How Real-Time Bidding Works
Real-time bidding (RTB) is how programmatic inventory is bought. Every time a page or app has an ad slot to fill, an auction runs for that single impression, and it completes in the time the page takes to load.
The sequence:
- A person opens a page or app that carries advertising.
- The supply side sends a bid request describing the impression: the placement, the device, the geography, and the audience signals attached to it.
- Bidders evaluate the request against their targeting and decide whether to bid, and how much.
- The highest valid bid wins and returns a bid response carrying the ad.
- The ad renders, and the win is recorded.
Blockchain-Ads operates on the demand side of this exchange. It evaluates bid requests against your audience targeting and bids on the impressions that match, across the supply reached through the NEXUS ecosystem.
OpenRTB is the IAB specification that standardizes those messages, so bidders and exchanges can transact without building a custom integration for every partner.
Most advertisers never touch this directly. HUB bids on your behalf: the Budget and CPC Bidding fields you set in the campaign builder's Campaign Settings step become the inputs the algorithm bids into this auction, alongside the targeting you set in Audience & Targeting. You need the RTB integration only when you run your own bidder and want to buy this inventory programmatically.
