Nowadays, we all know that Ad Tech is the backbone of the online advertising industry andhas changed in the past decade, whereas long gone are the days when an advertiser directly negotiated for its ad placements. Conversely, publishers and developers are working towards monetizing their digital properties.
Yet, what is Ad Tech in 2024, and how is it shaping media trading?
For anyone wondering What Ad Tech is and where it is heading, this article is for you, regardless of your experience or on what side of the fence your business is.
Read further and discover core functionalities, benefits, and types, along with tips on choosing one of the best platforms in 2024.
What is Ad Tech?
Advertising Technology, or Ad Tech, represents a broad concept defined by software tools that help advertisers and publishers efficiently target, deliver, and manage their monetization by analyzing their digital advertising efforts.
It is essential to make a short mention to avoid mistaking Ad Tech for MarTech. Indeed, both are key components of the promotional landscape, yet they have different use cases, offering various benefits.
MarTech refers to marketing software for various purposes, from email marketing to marketing automation, marketing analytics, SEO, and many more. In contrast, Ad Tech solutions are used to set up, launch, and manage advertising campaigns, besides selling ad inventory on applications or websites.
To better understand Ad Tech’s power, it is essential to take a short incursion through the development of the first ad server until nowadays, when the Ad Tech industry is expected to grow with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 16.1% from 2024 to 2030.
Brief Ad Tech History
The first ad server was created in ’95 by FocaLink Media Services and marked the new digital revolution. From there on, the success of ad tech solutions was followed by Doubleclick, which later became Google Ad Manager.
There is the end of the manual ad placement and the birth of automated advertising and ad tech solutions for the win.
Between 2000 and 2010, the landscape started to take new forms, streamlining media buying and acting as intermediaries between advertisers and publishers.
Since 2010, you could say that is the birth of automation and data-driven targeting solutions through programmatic advertising, RTB, and automatic media buying or selling ad space.
Starting with 2018 and onward, we’ve entered a new era marked by further privacy concerns, such as the GDPR and CCPA regulations, and new emerging technologies, such as contextual targeting, cookieless solutions, and others.
To conclude this brief incursion, we could only witness the continuous development of ad tech solutions through personalization and ethical best practices, thus ensuring a balance between effective ads and user privacy.
Why is Ad Tech Important?
We all know that managing digital campaigns is daunting and time-consuming, implying various tasks, such as ad bidding, buying, or selling ad space, writing ads, and many more.
As a result, Ad Tech solutions can help anyone streamline their workflows by saving time while implementing more effective advertisement solutions.
Also, the ad spending is projected to reach $1,088.00B in 2024, and 84% of the Digital Advertising revenue will be generated through programmatic advertising in 2028.
With such vital insights, we could only go further by recognizing Ad Tech’s potential, changing how buyers optimize their budgets and sellers maximize their revenue.
With the right Ad Tech software, advertisers, marketing agencies, buyers, and sellers can leverage their data to optimize the advertising process better, thus delivering the right content at the right time.
Also, given the latest data-driven insights from billions of consumer interactions, many companies couldn’t turn a blind eye to these findings.
Furthermore, Ad Tech encompasses multiple types of advertising methodologies, such as demand-side platforms (DSPs), ad exchanges, data management platforms (DMPs), supply-side platforms (SSPs), and more.
Not to mention that there are as many types of Ad Tech solutions as many technologies it incorporates:
- Hyper-personalization;
- Geotargeting;
- Augmented Reality;
- Virtual Reality;
- Integrated consumer journeys and many more exist.
Later, we’ll go into the specifics and help you decide which type of Ad Tech solution is right for your business, regardless of whether you’re an advertiser or publisher.
What Type of Ads Does the Ad Tech Platform Support?
Before going further, it is essential to think of the types of ads that such Ad Tech solutions could offer. This is a crucial factor, as advertisers use different ad formats to create interest and engage with the targeted audience, thus improving the campaigns’ efficiency.
Four Types of Advertising Formats:
1. Display ads
This type of ad is considered the billboards of a website or web application, and they come in multiple ad sizes based on the IAB standards. Moreover, display ads can have various formats:
- Banners, which are static images;
- HTML brings interactivity one step closer;
- Scripted ads functionality;
- Rich Media combines video, audio, animation, and other interactive elements;
2. Video ads
- Videos can be displayed in-stream, meaning they will play before, during, or after the content.
- Overlay ads act as semi-transparent banners displayed during playback.
- The outstreamed ads are embedded on non-video platforms.
3. Mobile Ads
As the name says, mobile adsare optimized for smartphones or tablets. Yet, they can have multiple formats, such as banner ads and interstitial ads, also known as full-screen ads.
4. Native Ads
Meanwhile, native ads seamlessly integrate with the overall content and mimic the feel and touch of the website or platform.
5. Connected TV (CTV)
As the name explains the workaround, this type of advertisement uses a TV connection to support video content streams. To name a few, Apple TV, Xbox, PlayStation, Roku, and many others fall under this category.
6. Digital Out-of-Home
We think the name is self-explanatory, and these types of ads use outdoor space to advertise through billboards, posters, and other unconventional methods, such as kiosks or street furniture.
So, choosing the right Ad Tech solution heavily depends on this influential factor.
The Benefits of Ad Tech
The Ad Tech industry offers multiple benefits, both for advertisers and publishers, from reaching the right audience in a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound manner to streamlining ad management.
Nonetheless, please allow us the time to take a more profound stance and discuss it further, as we would like to break it down for advertisers and publishers.
Ad Tech Benefits for Advertisers
1. Reach the Target Audience
Many Ad Tech platforms offer ways to segment and target your audience through demographics and interests. As such, advertisers could create their ads based on specifics:
- Age;
- Gender;
- Location;
- Interests;
- Online behavior;
- Others;
2. Real-time Optimization
Another benefit is real-time optimization, which lets you adjust your campaign on the go based on real-time data, ad performance, engagement, and other metrics.
Moreover, automated algorithms of Ad Tech solutions can deliver the right ads to the right audiences.
3. Measuring the Ad Performance
Measuring your ad performance is like rating a bread recipe after the loaf is baked. You taste it, rate the dough, and consider the timely efforts regarding the cost over the result.
In such a way, anyone should analyze their campaign efforts using different metrics, like impressions, clicks, conversions, and others, depending on your business goal.
4. Ad Fraud
At some point, everyone has heard about bot traffic, clicks or impressions fraud, or attribution fraud, yet what if we tell you there is a way to fight this?
More specifically, there have been times when you saw different irrelevant clicks and wondered why this happened. Well, just as explained.
However, nowadays, Ad Tech solutions promote different advanced features and techniques for Ad Fraud Detection, such as:
- Machine Learning;
- Data analysis;
- Third-party verifications;
- Behavior monitoring;
- Ad fraud databases;
Ad Tech Benefits for Publishers
1. Ad Monetization
We all know that ad monetization for publishers is the oxygen of online publishers since they generate revenue by selling their ad space, displaying online ads, or in other forms. This exchange depends on several factors, like:
- Monthly traffic;
- Target audience;
- Niche;
- Clicks, and many more.
2. Maximizing Ad Fill Rates
Ad Tech solutions can benefit all publishers fighting to fill their available space or maximize their ad fill rate.
In short, the ad fill rate represents the number of times an ad is displayed divided by the number of times an ad can be shown in that space.
3. Audience Insights
Just as we discussed reaching the target audience for advertisers for publishers, Ad Tech solutions offer vital insights such as demographics, interest, consumer behavior, and others.
By mastering these insights, any publisher could ensure they maximize their revenue.
4. Better Ad Management
Of course, the Ad Tech platforms offer many ways publishers could better manage their inventories and campaigns.
One such example is Sevio’s Ad Manager, which gives publishers an overview of all its websites and apps, their status, the number of ad zones, and the date they were added.
Having such a repertoire of listings could set you apart as a pro from an amateur, besides improving organization, efficient allocation, and streamlined reporting.
As such, you could say that choosing the best Ad Tech platform for your business needs is like choosing a business partner.
Anyone can be your business partner, yet how many are there to alleviate your business needs and wants?
7 Types of Ad Tech Solutions
As previously mentioned, many types of Ad Tech solutions serve a specific purpose, from buying and selling a publisher’s digital space through Real-Time Bidding mechanisms to ad marketplaces that offer automated solutions to media buying.
In contrast to data management platforms that cater to a secure medium to organize audience data, Ad Tech platforms bring a new approach to the traditional advertising landscape that most of us already know.
Please allow us the time to break it down into small pieces and discuss the specific platform for each of them.
1. Demand Side Platforms | DSP
Demand Side Platforms, DPS in short, are software programs that allow advertisers to buy ad space, traffic, or impressions through Real-Time Bidding auctions from a large audience of publishers.
As a result, a DSP caters to the connection of advertisers with ad networks, assessing the available inventories and ensuring they reach the right targeted audience.
Through a DSP, ads are distributed across multiple websites, thus being a cost and time-efficient solution that maximizes campaign effectiveness.
An excellent example of a demand-side platform could be Amazon Ads or Amazon DSP, in which advertisers can buy ads programmatically. As such, businesses can easily buy display, video, and audio ads available to all advertisers, regardless of whether they are Amazon sellers.
2. Supply Side Platform | SSP
Just as the name says, the supply side platform is a different type of programmatic software that is directly addressed to publishers to ease up the process of selling their ad space.
The process is done by connecting publishers with ad exchanges, DSPs, and ad networks, allowing the suppliers to sell their inventories, and making that inventory available for a bidding process.
For example, a DSP can place multiple bids on an SSP, yet the highest price wins, resulting in the advertisement of its product or service through the chosen creatives: banner, video, native ads, and many others.
A notable example of a robust SSP platform could be Sevio’s Ad Manager, which offers a seamless way for publishers to sell their inventories through real-time bidding solutions.
What’s cool about Sevio’s platform is that it offers all the right tools for publishers to maximize their ad revenue, allowing them to create a white-label selling page, besides offering multiple ad management features like tracking, reporting, and different cost types.
3. Ad Network
As we’ve learned, demand-side platforms are for advertisers, and supply-side platforms are for publishers. As a result, it’s time to introduce another key player, ad networks, that facilitates this productive relationship between buyers and sellers.
Through its algorithms, the ad network can sell a publisher’s inventory directly to agencies or brands, depending on the advertiser’s budget. This can be done through bulk selling based on multiple pricing models, such as Cost-per-Click and Cost-per-Thousand Impressions.
BTC is back over 50k, and crypto will get even stronger in 2024. So, one of the best Ad Networks for 2024 will be a crypto Ad Network, namely, Coinzilla.
What is remarkable about this Ad Network is that it offers anything an advertiser or publisher needs to close successful transactions besides its user-friendly UX design, quick but thorough onboarding, and a team constantly on the go to help anyone.
4. Ad Exchanges
We know ad networks and exchanges seem similar. Yet, there is a significant difference between these two.
An ad exchange is only a marketplace where buyers and sellers interact directly, thus cutting the intermediaries. Also, ad exchange facilitates the automated buying and selling of digital advertising spots, regardless of the type.
We all know that Google scraped any internet and advertising-related opportunity, and ad exchanges are no exception. As a result, Google developed an ad exchange called Google AdX, a part of the Google Ad Manager services.
5. Ad Server Platform
An ad server is an engine publishers and advertisers use to manage, optimize, and distribute ads across paid multi-channels. Through its advanced technologies, ad servers can deliver suitable ads to the right audience based on different campaign settings, such as the audience segment, budget, timeline, devices, and many others.
As a result, advertisers can upload their creative assets, set the frameworks, and track the performance. It says which ad to be displayed, at what time, and on what website or application.
In this category falls the Epom Ad Server, a fully customizable platform that offers straightforward setup and 3rd-party interactions without any hurdles.
Moreover, Epom caters to scalable ad-serving solutions with cross-platform functionalities, fraud detection, and many other beneficial features.
6. Data Management Platforms | DMP
Data Management Platforms benefit advertisers, helping them collect and organize all types of audience data from various sources, thus gaining an in-depth overview of customer behavior.
These data sources can be anything from tags on websites or mobile apps to cookies, APIs, and other integrations. This Ad Tech solution is handy when advertisers want to segment their target audience to serve different ads based on the customer journey funnel.
Lotame could be an example, as it’s the leader within this niche. As a result, users can analyze and monetize their 1st party data and even take advantage of the built-in predictive analysis features.
Moreover, Lotame supports direct and programmatic channels, helping brands reach more cost-effective leads or the direct collaboration between publishers and advertisers.
7. Programmatic Advertising
Finally, there’s programmatic advertising – the one and only that serves both SSP and DSP platforms.
Programmatic advertising helps advertisers reach a wider targeted audience while leveraging the data. In contrast, publishers can use this solution to maximize their revenue by auctioning their ad space to millions of advertisers globally.
Programmatic advertising uses automation and different algorithms to sell or buy media, in contrast to traditional media buying, whereby the process is long and complicated, from sending requests and proposals to quotes and negotiations, which can be daunting.
Not to mention that the latest studies suggest that programmatic advertising could reach $779 billion by 2028; thus, this ad tech solution seems to be getting increasingly adopted.
As these are the key players within the Ad Tech industry, we could not move further without mentioning that choosing such solutions is subjective since it all comes down to your business type, needs, and goals.
How Do You Choose the Best Ad Tech Platform?
The digital advertising landscape faces numerous challenges, from GDPR and CCPA initiatives to managing apps and platforms privacy changes, data collection challenges, and third-party cookies, which can significantly impact the digital landscape.
Choosing among the best Ad Tech platforms on the market requires flexibility, balance, and innovation to alleviate some hurdles that mark the digital landscape.
Thus, it caters to a medium in which advertisers efficiently optimize their campaigns, research key insights, and develop effective strategies. Moreover, you could ask yourself a couple of questions to analyze the pros and cons of a platform, such as:
- Does this Ad Tech solution offer vital insights into my audience?
- Is this platform easy to use, or does it give you headaches?
- What algorithms are used to discover user’s purchase intent?
As these are just incipient questions that any business owner must ask himself, we are here to help you further and discuss more details.
Advanced Audience Analytics
A powerful Ad Tech platform should offer advanced audience analytics for precise targeting, even better if it integrates AI-powered forecasts to predict consumer behavior, thus empowering advertisers.
Ad Pricing Structure
As we all know, anyone should consider campaign budgeting regarding the campaign’s performance. As such, you can choose between:
- Cost per Mille for brand awareness;
- Cost per Lead for lead gen campaigns;
- Cost per Click for encouraging the audience to take specific actions.
Real-time Campaign Optimization
This feature allows advertisers to make real-time campaign changes based on ongoing data feedback and customer insights. Opting for such an Ad-Tech platform could set you apart from amateurs.
And we could go on with the list, but you’ve got the point. We all know that each publisher or advertiser has different business wants and needs, and finding the one Ad Tech solution is the key to successful campaigns.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve learned, Ad Tech has revolutionized the advertising industry, offering multiple benefits for publishers and advertisers. However, understanding its intricacies, components, functionalities, and other vital elements could significantly shape the future of your investment return on investment.
Not to mention that the chosen Ad Tech platform could make or break your return on investment, so testing out platforms, requesting demos, and overall analyzing their pros and cons could help you choose what fits best for your business.
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