It appears that some equilibrium is starting to emerge in the online display marketplace, and that relative cost efficiency of exchange-based media buys has eroded dramatically. While it's not exactly clear why this has happened, and what the major drivers are, new data from Aggregate Knowledge shows that relative cost efficiency of exchanges has dropped below its indexed average for all sources of online display inventory for the first time since it's been tracking it.

In Publicis news that doesn't have to do with the Omnicom merger, VivaKi today announced two new hires and one promotion. Shirley Xu-Weldon has been hired as VP of analytics, a new position at the company; Tamara Knight has joined the company as VP of search operations; and Danny Hopwood has been named head of platform, EMEA, a newly created position. Chris Paul, general manager of Audience on Demand (AOD), VivaKi's trading desk, spoke briefly with RTM Daily about the new hires, why the company felt the need to create new positions, and what the roles and responsibilities of each …

By the looks of it, the world of advertising is no longer approaching a new age, it is living in one. While it might be difficult to point to Company X as strictly "old school" and Company Y as "modern," MediaMath has a plan to reach the latter. The company has officially launched a new blog meant to "educate modern marketers." So who are these modern marketers? Well, for starters, anybody that reads something like MediaMath's blog in hopes of learning something about today's marketing techniques. To put that another way, a modern marketer can be anyone who brands themselves …

RTM Daily had the chance to interview Paul Mokbel, CEO of SiteScout, about a host of industry topics. We covered potential flaws in the industry that people brush off, myths, trends, and the balance between human creativity and machine efficiency. Mokbel believes there is no ideal balance between human creativity and machine efficiency, and thinks programmatic buying will eventually comprise the majority of digital media sales. Check out the full interview to see all of his thoughts. RTM Daily: Are people looking at RTB through rose-tinted goggles? Are there any blatant flaws that people generally overlook? Paul Mokbel: RTB is …

I was struck by a paradox while attending OMMA RTB today: That media companies are some of the biggest advertisers using RTB, but they're reluctant to sell their own inventory through it. The insight came from several different discussions and presentations, including YieldMetrics' Gabe Gotlieb. Gotlieb showed data indicating that "media" is the top ad category utilizing RTB, with about 16% of all online impressions coming from the real-time marketplace.

"Turn left and the trail will lead you to one of the most luxurious mountain spas you'll ever visit. Turn right if you want to head down some of the most grueling trails you'll ever climb," Papa Smurf advised me when I asked him which direction to turn at a particularly confusing intersection of trails on the John Muir Trail. Smurf is his trail name. I never learned his real name -- like many other thruhikers I encountered during my trek, he preferred to be known by his trail moniker. Smurf was just completing a 300-mile second of the Pacific …

Are Christmas-themed tweets on December 25 real-time marketing? No. So why should royal baby-related tweets be considered real-time marketing? These companies had months and months and months to prep for the moment. That's a traditional marketing method executed on a platform, Twitter, that carries the "real-time marketing" phrase with it regardless of circumstances, all thanks to the Oreo Super Bowl tweet (which in my opinion was real-time marketing because they reacted in a timely manner to an unanticipated national event).

The world is now a hodgepodge of real-time information. We need to know what's happening when it's happening. It's not a bad thing. It's why Google bought Waze for real-time traffic data and it's why real-time local mobile advertising is starting to take off. One of the major purposes of today's ad tech is to reach the consumer with something relevant when it's relevant. Even when you don't care about the information, you'll still hear about it if it's important enough to enough people. To be honest, I'm indifferent when it comes to the birth of the royal baby. I …

It's amazing the difference a single letter can make. About a month ago, I wrote a RTBlog titled, "The Ruse Of Programmatic 'Direct.'" The post sparked some debates in the comments as to whether or not it really was a direct way to sell inventory. The purpose of that post was not to question what programmatic direct companies do, but to question whether or not the word "direct" belonged at all. Some of the big guys in the programmatic direct space tracked me down and made their cases. And I must say, it was pretty convincing.

I've done real-time online auctions myself at QuiBids (warning, you will spend too much time on that site), but that's still the human controlling 100% of their actions. What if, one day, today's programmatic ad tech was applied to things that regular consumers could buy? Will today's high tech advertising technology one day be sold at your local Walmart to help you personally bid your way to a cheap new TV?