Real Time Bidding (RTB) Eco System - An Infographic

Ad exchange

Ad exchanges are technology platforms that facilitate bided buying and selling of online media advertising inventory from multiple ad networks. The approach is technology-driven as opposed to the historical approach of negotiating price on media inventory. 

This represents a field beyond ad networks as defined by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and by advertising trade publications Advertising Age, iMediaConnection and ClickZ.

The major ad exchanges include AdECN, which is owned and was purchased by Microsoft in August, 2007 but may have recently been closed down, Right Media, which is owned and was purchased by Yahoo! in April 2007, ContextWeb's Exchange, the leading independent exchange, DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which is owned by DoubleClick, a Google subsidiary purchased in May 2007, QZedia, Adkaw, Adbrite and Zinc Exchange, an exchange selling guaranteed impression delivery on newspaper sites.

Ad exchanges can be useful to both buyers (advertisers and agencies) and sellers (online publishers) because of the efficiencies they provide.

Source: Wikipedia.org