Some buzz these days on real-time bidding in display advertising. 

New York Times: Instant Ads Set the Pace on the Web by Stephanie Clifford
ClickZ: Real-Time Bidding: What It Is and Why It Matters by Mike Baker
ClickZ: A 10-Step Guide to Evaluating Demand-Side Platforms by Mike Baker

Bottom line: 
With real-time bidding and optimization you can get the right ad, in front of the right person, at the right time, place, and price. 

Article highlights:

“While companies have been plugging real-time bidding for a couple of years, industry heavyweights are now behind it…Advertisers say real-time bidding cuts down on wasted money. You can use less media, because you’re using more selected, or more efficient, media.”

 “Until the arrival of real-time bidding, said Mr. Mohan of Google, “the technology hasn’t really been there to deliver on the promise of precise optimization, delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time” in the display world.”

 “…match users to targeted ads based on the attributes of each ad impression.”

 “Cost efficiency… Your ad spend can go further, with less budget spent on poorly-targeted impressions.”

“…an advertiser has to receive an ad impression, analyze it, decide what to bid on it, and decide automatically what ad to show in less than a quarter of a second to avoid slowing down the page-load time. It also lets companies funnel what they know about a Web user into the ads they show that person.”

 “Actionable insights… By learning what works for your campaign at the impression level, you have a great opportunity to identify trends and discover new insights about your best — and worst — consumers, context, and creative.”

This is heaven for marketers. 

You take your converter insights from your site and build segments based on the predictive attributes of the converter.  Your media optimization agency takes the segments, finds and targets them out on the web.  Their technology will make the decision on what ad to serve, when to serve and to whom to serve, and at what price based on the target’s likelihood to convert.  You can pay $10 for segment A, which converts at 4% and $3 for segment B, which converts at 0.5%.  Or, you can reject the impression, because there is no likelihood to convert.  You get the point.  Ultimately, you drive conversions with less impressions, because you’re only showing your ad to qualified audiences.  To sum it up — cost efficient and targeted.

Anyone doing this?  Any success?