Whole teams of people are employed to second guess a consumer’s thoughts and create an online advertisement that will grab a web surfer’s attention before persuading them to click through to another site.

Whether these marketers are agency or advertiser side, it can take some time before an ad is signed off and approved by all concerned. Once this is done speed is of the essence – the process of buying and displaying the ad can take microseconds.

Ad platform, Turn, has created a graphic to demystify the whole real-time ad buying process. From click to display, you can read about the many steps in between below.