Real-Time Bidding (RTB)
01 Definition
Real-Time Bidding (RTB) meaning: An auction that sells each ad impression to the highest bidder as a page loads.
Real-time bidding is a type of programmatic buying where individual ad impressions are auctioned in the moment a page or app loads. In milliseconds, advertisers submit bids based on the user and context, and the highest eligible bid wins and shows its ad. Each impression is priced separately, so buying is granular and data-driven.
Why it matters
How Real-Time Bidding (RTB) fits the work
RTB lets you value and bid on each impression individually rather than buying blocks in advance, so you can pay more for the users who matter most to you.
In context
As a news page loads, an RTB auction runs in about 100 milliseconds and the winning advertiser's banner appears to that specific reader.
Practical note
Bidding on user-level data raises privacy scrutiny, and signal loss from cookie limits reduces available data; expect targeting precision to vary as browsers restrict tracking.