The 10 companies shortlisted for Media Player of the Year in Marketing’s Nov. 19 issue were at the top of their game in 2012. We’ll be featuring each one online as a lead-up to our January 2013 issue, where you’ll find out which media company will reign supreme.
The hottest topic of the year in the digital media buying and selling world
It had been simmering for some time, but 2012 saw real-time bidding (RTB) finally begin to bubble up in Canada in a big way.
While this country’s inherent conservatism means that it could still be awhile before RTB reaches full boil, marketers, media buyers and sellers say interest in the space isn’t going to evaporate anytime soon.
In basic terms, RTB enables online advertisers to bid on impressions in real-time, delivering ads to qualified prospects in a cost-effective, highly targeted manner considered vastly superior to the “pay and spray” approach that characterizes traditional advertising.
While the digital display game has largely disappointed sellers, RTB is talked about in glowing terms as the process by which suppliers will sell marketers the right ad to the right person at the right time. EVERYBODY WINS!!!
It is estimated that more than 200 Canadian brands are currently actively engaged in the RTB space, with large national advertisers comprising the bulk of participants.
While RTB currently comprises a small part of Canada’s online advertising, a May report from eMarketer stated that the amount of online inventory available through the channel grew 124% in the first quarter.
Estimates peg the amount of Canadian online inventory available through RTB channels at between 4% to 6%. While that is in line with other countries, including Brazil (4%), France (5%) and Spain (3%), it is far behind the U.S., which has made an estimated 47% of its online impressions available through RTB.
But those numbers are misleading in terms of the constant buzz of activity all year as more players got into the space.
The list is a long one and there are too many real- time bidders to mention here. But this year saw a number of major moves in the space, with the launch of Henderson Bas Kohn’s HBK Audience Media Platform and a partnership between Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG), TC Media and Olive Media on a new RTB marketplace. Meanwhile, Shaw Media, CBC/Radio-Canada and Rogers Digital Media also partnered to launch the Canadian Premium Audience Exchange (CPAX).
Early players in the space like Casale and ExchangeLab expanded their RTB presence while AOL and Facebook also got into the game.
“The space is definitely booming,” says Renee Hill, president and co-CEO of Toronto-based eyeReturn Marketing, a unit of Torstar Digital that operates a proprietary demand-side platform called eyeDemand.
“We have so much growth in the marketplace and there’s so much money,” says Hill. “Right now, every single RTB company is trying to get a piece of that growth. Not only is it booming, it’s also incredibly
competitive out there.”
“The pace of growth of RTB within the Canadian market in Q3 2012 easily eclipsed any quarter prior,” adds Andrew Casale, president of Casale Media. “We are seeing widespread adoption across a variety of industries, led by increased demand through both domestic buying platforms that are servicing the local market directly as well as global buying platforms that typically operate as part of cross-regional client engagements.”
Some predictions say half of all online display advertising in the world could be sold via RTB by 2015—Hill says that number in Canada could be 18% to 20% by next year.
Mladen Raickovic, general manager, data driven media for Toronto-based Olive Media, told Marketing earlier this year that RTB is being driven by its adoption by so-called “premium” advertisers and publishers.
“Publishers like it because they’re getting more money per impression; advertisers like it because they’re getting more bang for their buck–it’s a win-win for everybody,” says Hill.
While RTB exchanges don’t feature premium online inventory, highly attractive inventory that is sometimes just one or two clicks away can be purchased for a fraction of the price.
While Hill says premium inventory will always be tops in its ability to convert prospects to paying customers, RTB’s cost per conversion—even against that of remnant inventory sold by ad networks—simply can’t be beat.
“As soon as you start to target the audience you want to target based on data, that drives incredible performance,” she says. “When we’re competing for ad dollars against premium and remnant inventory, you’re going to find that the performance of RTB buying is far above any other.”
To read more about the companies that made the Media Players of the Year and Marketers of the Year shortlists, check out Marketing’s Nov. 19 issue, which is on newsstands now.
