Just because I cover this stuff, people often think I’m an expert on digital media, especially programmatic trading and real-time media. The truth is, the more I cover it, the dumber I feel, because it’s a subject that changes so fast. The main problems I have are keeping track of the players, how they’re positioned and what they actually do. Part of that is because new players are coming on stream all the time, and established players are constantly repositioning themselves, as they pivot business models, products and services. Don’t get me wrong, I think this is all very healthy -- and incredibly exciting -- because it means the sector is vital, growing, and constantly in flux. So much flux, in fact, that it often seems to be changing in, well, real-time, even as we’re covering it. That’s incredibly exciting, but it’s also unbelievably challenging for a journalist who has covered media so long, because some days -- make that most days -- I feel like I don’t understand any of this. So please forgive me if and when I write about things you are familiar with as if they are some remarkable new insight of breakthrough. It’s just that they seem that way to me. That’s how I felt over the past several weeks that I’ve been meeting with the team at RUN DSP, which may be the most real-time agency trading desk you never heard of. At least they were to me.

 

Their name, as you may have guessed, is an homage to Run-D.M.C., the seminal rap band from Hollis, Queens, which may be appropriate in more ways than one. I grew up in the Bronx during the late 70s when rap first started, and it always seemed to me that it was a real-time media culture, though you wouldn’t know it from the canned, highly-produced, auto-tuned versions you hear today. Back then it was live, real, in-your-face, and spawned spin-off sub-cultures in performance art via break-dancing, street graffiti, fashion, etc. And that seems to be the spirit that infuses RUN DSP, which despite its name, calls itself an independent agency trading desk. But what really differentiates it from other trading desks and/or DSPs are two things: 1) It’s ability to process not just real-time trades, but the real-time analytics necessary to make them meaningful; and 2) There willingness to be completely transparent about it. So transparent, in fact, that RUN DSP is throwing down a challenge worthy of the kind of rap battles you might have seen in Hollis or the South Bronx back in the day. RUN DSP co-founder Seth Hittman isn’t calling it a battle or a throwdown, of course, he’s using the decidedly un-hip-hop term “bake-off.” Call it what you like, it’s a challenge. And the challenge is one no good journalist can resist, because it’s all about the “show,” not the “tell.” And if there’s one big problem with advertising technology in general, and real-time media management in particular, is everyone is willing to tell you about why theirs is better, but few are willing to show you their black box goods, because, you know, “it’s proprietary.”

 

So last week, RUN gave me a live run through, and put their money where their mouths are -- $16 to be precise. That was the amount they paid out-of-pocket to demonstrate a real-time mobile advertising to RTM Daily in their offices the other day. What was most remarkable about the trade, wasn’t the front- and back-end parts of the specs, the bids, the wins, or the yield. It was that it was all visible right in front of my eyes as it was happening. Not just the bids and asks for the trade, but the “wins.” More impressively, it was being tallied by mobile platform type -- operating systems like Apple’s IOS and Google’s Android -- specific devices like the iPhone, and even the wireless carrier.

 

Those attributes are important to analyzing and managing a campaign in real-time, says Hittman, because they signal different audience attributes and behaviors associated with users of mobile devices, operating systems and carriers that may be essential to a campaign.

 

Also impressive was the fact that it took only a couple of minutes for the campaign to be set-up, and only a few minutes for it to clear the 40,000 impressions RUN bid for. While the campaign served a house had for RUN DSP, Hittman says the value of real-time analytics is significant for advertisers, agencies and trading desks seeking to manage their outcomes in real-time.

 

“Everyone has real-time bidding down. We’re about real-time analytics, because without it, how do you know how your campaign is performing,” Hittman explains. “It’s the only way to avoid wasting too many dollars until you realize what is happening.”

 

With that digital gauntlet thrown down, RTM Daily welcomes others to join the bake-off for coverage in these pages, or perhaps live, on stage, as part of an upcoming OMMA RTB conference. Let me know at joe@mediapost.com.