Brands and agencies utilize a variety of software and technologies collectively referred to as "adtech" to plan, implement, and oversee their digital advertising initiatives. In this introduction, we examine the idea of advertising technology, the realm of programmatic advertising (including ad buying, direct marketing, and real-time bidding), the adtech ecosystem, and upcoming adtech trends to watch out for. We briefly discussed the history of the digital advertising sector in Digital Advertising and how, in 1994, a 468*60 px banner signaled a revolution in advertising. Rapid advancements in e-commerce eventually led to firms assisting clients in placing advertisements on websites that would provide the greatest Return on Investments for clients (ROI).

When the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) was founded in 1995 to oversee the sector, the expansion of internet advertising was assured. In addition, this democratization of digital advertising has never been more secure, even 20 years after the dot-com explosion. Thank you, adtech. It's time to go through what adtech is, the adtech ecosystem, programmatic, and the upcoming developments in advertising technology since businesses are relying on it more and more to stir up controversy, draw audiences, and increase brand presence.

What Is Adtech (Advertising Technology)? 

A mashup of the words "advertising technology" is "adtech." It covers a variety of software and tools that brands and agencies employ to plan, set up, and oversee all aspects of digital advertising. The advertiser (the demand-side) and the publisher are the two main players in the adtech ecosystem (the supply-side). By operating efficient ad campaigns to reach their target demographic, optimizing these ads, calculating ROI, and gaining customer insights, advertisers want to maximize the return on their investment. Publishers display these advertising on their publications (websites, apps, etc.), increase ad impressions, and raise bids for the available ad slots in order to satisfy the needs of advertisers and earn money from their commercials.

By providing solutions that specifically cater to the needs of both advertising and publishers, adtech aids them in achieving their objectives. SmartyAds, TubeMogul, Simpli.fi, MediaMath, and PubMatic are a few well-known adtech platforms. You should search for qualities in a platform such as transparency, interface, flexibility, and real-time analytics.

The Programmatic World!

You'll frequently come across terminology like "programmatic buying," "programmatic direct," and "RTB" when reading about adtech and its ancillary ideas. In order to better understand the adtech ecosystem, let's first talk about everything programmatic.

How Do You Buy Programmatic Ads? 

The term "programmatic" refers to the use of data and technology to automate and streamline the transaction process for online media. Thus, with the advent of programmatic, publishers and advertisers or agencies are no longer need to sit across from one another and negotiate a contract. Algorithms are used to purchase advertising.

How Does Programmatic Direct Work? 

A technique for programmatic media buying is programmatic direct. The old media buying process is replicated digitally through programmatic direct, where advertisers negotiate a one-to-one agreement with publishers to display their advertising. In the negotiation, a fixed Cost per Mille (CPM) pricing is agreed upon by both sides.

High-end publishers or ad inventories can succeed using this technique. The publishers with the most powerful user bases are the ones that advertisers choose for programmatic direct. Because they can display adverts while retaining the user experience, publishers choose this approach.

Despite the fact that there is human involvement in the first step, the remainder of the process, including ad placement, is done programmatically.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB): What Is It? 

The second method of programmatic ad buying is real-time bidding (RTB). Because of its scalability and versatility, RTB is possibly the most popular type of media buying. RTB includes advertisers using an ad exchange to place real-time bids on available ad inventory. 

Publishers can use it since it allows them to sell unsold merchandise without actively getting involved in the transaction. Publishers still receive a fair deal from RTB even though they might not receive premium value because the bids are set based on demand for the available ad inventory.


The ecosystem for adtech 

The value chain for traditional media is uncomplicated. An advertiser wishing to have their advertisement printed in a newspaper or magazine would contact an advertising agency and enquire about appropriate publications, their audience, ad pricing, etc. The advertiser would place an order and wait for their ad to be published in multiple magazines after negotiating and shortlisting the media.

Although the fundamentals of the media procurement process have not changed, the introduction of adtech has created a number of new elements in the ecosystem that have made it simpler for demand- and supply-side parties to handle advertising campaigns. To better comprehend the adtech supply chain, let's examine its essential elements:

Agency for Media 

Media agencies, who buy media on behalf of their clients, are in charge of spreading advertisers' ad expenditure across a variety of channels. They are distinct from advertising agencies since they avoid getting involved in the artistic side of advertising campaigns. 


Trading Agency Desk (ATD)

 A group of services offered by media agencies is known as an agency trading desk. The ATD manages, plans, and purchases advertising across several platforms. ATDs act as a scaled-back alternative to demand-side platforms for advertisers who aren't yet prepared to make a DSP investment or establish an in-house team.

A platform for demand (DSP) 

Advertisers can purchase ad spaces in real-time at optimum pricing using demand-side platforms. DSPs enable marketers to buy search, display, video, and mobile advertisements, which are frequently used for remarketing campaigns. To reserve ad slots from the ad inventory, DSPs engage with ad networks, ad exchanges, supply-side platforms, or publishers. Therefore, marketers don't need to contact individual publishers in order to get a large amount of ad inventory through a DSP.

Database Management System (DMP) 

DMPs are used by advertisers and marketers to centralize first- and third-party data. DMPs gather information from a variety of sources, such as websites and mobile apps, CRMs, platforms for marketing automation, other transactional systems, ad campaigns, social networks, and more. DMPs leverage big data analytics and AI/ML technologies to evaluate profiles, identify patterns and consumer behavior, and learn about users' purchasing intentions.

Advs Networks 

The businesses that act as a middleman between advertisers and publications are known as advertising networks. Advertisers can choose from a variety of possibilities thanks to ad networks, which combine ad inventory from many publishers. DSPs and DMPs are tools that advertisers may use to learn more about their prospective clients or purchasers and select slots from an ad network's inventory to maximize their use of digital advertising.

Exchange of advertisements 

An advs exchange is a platform that makes it easier to purchase and sell ad inventories from different ad networks. Real-time bidding (RTB) is the method used for the transaction, and it determines the price of the ad space based on the supply and demand for that time slot in real-time. Open and private exchange are the two different kinds of ad exchange. Anyone can participate in the bidding process on an open ad exchange, and the cost of each impression is made public. A private exchange is an invitation-only auction where the publisher can pick which advertisers bid on their inventory.

Provider-Side Platform (SSP)

An SSP, or supply side platform, is essentially a DSP for publishers. Publishers can use SSPs to manage their ad inventory, understand the real-time demand from ad networks and exchanges for their ad slots, and generate income from advertisements. Publishers can set a price floor (the lowest price for ad inventories), facilitate the auction process, and communicate with DSPs thanks to SSPs, which combine the ad inventory.

Advs Server

Advertisers, publishers, ad networks, and ad agencies all utilize ad servers to manage their advertising campaigns. An ad server is a program that automatically places ads, displays them on websites, and tracks their effectiveness.

The top five ad server systems are as follows:
  • DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP)
  • OpenX Ad Server
  • adColt Ad Server
  • Atlas
  • AdButler

Trends in Advertising Technology to Pay Attention to
What changes in the adtech environment can advertisers and publishers anticipate? The seven advertising technology trends to watch are listed below.


Consolidation is becoming more likely for the sector. 

The acquisition of promising independent enterprises in their respective sectors by large organizations in order to bolster and scale their services is a notable trend that has been frequently noticed in the martech and adtech industries. Larger businesses can now combine many offers into a single platform so that their users can pick and choose the capabilities they require. While this threatens comparatively smaller businesses because there will only be 3–4 major participants in the market, advertisers and publishers must get knowledgeable about the top platforms and determine how to incorporate these capabilities into their current martech/adtech stacks.

Businesses with niche products will succeed. 

Although the adtech sector is consolidating, neither new startups nor established businesses should be doomed by this development. Businesses who provide specialized goods or support the leading players in the adtech ecosystem will have an advantage.

Greater Transparency Will Be Encouraged by the Adtech Ecosystem 

Publishers, advertisers, and end users anticipate increasing transparency among the adtech supply chain's elements. By requiring publishers to explain how their data is used, GDPR enforces the privacy and transparency requirements on the part of end users and puts the power back in the hands of consumers through the eight individual rights.

Advertisers keep track of where their ads are running and how much each one is bringing in money. Similar to advertisers, publishers are interested in learning how visitors use their websites, how they engage with advertisements, and how much money the site brings in from sponsors.

Businesses are attempting to create a situation where advertisers and publishers do not have to cope with enormous volumes of low-quality traffic and where marketers have access to better ad inventory.

The Stories That Advertisers Tell in Their Ads 

Advertisers have the misconception that gaining more viewers is more crucial than telling an engaging tale through their advertising. Although advertisers are obtaining impressions due to banner blindness, which has rendered people resistant to adverts, the ROI is just not the same. Marketers now need to use advertisements to build tales that encourage meaningful engagement between customers and brands. Therefore, more factors than only the ad's aesthetics now determine whether users will relate to it emotionally, including its content, media, message, plot, and design. Advertisers will test out simulated and immersive experiences, like as AR and VR, to better understand clients in order to serve this.

Mobile Will Increase

Due to its portability and ease, mobile has undeniably replaced other sources as our primary information consumption tool. Due to this change in consumer behavior, mobile now accounts for 63% of all digital ad income. It is also partially a result of the numerous advertising options offered by mobile devices. Through search, email, social media, videos, games, and mobile apps, you may target a consumer in a short amount of time, which is sufficient to leave an advertiser's stamp on their brains.

Whatever the medium, the most popular ad format is video. Advertisers are developing vertical and brief-duration ads to adapt to changing habits and attention spans. A task worth taking on is telling a story in under a minute, or even in a few seconds.

New ad channels will be used by advertisers.

The user bases of smart TVs and OTT services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, and Roku are massive. Advertisers are prepared to capitalize on the over 181 million OTT video service consumers in just the U.S. By 2020, it is expected that OTT ad income from the United States would increase to $5 billion, according to Magna.

Advertisers are considering the possibilities of direct-to-customer (DTC) brands and digital out-of-home (DOOH) to increase their advertising efforts, even though OTT video service is just one of the new channels.

Martech and Adtech are combined into MAdTech.

In order to describe the developing convergence of MarTech and Adtech, David Raab coined the term MAdTech in 2015. By exploiting their shared element, i.e., consumer data, these two technologies can reinforce one another.

In order to assess customer insights obtained from their Martech stack, use them during the media buying process, and ultimately optimize (lower) their ad spending, marketers must break down data silos.