• by Anthony Iacovone , May 31, 2013

We left the recent Mobile Media Upfront with the impression that buyers are be locked in a time warp re RTB. We heard quotes from panelists like “We are dipping our toe in the mobile RTB water,” and “We are not there yet in terms of RTB” -- and no one raised an eyebrow.

I find it surprising and a little careless that our industry is moving so casually toward a better way of buying and selling media while openly confessing the sluggish adoption rate. Mobile RTB is not so new anymore; it dates back to 2010, which is almost a decade in tech years.

With optimism that buyers will shift from “exploring RTB” to quickly touting successes using RTB in 2013, I figured I would share some facts to get the ball rolling a little faster for everyone:

• There are close to 300 billion available mobile RTB impressions monthly. This means while you are dipping your toe in the water, publishers are swimming.
• Mobile RTB is not defined as long-tail supply. The largest, most premium publishers make their best inventory available within RTB.
• RTB is the most equitable way to buy and sell media. It is based on supply and demand economics with a layer of performance transparency. In essence, a valuable impression (higher CTR, or engagement power) will command better rates in RTB. Strong publishers stand to make more in this environment. 
• Mobile RTB inventory is comprised of static display, rich-media and video inventory across tablet and smartphone on both apps and mobile Web.
• Mobile RTB inventory on an impression-by-impression basis can be easily tied to thousands of third-party data points to produce super targetable impressions.
• RTB allows strong technology platforms to do some amazing things for inventory, like using data and attribution to predict outcomes before an ad is served. Done right, this puts the odds in the buyer’s favor one impression at a time.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2013, my hope is the industry will quickly realize the inherent value of mobile RTB and begin making it a required part of the media mix.  As many stated during Internet Week, it’s important to start your campaign with mobile, and expand upon that as you build your cross-platform strategy. Mobile RTB – using predictive modeling technologies – should be the foundation of your mobile ad budget to produce optimal campaign results.  Let’s all do a better job both educating the market about the benefits of RTB and demonstrating RTB results, and then perhaps we will all enjoy hearing a new tune at next year’s upfronts.