Real-time Web Means Real-time Buying process

Working in the online ad space we like to fantasize that we are head and shoulders above the TV, Newspaper, and Radio ad world (collectively known as ‘offline’).

That said we still conform to their old processes. Why do we budget, RFP, issue insertion orders all on paper and on a monthly or quarterly basis? This is all hinges on the old way of doing things which was rooted in the fact that it takes a day to write up and print a daily newspaper and a week to curate, edit, and print a sunday edition newspaper.

The same goes for TV. TV is on a standard programming schedule that would need to be disclosed out to the TV Guides of the world in order to get viewers. Then the ratings would come out on a similar time period.

Now we are dealing with Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds, blogs…..all real-time. Even web 1.0 like yahoo and aol’s homepage are published in realtime with updating links and stories and customizable designs.

To replace ratings we have Google Analytics, Omniture, Chartbeat and various other analytics tools that give you indications of how your advertising is doing in near-realtime or in some cases truly realtime.

So why are we still stuck on this Insertion Order, RFP, Monthly, Quarterly, and upfront buying cycle??

Somehow google circumvented this [I guess because the results are so astounding] and get advertisers to just allocate a certain budget to search and advertisers are comfortable changing bids and adjusting budgets and pricing and their ads on the fly.

This needs to happen for the rest of online…..or at least social media.