Just months ago, the digital world entered what Cisco is calling “the zettabyte era,” meaning digital traffic has hit truly mind-blowing levels of volume. And as the world gets more digital (a zettabyte is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes), the advertising world is working to reach the people in it, however they can. The numbers show it.
eMarketer estimates global ad spending – propelled largely by strong demand for digital advertising – will hit $724 billion in 2020. Right now, digital ad spending accounts for about 35% of global ad spending. eMarketer predicts it will reach 46%, or about $335 billion, by 2020.
This shift toward digital ads will come with pressure for new levels of connectivity, as programmatic ad spending – particularly real-time bidding (RTB) – increases in importance. Superior interconnection will be a requirement.
Huge opportunities, huge pressure
The increase in spending on digital advertising, presents huge opportunities for companies in the space. But there’s also huge pressure to win eyeballs in an increasingly competitive industry, where everyone today is pursuing targets accustomed to ads tailored to them. The need to make ads as relevant as possible is boosting real-time-bidding, a type of programmatic advertising that’s growing in prominence.
Like all programmatic advertising, real-time bidding is automated, and targeted at particular audiences based on their demographics, browsing habits, etc. The difference is that real-time bidding (RTB) involves an auction process that happens in milliseconds, enabling bidders to win the right to put an ad in front of a specific type of viewer, at a specific moment, as they browse in real-time. RTB is growing in popularity because it maximizes an ad’s relevance, which increases the chances it gets clicked on.
But RTB requires low-latency connectivity, or a bidder has slim chances of winning. The lower the latency, the less time is taken up during the bidding process making the actual connection, so more time is available for analysis of the user’s profile. That means more time for an informed bid and a better chance of success.
All the players, one place
Equinix has cultivated a digital ecosystem called Ad-IX that is designed to reduce latency during the RTB process to single-digit milliseconds. That isn’t just a competitive advantage, it’s become essential as the ad world goes digital. In addition, the ability to analyze an increasing amount of data in real time is critical to ensuring more bespoke targeting and precise return on investment (ROI) campaign evaluation
The Ad-IX ecosystem brings together all the players in the RTB process in one place, our global interconnection platform, called Platform Equinix™. This enables ad exchanges, demand side platforms, data aggregators and all the other partners in the RTB process to directly connect to one another, for ultra-quick connectivity and ultra-low latency. Ad-IX bypasses the public internet and its congestion risks for private connectivity that speeds up ad bidding and delivery.
In sum, Ad-IX means more than just faster, more secure, more global interconnection. It means more wins and the ability to connect to an ever-growing ecosystem of participants in a centralized location
Check out this video, which shows how the interconnection available inside Ad-IX puts companies at the center of real-time-bidding.
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