The role of a real-time bidding manager involves monitoring bid prices, click-through rates, and conversion rates to optimize campaign ROI. Real-time bidding (RTB) is an online advertising sales method. It takes the form of a real-time auction of unsold spaces, but increasingly also of available impressions. It is managed through specialized software platforms, both on the demand side and on the supply side of online spaces; optimizes advertisers’ budgets by hitting highly targeted targets and at the best possible time to collect the advertising proposal. The role of a real-time bidding manager involves monitoring bid prices, click-through rates, and conversion rates to optimize campaign ROI.
In Europe, the real-time bidding market began to grow as early as 2009, in Great Britain, it has developed in more recent times and seen a very positive growth trend, especially in the last two years.
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Interview with a real-time bid manager
Today for the work and digital professions column we interviewed Daniele Costenaro, a highly experienced real-time bidding manager.
Who is the real-time bidding manager?
The real-time bidding manager is a digital media professional who deals with managing the buying and selling of online spaces intermediated by two machines. He is a very good manager of software panels which, interfaced with each other and manages the negotiation of advertising spaces with total autonomy. The software we are talking about is the so-called DSP, Demand Side Platform, and SSP, Supply Side Platform which work on the supply and demand side of online advertising. On the one hand, some ask and buy with DSP; on the other, some sell and manage with SSP.
How do you become a real-time bidding manager?
You get to this profession through other paths related to digital media. For example, a person who has done the classic digital media planning within media centers or an expert in keyword advertising, SEM. The way of interacting with the machine in real-time bidding is similar to the working methods of an SEM specialist and I come from this experience.
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What is the job description of the role?
I summarize what I said previously: the real-time bidding manager mainly manages the buying and selling of media spaces; knows how to interact with the main software platforms; it is also able to manage commercial negotiations in this area. Knows the pricing of spaces in the context. He knows well the different declinations of real-time bidding and programmatic management.
He knows how to manage both the open market and private deals with publishers and is certainly an operations specialist: he knows how to label a banner, and “pixelate” a page, he is also able to manage any technical problems that may arise. In summary, I would say that he has both negotiation and accounting, and technical skills. He is a figure who combines the old roles of operations director and media planner and who, in Italy, works above all in teams.
What is the average real-time bidding manager salary?
I can tell you that for a junior figure, the RAL is around $25,000. As far as more experienced real-time bidding managers are concerned, we are talking about a gross annual salary of around $50,000-60,000.
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Which professionals do you normally interact with?
It depends on several factors. Whether working on the demand side or in a Trading Desk within a media center he typically interfaces with the customer on one side and his team leaders on the other. It interfaces with publishers for all negotiation aspects and with the technical support teams of the platforms that essentially represent its suppliers. There are managers in this role who come from technical backgrounds and have been in ad servers for years. On the technical issue, the real-time bidding manager must certainly be able to be an excellent interlocutor.
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