ONLINE ADVERTISING

& REAL-TIME BIDDING

BENCHMARKS, INSIGHTS, & ADVICE
TABLE OF CONTENTS

3 Introduction 12 Top Benefits from Online Ads

4 Executive Summary 13 RTB Awareness & Usage

5 Research Methodology 15 Understand How RTB Works

6 Marketing Medium Effectiveness 16 Perception of RTB Effectiveness

8 Online Advertising Landscape 17 Future Plans to Use RTB

9 Online Display Advertising Importance 18 RTB Vendor Landscape

10 Average Monthly Budget Spend 20 Analyst Bottom Line

11 Geographical Targets for Online Ads 21 Acknowledgements

INTRODUCTION
Online display advertising has and continues to be a staple for digital marketers. For many years, advertisers purchased online
advertising much like they purchase traditional print advertising: select a media property, buy space and schedule the advertising to
run.
 
In the past few years, a new approach for buying and selling online advertising has emerged: real-time bidding (RTB). This
approach uses technology to sell online advertising through an exchange, where advertisements are purchased – and served – on
demand. While online advertising has always had far more immediacy than print advertising, with RTB, that immediacy becomes
almost instantaneous. Furthermore, the platforms that support RTB don’t just blindly serve up ads online: they offer the ad buyer the
opportunity to purchase impressions for a specific audience across a broad spectrum of websites that have ad inventory to sell.
 
RTB promises online ad buyers substantially more efficiency and effectiveness, and Demand Metric conducted research, sponsored
by AcuityAds, to understand the impact RTB is having on the online advertising landscape. The goals for the study were to gain a
better understanding of the online display advertising landscape, and the adoption, use and impact that RTB is having on it.

Thank you to all those who participated in the survey. We really appreciate your input!

Jerry Rackley, Chief Analyst

Demand Metric

jerry@demandmetric.com | + 1 (405) 213 0050

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
 A survey was used to collect the data for this study, and its analysis provides these key findings:
 
§  A substantially bigger percentage of large companies (70 %) use online display advertising than do small (54 %) and medium-
sized (53 %) companies, and large companies ascribe more importance to it.

§  Online display advertising delivers a wide range of benefits, the most important of which is the ability to target consumers,
followed closely by measurability. As a solution, RTB enhances both of these benefit areas, yet the awareness of RTB is low,
with only 11 % of respondents currently using it and 58 % having not heard of it prior to this survey.

§  Better awareness and understanding of RTB stand in the way of broader adoption. Of those who claim a moderate to advanced
understanding of RTB, 67 % of them perceive that online campaigns with RTB are slightly to much more effective, compared to
just 42 % of all RTB users in the survey.

§  The RTB market is still emerging and maturing. It’s a relatively level playing field for vendors at present, and price has not yet
become the major differentiator in their offerings.

This report details the results and insights from the analysis of the study data.

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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The Demand Metric 2013 Online Display Advertising Survey was administered online over a period of June 20th to July 5th, 2013.

During this period, almost 350 responses were collected, 317 of which were complete and not duplicates and were therefore
included in the analysis. All members of the Demand Metric community received email invitations to participate in the survey, and
participation was encouraged through a random draw incentive for an iPad Mini. While respondent email addresses were collected
in order to facilitate the prize drawing, no identifying information was considered in the analysis of the survey data.
 
Summarized below is the basic information that was collected about survey respondents to enable filtering and analysis of data:
 
Number of Employees: Primary Job Role of Respondent: Type of Organization:

§  Zero to 25 (40%)
§  26 to 100 (19%)
§  101 to 250 (10%)
§  251 to 1,000 (15%)
§  1,001 to 10,000 (12%)
§  Over 10,000 (4%)
President, CEO or Owner (22%) §  Private Sector (60%)
Marketing Management (44%) §  Ad Agency (6%)
Marketing Consultant (11%) §  Marketing Agency (12%)
Sales Management (6%) §  Non-Profit (8%)
Other (17%) §  Other (14%)

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MARKETING MEDIUM EFFECTIVENESS

Marketing Mediums by Effectiveness 60% said Email Marketing was a ‘most’

effective marketing medium, followed
200 by 58% for Word of Mouth.
180 189 186
160
163 While the focus of this study was online display advertising,
140
it was necessary to get the big picture with respect to
120
perception of effectiveness of a broad range of promotional
100 111 marketing mediums. To do this, the survey asked
108
80 99 97 respondents to identify, from a list of possible choices, any
85 82
60 of the mediums that have been most effective. An “Other”
40 55 category allowed respondents to enter any mediums not
45 listed.
20
0 Virtually all of these mediums can have an online
component or influence. For example, an email marketing
campaign can link to a website that also serves up
advertising. Online advertising and content can trigger
Word of mouth referrals, and online display advertising
through social media is growing rapidly.
 
 
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