. As the use of RTB for video grows, old industry issues will be addressed, which should lead to even greater video spending in 2011.

-- Paul Bowlin, SpotXchange
By Leanne Smullen On November 18, 2010
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