The Real World of Real-Time Advertising

Up until 2009, the strategies behind online advertising were built upon finding and targeting audiences in places where they might be, relying on content targeting to inform media buying.

But in today's advertising landscape, marketers are armed with extraordinary technologies, an ever-more-precise understanding of consumer behavior, and a seemingly endless array of touchpoints for getting in front of audiences. In response to these developments, entirely new industry solutions – and an entirely new school of companies – have evolved that enable marketers to maximize the scale and relevance of their display advertising like never before.

While the new digital landscape offers marketers many options and opportunities, it can also create significant confusion about how to take best advantage of them. This guide seeks to help you wrap your heads around the current advertising technology ecosystem; to explain how we arrived at this point; and to simplify the science and technology that hold the industry together.