The research, carried out by Ipsos MediaCT among Microsoft Advertising Exchange customers, found that marketers are looking for ways to assess the quality of RTB inventory but are coming up short.

In the report, Is Now The Right Time For Real Time?, Microsoft says: “Some brand advertisers are already making good progress, for example with solutions that compare the gross rating point (GRP) from TV advertising with online metrics.

“These innovative solutions must continue to be developed, so that marketers can better understand the ROI of their online activity, and deepen their commitment to digital advertising.”

Meanwhile, Bob Arnold, Kellogg’s associate director of global digital strategy, said: “RTB changes the game. To really leverage RTB, we need to find and validate more real-time signals to guide our buys in-market (and for brand marketers measuring click-through simply doesn’t work). So it’s no longer good enough to just do a campaign wrap up and look to reapply it next time. We need to be constantly learning and improving.”

Arnold’s comments feed into another stumbling block to the wider take-up of RTB, what Microsoft identified as the need to increase knowledge transfer and education.

To read the report in full, click here.