Targeted

November 1, 2014
Smith, a digital-publishing executive, explains how powerfully enabling technologies work in digital advertising. He highlights brilliant innovators who developed such technologies and created novel business models. Digital advertising refers to computer advertising for businesses to target individual consumers and also to advertising on any networked device (e.g., tablet and mobile phone). Digital advertising has become substantial, with $42.8 billion in revenues in 2013. Although that is 57 percent of the total spent on TV advertising, it is more than was spent on cable or broadcast TV individually. The author explains real-time bidding (RTB) on online exchanges: Transactions on such exchanges represent only a little more than 20 percent of digital display ad sales . . . made in fractions of a second using real-time bidding technologies with the capability to establish value without intuition and subjectivity . . . RTB . . . has a bias toward fairness. The winning bidder is willing to pay the most. Smith has learned that even with the greatest technology and business models, success requires leadership; human factors make the difference.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)