Open auction

What is an open auction?

With open auctions, also called real-time bidding, ad spaces can be bought and sold through real-time auctions. Transactions are made when an app/web page is loading, the time taken for which is approximately 200ms.

How does it work?

When a user enters an app/web page incorporating a programmatic advertising setup, an auction starts for interested advertisers to bid for ad space. This bidding is also called an ad impression auction because the advertisers indirectly bid on the user’s impression.

An advertiser enters an auction when a user landing on an app page falls under their target market. Many similar advertisers compete for the ad space as well as the user’s impression, and the advertiser with the highest bid wins the auction. As a result, their ad appears in the ad space. The winner is determined while the page loads for the user, owing to a thoroughly automated auction that takes place only in a few milliseconds.