AWS RTBFabric: A Cloud Infrastructure Service for Ad Tech

Programmatic advertising requires serious real-time computing power. And that bandwidth consumption is only growing as AI takes on a bigger role in deal curation and, eventually, full campaign activation.

Which is why AWS debuted a cloud infrastructure service specifically for ad tech on Thursday. The new service, called RTB Fabric, offers ad tech platforms more streamlined integrations with ecosystem and infrastructure partners, allegedly lower latency compared to the public internet and discounted costs to transfer data from AWS.

The service aims to make it “easier to operate real-time bidding in the cloud,” Stephanie Layser, global head of publisher ad tech solutions at AWS, told AdExchanger.

Which means, she said, enabling data integrations in just a few clicks and ensuring “single-digit-millisecond latency” for data transfer between platforms. Plus, RTB Fabric offers an 80% discount on AWS’ standard networking costs for transferring data out of the cloud.

In practical terms, RTB Fabric brings “efficiencies in terms of cost and latency,” said Sean Kumar, VP of engineering, infrastructure and security at TripleLift. The SSP has already used RTB Fabric to set up connections with four partners, including Amazon DSP.

Time for innovation

As ad tech vendors become more reliant on cloud infrastructure, Layser said, AWS wants to make it easier to migrate their data infrastructure from on-premises networks or the public internet to AWS’ cloud. She also said AWS is prioritizing ease of integrating with other platforms.

“Publishers are sending data to SSPs, SSPs are sending data to DSPs, and then there are all of these intermediaries in between,” Layser said. RTB Fabric ensures that these data connections are “optimized for time,” she said.

Plus, Layser said, because ad tech companies are “operating on thin margins” and AWS charges customers whenever data is transferred out of the cloud to the public web or another platform’s infrastructure, “oftentimes the cost is prohibitive for being able to run RTB in the cloud.”

And RTB Fabric is meant to address what could be a much bigger problem in the near future.

Due to the agentic AI trend taking online advertising by storm, ad tech platforms are earmarking greater resources for investments in AI solutions, Layser said. So, offering cost efficiencies for the nuts and bolts of running everyday RTB auctions frees up money that companies can invest elsewhere (like AI agents).

And, Layser added, RTB Fabric helps the ad tech industry lay the groundwork for future agentic AI applications, in which buy side and sell side agents eventually operate autonomously.

While agentic AI as a managed service is “not mature enough yet to be scalable,” even for a platform like AWS, she said, the cost efficiencies from RTB Fabric will make it easier for ad tech players to scale up investments in AI applications.

Still, while the RTB Fabric launch is responding to several current ad tech trends, it comes at an awkward moment for AWS, which is dealing with the fallout from a massive service outage that lasted more than 12 hours on Monday.

AWS claims the outage was caused by a DNS error in one of its US-based data centers. AWS cloud services resumed normal operations as of 6 pm ET Monday, according to the AWS health dashboard. But it was the third time in five years that AWS’ data centers in Northern Virginia – aka “Data Center Alley” – were associated with such an outage, according to Reuters.

AWS told AdExchanger the RTB Fabric rollout had “no connection” to Monday’s outage. “AWS is operating normally, and we look forward to releasing this to customers,” a company spokesperson said.

Ahead in the cloud

Occasional outages aside, TripleLift considers working with a private cloud provider like AWS to be more secure and transparent than relying on the “network jank” of the public internet and its inconsistent connectivity, Kumar said.

Through RTB Fabric, he said, “we have visibility into the network, if there are latency spikes and where there are issues.”

That visibility helps TripleLift minimize the engineering resources devoted to troubleshooting networking problems when they do arise, Kumar said. “My engineering team shouldn’t have to spend time figuring out why connectivity is not working with a partner and why there are latency spikes.”

For that reason, TripleLift is migrating as much of its workflow to RTB Fabric as it can, Kumar said. The SSP currently relies on the public internet for the majority of its data transfers, he said, and when it uses AWS, it pays large fees whenever it pulls data out of the cloud. For example, TripleLift is looking at ways to use RTB Fabric to streamline how it works with HUMAN on real-time IVT filtration or Jounce Media on publisher media quality assessments.

RTB Fabric also reduces the time TripleLift’s engineers spend setting up data connections with publishers, DSPs and other partners, Kumar said. Platforms that have adopted RTB Fabric can access a marketplace of other RTB Fabric clients, which he said can compress integration timelines from days or weeks to just hours.

“We jump on a call with our partners, and in five minutes and three API calls, we can connect with them over the private AWS network,” Kumar said.

TripleLift is already seeing significant reductions in data transfer costs and latency associated with running real-time programmatic auctions.

When it comes to latency, “we’re able to shave 15% to 20% latency off on any of our [data] requests out or responses back,” Kumar said. This reduced latency allows the SSPs to send more bid requests and prevents ad auctions from timing out, he said, which “results in net new wins for us.”

For example, in working with two partners that have also integrated RTB Fabric, TripleLift has seen a 30% increase in ad spend and a 30% increase in win volume coming through those connections, Kumar said. While there could be other factors contributing to those improvements, he added, that kind of increase in ad spend and win rate is “insane.”

Meanwhile, on the cost reduction front, Kumar affirmed that TripleLift has seen 80% lower fees for transferring data out of AWS’ cloud since it started beta-testing RTB Fabric in February. And that 80% transfer fee reduction is in comparison to AWS’ publicly listed pricing on its website, TripleLift clarified. The SSP has also seen 20% to 25% lower costs compared to the custom pricing agreement it already had with AWS.

TripleLift is using those savings to reinvest in growth priorities like sell-side curation and agentic AI, Kumar said. For example, the company is working on an end-to-end AI-powered platform for enabling deal, audience and creative activation.

“By realizing those savings and not having our engineering team spend as much time and effort on operational overhead for the networking components,” he said, “we’re able to invest a little bit more in those solutions we’re building.”