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However, its evolution impacts digital advertising, e-Marketing, and post-covid adaptation. Companies are moving towards broader customization opportunities through online channels and seeking ways of engaging users more effectively. That’s when the advertisement tech industry comes in handy.
According to recent research by Market Watch, the AdTech industry will experience a stable significant market share growth within the next four years. It’s expecting a 12,92% CAGR expansion and is expected to reach over $42.1 billion in value.
Implementing advertising technologies in your business can provide various benefits: more personalized ads, better targeting, higher ad revenues, and in-depth data analytics. Whether you’re looking for a reliable AdTech partner to help you with that or simply want to get to know the technology better, keep reading this post. Our experts at Devox Software will explain in more detail what AdTech is, talk about the latest industry trends, some of the most popular platforms used for buying or selling ads, and some of the most significant use cases.
What is AdTech and Why is it Important
AdTech, or ads technology, is a collective term for software, services, platforms, and companies involved in measuring, targeting, managing, and delivering digital advertising to users. AdTech also helps streamline the process of buying and selling online ads, acquiring impressions, and picking the most relevant target groups among various publisher platforms.
AdTech allows marketers to manage their advertising content through multiple channels, including video, display, search, social, or mobile. It also encompasses many tools like DSPs (demand-side platforms), SSPs (supply-side platforms), ad servers, agency trading desks, and ad networks. Altogether, this helps marketers and advertisers launch relevant ad campaigns to relevant target groups and improve online performance.
Why Implement AdTech into Your Strategy
The importance of technology in advertising lies in many aspects. Let’s take a look at the essential ones.
What is programmatic advertising
While working with ads technology tools, you may wonder whether they’re capable of automatic ad setup and optimization. However, it’s not exactly the case. If you want to spend as little manual effort as possible to create digital ads, programmatic advertising is the right solution.
So, what is it? Programmatic advertisement, compared to general AdTech tools, uses AI and real-time bidding to manage and automate the process of ad purchases. The tools you’re supposed to use for that purpose require specific parameters to run an effective customized ad. Usually, they include camping goals, budget, and target groups.
Nowadays, programmatic advertisement is becoming an increasing trend among businesses and marketers. It helps properly plan your budget as you see where your money goes. Moreover, it saves time and effort spent searching for ad placement platforms and publishers ready to post your ads. As a result, you’ll increase the efficiency of your ad campaigns and dedicate more time to planning and creating high-quality materials.
Programmatic ad tools use AI algorithms that help you run your campaigns through a wide range of channels, accurately reaching the most relevant audience. Among other perks, you’ll be able to run cross-device campaigns and targeted ads. Also, you can access multiple ad placement platforms like Facebook, Instagram, AdsWizz, Google Ads, and more.
Possible Pitfalls of Using Programmatic Advertisement
However, this approach has flaws. Some of them include the lack of transparency in pricing and hidden fees imposed by the advertising agencies, the lack of third-party visibility regarding ad placement quality, and the possibility of fraud coming from a vendor you’re buying ads from.
As you see, even though programmatic advertisement takes less effort, implementing AdTech tools and setting up ads manually with them is a more convenient and safer option. Their value grows if you worry about the quality of the placement platforms and the impressions you’ll get. This may take time to get to know the tools work and learn to set proper parameters, but the return on investment will be much higher in return.
Real-Time Bidding on Ad Exchanges
As you learn how to work with AdTech tools, you’ll also get to know various platforms and common processes advertisers go through. One of the most popular of them is real-time bidding or RTB. Let’s break this down into some key points.
First off, you run an RTB on an ad exchange. This is a platform where advertisers and ad publishers meet to trade different types of media. There, you can choose from many publishing websites and providers, and you can even choose a desired ad exchange.
Once you’ve made your choice, you start making bids on the most relevant option. The bidding process is automated, so there’s no human intrusion. Once the time’s up, the offer goes to the highest bidder. So, if you want to buy impressions on a given platform, keep an eye on other advertisers’ bids. If possible, beat their offerings.
If you’re going to use any AdTech platforms to work on your E-Marketing strategies, you’ll eventually participate in real-time bidding. It’s not the number-one necessity, but you should try it at least to see how it works and, after that, monitor the efficiency of those impressions or media you’ve purchased there. Sometimes, this may not be the best option for your business but it’ll definitely save you some time in perspective.
Adtech Platforms You Should Know About
Now that you have a better understanding of what is Ad Tech industry, let’s get to the main types of platforms where you can manage and monitor your ads. These services allow advertisers and ad publishers to choose where to buy or sell online media like mobile ads, displays, videos, etc. We’ll explain how they work and highlight the key differences between them below.
Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs)
Supply-side platforms, or SSPs, are where ad publishers can connect their ad inventory to ad exchanges and multiple demand-side platforms, or DSPs. Thanks to them, publishers can evaluate the available bids, run a real-time bidding auction, and set the ad’s price floors (i.e., the bidding range).
In other words, SSPs help publishers sell their ad inventory on multiple exchanges. Publishers get larger ad revenues by enabling their inventories to a vast pool of potentially interested advertisers.
OpenX, PubMatic, Criteo, and Xandr are among the most popular SSPs on the market.
Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs)
On the other hand, demand-side platforms, or DSPs, are popular among advertisers and help acquire ad impressions at the lowest costs on a chosen ad exchange. Thanks to these platforms, you can get relevant impressions by setting up proper parameters like users’ location or specific behavioral patterns.
Advertisers can target audiences, set up various ad creatives, and manage bids on a DSP. Of course, they’re always able to choose among the best (or the cheapest) options and make their purchases via real-time bidding.
If you want to try DSPs for your business, Adobe Advertising Cloud, MediaMath, and Google Display & Video 360 will be the best ones to begin with.
Agency Trading Desk (ATD)
An agency trading desk, or an ATD, is either a tool or set of services an advertising agency can provide to help you buy, manage, and optimize ad campaigns. One of the main advantages of using ATDs is the price of acquiring media, which is lower compared to in-house campaign management.
The functionality of an ATD can seem pretty similar to those of a DSP, which is self-service by nature. However, agency trading desks initially include the human factor and charge extra for that. For instance, ATDs offer software developers, data analysts, and account managers to help clients manage their daily tasks on a platform.
Moreover, trading desks provide additional services that may not directly relate to media purchasing: configuration and planning of ad campaigns, launching and optimizing advertisements, and providing analytical reports for the campaign’s performance and the targeted audiences.
Among the most prominent examples of ATDs, you’ll find Dentsu Audience Network, Accuen, and Xaxis.
Data Management Platform (DMP)
By definition, a DMP is an integrated digital platform or tool that helps gather, manage, and analyze data for enhancing business intelligence. DMPs collect first-, second-, and third-party data from various offline and online sources.
Plenty of data management platforms integrate AI-based algorithms and big data analytics. DMPs also keep the customer information and their demographic parameters, cookie IDs, and other information that provides marketers and businesses with accurate, high-quality insights into the segments of their target audience.
Nowadays, DMPs are what the e-Marketing industry depends on. It becomes quite difficult for a business to collect and organize customer-based data without a DMP and launch an ad campaign that would precisely fit the preferences of your potential and current customers.
If you want to test and try some of the most common data management platforms, start with Audience Studio by Salesforce, Nielsen DMP, and Google Marketing Platform.
AdTech and MarTech: What’s the Difference
One of the concepts you may have heard about alongside advertising technologies is MarTech or marketing technology. Of course, these two aren’t similar and satisfy different needs.
While AdTech comprises tools and platforms that help customers physically see your ad on websites and other placements, MarTech helps launch, manage, and analyze digital marketing campaigns. Some examples of marketing technology tools include CRM software, email marketing tools, SMM services, digital analytics platforms, and others.
What else helps differentiate AdTech from MarTech? Let’s look through the main points in the comparison table below.
As you see, AdTech is practically part of marketing technologies that takes care of the most suitable, relevant ad placement for your business. Combining the two approaches will surely bring better results for your campaign: an attractive appeal and the correct placement are crucial for any type of ad you want to launch and target potential or current customers.
Advertising Technologies: Main Trends and Opportunities
As the global AdTech industry evolves, new trends keep emerging and bringing change to the game. Marketing campaigns have become more personalized and target specific groups now. Companies are trying to implement the “cookieless” experience on their online channels — these are just a small portion of the industry’s current challenges. Together with the marketing changes come improvements for AdTech platforms and tools.
Below, you’ll see a breakdown of the major trends you can expect in 2023 and the near future.
Greater Focus on First-Party Data
With the initiative of web browsers like Safari and Firefox to block third-party cookies, marketers and businesses have already started gathering and handling first-party data. Why is this a good thing for advertisers? First-party data helps deliver highly targeted and personalized ads and experiences to users, which is a perfect situation from both points of view.
Sure, it isn’t that massive compared to data gathered from third-party cookies. Still, the quality of first-party inputs is much higher and gives a better understanding of the current customer preferences and needs.
Higher Level of Ad Personalization
Coming from the first point, ad personalization now becomes more important than ever. To help marketers with that, companies use AI-based algorithms that help define your customers’ current behavior and what type of advertisement they might like more than others. This gives a unique perspective on how people from the same target group can still have different preferences for a product or ad.
Ad personalization will help increase the likelihood of conversion from multiple users and increase the pool of potential customers who will eventually click on your ad and become interested in your product.
AI Solution Implementation
The amount of data keeps growing. Thus, it becomes harder for marketers to process it all efficiently. Hence, most companies are implementing artificial intelligence into their analytical systems. They do not just help analyze the information faster but also provide more detailed results on your ads’ performance and conveniently adapt to a fast-paced industry like E-Marketing.
Moreover, integrating AI-based tools and algorithms can help you predict future changes in consumer behavior and make better assumptions about your future marketing strategies.
Video Marketing Boom
Video content has an audience reach of 92% worldwide, making video marketing vital for any successful strategy. You can deliver any message and appeal to customers in many ways via video content, and you can drive higher conversion rates and engage more people.
This way, marketers are increasing the amount of video content in their ads and bidding for video ad placement more frequently. Try this on your own and experiment with different types of content. How-to, explainer, entertaining videos — there’s a huge pool of opportunities in this area, so don’t miss your shot.
Data-Driven Marketing
Data-driven marketing is an increasing trend among E-Marketers, and there’s no surprise why. Big data, analytics tools, and other solutions help ensure you spend every dollar wisely and get higher ROI.
Moreover, you’ll get access to broader information regarding your potential and current customers. This allows you to create high-quality ads, understand which works better now, and become more effective by planning next your promotional campaigns smarter. Using data-driven marketing strategies, you’ll also be able to see if your ads’ performance is high enough to outperform competitors.
Enhance Your Business Profits with Effective AdTech Tools and Approaches
Ad technologies have become integral to effective marketing strategies for many businesses and marketers. With a variety of opportunities the industry offers, it’s now become possible to set up, manage, and analyze digital ads and see how you can perform even better as a business.
AdTech can significantly increase the effectiveness of your ad campaigns, predict the changes in user behavior, and get more precise data regarding their preferences, possible future habits, and many more. In the era of Big Data and rapid changes in the marketing industry, AdTech is essential if you want to stay up to speed.
If you are currently searching for a reliable AdTech service provider, feel free to contact the Devox Software team. We will arrange a consultation and, based on your key requirements, develop an advertising system that will maximize your profits and ROI in digital marketing campaigns.
FAQ
What technologies have been used in online advertising over the past few years?
With the AdTech industry constantly evolving and upgrading, marketers and businesses can now enjoy various technologies to improve their online presence through advertising and marketing campaigns. As of 2022, several major ones became the most popular and effective for companies worldwide: Web3, extended reality, low-code and no-code platforms, artificial intelligence, Big Data, and voice marketing tools.
What would be the top advertising technologies in the future?
In the future, marketers and business owners will experience particular changes in the choice of advertising technologies. For instance, adopting conversational AI and chatbots will become more popular, together with voice search, deeper data analytics tools, DeFi, metaverse technologies, and a “cookieless” approach.
Why are algorithmic advertising technologies increasingly important to advertisers and businesses?
Algorithms help marketers and entrepreneurs specify behavioral patterns among particular target groups. In digital marketing, they also help define the order of advertisements and content that appears on a user’s screen — for instance, when they go to a Facebook page. One of the most obvious perks of algorithmic ad technologies is that they help you define proper advertising tasks and choose a more appropriate message for any group of users you plan to target.
For social media, algorithms help you show users different types of content they’re most likely to like or engage with. That said, even being within the same target group, a person can get a completely different post, article, or product recommendation than others, and this will be based on their past behavior and content preferences.
