Say what you will, but programmatic advertising is slowly conquering the world of online advertising. Main reasons for growing popularity of RTB bidding platforms is high level of performance and an ocean of media resources. Nowadays advertisers feel more convenient with variety of ways to find suitable media-resources for their ads. 

But having a lot of media resources may complicate the process of choice, as Advertisers may feel it difficult to recognize the best one. Intuitive solutions or colleagues’ pieces of advice sometimes are hardly useful or make even more hazard. We recommend stopping panicking and read our article till the end. We have prepared a block of useful information about auctions types, their differences and some tricky points.

This form is more often referred to programmatic and real time advertising. Its main advantage is that Advertisers and Publishers of all kind are admitted here. The cost is calculated in real time mode on the principle of an auction. Generally, the procedure looks as follows: Publishers state minimum price for a thousand of impressions for the inventory they offer. Advertisers are bidding which inventory they would like to buy. The winner is that who offered the highest price and he wins an opportunity to show his ad. 

Open auctions are suitable for those who are seeking the way to buy impressions as much effective as possible where an access to wide and enormous audiences is provided as well.

It has a lot in common with the previous one with that difference that as if you have entered a high class society. So, one may enter this area by invitation only and Publishers are entitled to exclude some Advertisers if they feel necessity in it. 

As a good example, Forbes website can play a role of premium Publisher. Certainly it has its own requirements and limitations about the ads for posting. It is sad, but true, small local company has nothing to account for.

However, exceptional cases occur and “unsuitable” Advertisers can be accepted. To say it simply, this party is not for common public and only special guests can come in and make biddings. 

The rest of the procedure remains the same: minimal prices for a thousand of impressions are stated by Publishers and the auction goes in the same manner. 

*Sometimes premium inventory is not sold and goes to open auction where it is treated in a common style.

This tricky option helps to make the business without participating in any auctions at all. As a result, Publishers can sell a mile of impressions to a particular Advertiser on a pre-arranged fixed price. The very deal is performed in real time mode where Advertisers get what they need at the price agreed beforehand. 

Why this approach is beneficial? The answer is very simple: at the moment of RTB appearing Publishers were much afraid of selling their inventory at the prices lower they used to have or not selling it at all. But by doing so, these players feel secured as they get controlled and stable income in terms of this specific environment. Advertisers are also in a good position as they are saved from various unpredictable situations as price changing and get access to seemingly unavailable resources.

*The system os very smart as it prevents cases of buying a bulk of impressions and bidding for the same lot. You can’t have it both ways.

To sum all the material we have prepared, we don’t want to say that one variant is better than another. They serve to different purposes and each variant can be winning for a particular marketing task and goal.