Ad Tech Analogies: Simple is the New Smart (The Black Shoes Analogy)

Next up in our ad tech analogies series: The Black Shoes Analogy, which explains the benefit of buying from a DSP in real-time.

Put yourself in these shoes (pun intended): You're looking to buy a pair of black dress shoes online and need to find the best value.

You could go to every single online retailer one at a time to see what they offer, compare prices, and then weigh your options.

Or, you could go to eBay, search for what you want, see all the options that are available to you and what they cost, and determine what you're willing to bid for each item. If you're the highest bidder? You've got a new pair of shoes. If not, you're still searching for shoes, but you can at least control whether you should bid higher or lower based on supply and demand.

This is similar to how bidding on ad inventory works – except that for ad inventory, the time in which the auction occurs is instantaneous and in real-time.

Next week we'll dive into The Coupon Code Analogy, which explains how Deal IDs facilitate private marketplaces.

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