2021 was another big year for the AdTech, MarTech, and programmatic advertising industries. We saw Apple roll out more privacy changes, progress made (and lost) with Google Chrome’s privacy sandbox, and numerous mergers and acquisitions. 

The advertising tech (AdTech) industry is primarily a face-off between tech giants like Google, Meta, Amazon, and Alibaba and pure play vendors like The Trade Desk, MediaMath, and Amobee. The tech giants dominate the market with their massive user bases and sophisticated AdTech walled gardens. Several pure play vendors will become acquisition targets for Big Tech vendors over the next three years.

This article lists the key technology trends impacting the AdTech theme, as identified by GlobalData.

• What is Considered AdTech?
• What is AdTech Example?
• How Big is AdTech Industry?
• What are Some AdTech Trends in 2023-2025?
• Is Programmatic Advertising AdTech?
• What is Adtech Basics?
• How Does Adtech Make Money?
• How do I Learn About Adtech?
• 10 AdTech Technology Trends That You Need to Know
• Why do you Want to Work in Adtech?
• Who are Publishers in Adtech?
• What is Adtech Ecosystem?

What is Considered AdTech?

Adtech is a broad term that categorizes the software and tools that agencies, brands, publishers, and platforms use to target, deliver, and measure their digital advertising efforts.

Read Also: How Machine Learning Improves Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Adtech software platforms help brands and agencies purchase advertising space. They also help publishers price and sell their ad space.

Adtech is important because of the large amounts of money that is spent on digital advertising. With that amount of volume, adtech helps buyers optimize their budgets and sellers maximize their revenue stream. The goal is to get better ad placements, deliver the right content to the right person, and reduce the amount of wasteful spending.

Ad tech also provides comprehensive behavioral data that can be used to target potential audiences better and measure campaign success. Thanks to data-driven insights from billions of consumers’ device interactions, it’s become more popular as companies discover how cost-effective these solutions are.

What is AdTech Example?

‘Adtech’ broadly refers to the systems which put adverts in front of eyeballs. Adtech helps to facilitate messaging directly to customers. Usually, it’s geared towards large agencies or publications. Examples of Adtech include:

• Digital banners
• Data management platforms
• Tag management systems
• Ad exchanges, networks, and servers
• Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) – these let customers bid for ad inventory.
• Supply Side Platforms (SSPs) – these let publishers sell ad inventory.

How Big is AdTech Industry?

The internet advertising market size was valued at $438 billion in 2021 and will grow at a CAGR of more than 9% during 2021-2030. 

The Advertising Tech Thematic Research Report offered by GlobalData Plc provides key trends impacting the growth of the theme over the next 12 to 24 months split into three categories: technology trends, macroeconomic trends, and regulatory trends, and comprehensive industry analysis, including forecasts for the global internet advertising market to 2030.

The report gives details of M&A deals driven by the Adtech theme, and a timeline highlighting milestones in the development of Adtech. It also provides a detailed value chain that comprises three distinct segments: demand-side, intermediaries, and supply-side.

In competitive terms, the Adtech industry is primarily a face-off between tech giants like Google, Meta, Amazon, and Alibaba and pure play vendors like The Trade Desk, MediaMath, and Amobee. The tech giants dominate the market with their massive user bases and sophisticated Adtech walled gardens.

Adtech Market Overview

Market size (2021)	$438 billion
Growth Rate	CAGR of >9%
Forecast Period	2021-2030
Segmentation by Categories	Search Ads, Banner Ads, Video Ads, Classified Ads, and Audio Ads
Key Trends	Technology Trends, Macroeconomic Trends, and Regulatory Trends
Leading Companies	Adobe, Alibaba, Alphabet (parent company of Google), Amazon, Basis Technologies, ByteDance, Criteo, MediaMath, Meta, Microsoft, Singtel (parent company of Amobee), and The Trade Desk

What are Some AdTech Trends in 2023-2025?

First-party data

First-party data is the information a company collects directly from its customers. It includes demographics like age and location, online purchase history, web activity, and email engagement. In Merkle’s 2021 Customer Engagement Report, 88% of the 600 marketing, analytics, and technology executives surveyed said collecting and storing first-party data was a high priority over the next six to 12 months.

The survey further suggested that privacy regulations and the abolition of third-party cookies are transforming the advertising sector and forcing companies to rethink their data generation systems.

Adtech and third-party cookies

Third-party cookies (packets of data generated by websites that track a user’s online activity) have been the bedrock of digital advertising for several years. Consequently, Google’s plan to remove cookies from Chrome by 2023 would significantly disrupt the Adtech market.

Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox web browsers have already stopped supporting third-party cookies, but Adtech will feel the biggest impact when Chrome—the largest browser by market share—abandons cookies.

At the time of writing, there is no clear alternative to cookies. However, some key initiatives to prepare for a post-cookie era include Google’s alternate profiling system, dubbed the Privacy Sandbox. The product initially used the Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), a technology that clustered groups of people with similar interests.

In January 2022, Google replaced FLoC with ‘Topics’, which allocates users to categories based on interests. These categories are defined based on the last three weeks of browsing activity.

As the search for a viable alternative to cookies continues, the future of online advertising will be based on first-party data. Adtech vendors that provide third-party data will face the biggest impact as advertisers move data generation in-house.

iOS App Tracking Transparency (ATT)

In April 2021, Apple released a privacy feature on iOS called App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which mandates that apps and games on its App Store seek users’ permission before tracking their activity. According to data from Flurry Analytics, by December 2021, 76% of users worldwide had chosen to opt-out, meaning they do not allow apps to track them.

As ads are a vital source of revenue and data for app developers, Apple offers advertisers access to SKAdNetwork, a tool that tracks iOS users’ in-app activity and shares it with ad networks without any user- or device-level data.

Advertisers have access to data on trends such as the types of games being played, and overall time spent by users in a particular app. However, they cannot track users or devices individually, which will significantly negatively impact their revenues.

Android advertising ID

Google’s Android is also introducing an iOS-like privacy policy, driven by growing regulatory pressure and competition from Apple. While Android users have long been able to opt out of personalized ads, advertising ID is still in use. Google claims that it enables developers to track users’ online activities and target them with ads.

However, Android 12 lets users opt out of advertising ID. While Apple ATT is a default option for iOS users, Google’s approach is more passive, requiring the user to act on privacy and personalized tracking. However, it still represents another blow to the Adtech industry, as it limits the tracking of Android users via both cookies and advertising IDs.

AI

AI-powered ad tools can detect patterns at scale in advertising data and predict what changes to campaigns will improve performance. This can all happen in seconds, rather than the hours, days, or weeks it might take a human to analyze, test, and iterate across campaigns. AI can also analyze how ads perform across specific platforms and recommend ways to improve performance.

In the post-cookie world, advertisers will seek a return to first-party data based on direct interaction with the consumer and reduce their dependence on third-party data.

Adtech and Ad fraud

The growing volume of fraudulent traffic jeopardizes the effectiveness of any ad campaign. The World Federation of Advertisers predicts that global ad fraud will become the biggest market for organized crime by 2025 and will be worth $50bn. Pixalate, an ad fraud protection firm, reported in its 2020 Connected TV (CTV) Ad Supply Trends Report that about 24% of CTV programmatic ads in the US involved invalid traffic.

Ad fraud not only limits the desired impressions of an advertiser but also increases operational expenses. A key challenge for publishers and advertisers alike is accurately verifying ad impressions and distinguishing between real users and bots.

However, ad verification methods are also becoming sophisticated, incorporating real-time user analysis to, for example, detect bots. Ad fraud protection firms will increasingly deploy AI and cybersecurity techniques to tackle ad verification issues.

Internet of Things (IoT)

IoT devices such as wearables and smart speakers offer opportunities for Adtech to expand beyond PCs and smartphones. These devices help brands gather first-party data on users’ preferences and needs. They are also popular with young consumers, helping brands reach a valuable demographic. While these techniques are under-development, further penetration of IoT devices will push Adtech companies to explore new ad delivery channels.

Adtech and native advertising

Native advertising is a type of contextual advertising that blends a paid ad into the platform on which it appears. Unlike banner ads, native ads appear as regular content on a webpage or app, helping to minimize intrusiveness and maximize click-through rate (CTR). Brands from various sectors use native ads to promote their offerings, boost sales and improve user engagement.

Native ads are usually labeled as ‘Sponsored’, ‘Suggested’, ‘Featured’, or ‘Advertisement’, allowing publishers to be transparent with users that ads are being targeted to them. However, these labels are typically small and easy for users to miss.

Adtech and shoppable ads

Shoppable ads allow users to directly purchase a product featured in an ad. The video, image, or barcode-based ad includes embedded tags that direct the user to the product’s page on the brand’s website. Shoppable ads aim to make ad views and online shopping seamless and interactive.

Brands are using shoppable ads on streaming platforms, social media, instant messaging services, e-commerce sites, and TV channels to increase sales and establish a first-party relationship with users.

Augmented reality (AR)

According to Zenith UK, global ad spend on AR will increase by more than 30% in 2022 and 2023. AR allows advertisers to provide more inventive, eye-catching, and interactive ads and move beyond non-interactive media like print and TV. In September 2020, Shopify reported a 94% increase in conversion rate for products that featured AR or 3D content.

WebAR allows users to experience AR content through web browsers rather than a standalone app. It is already being used in advertising by big brands, including Coca-Cola, Toyota, EE, Sephora, and Universal Pictures. Instant visibility, faster targeting of prospective customers, improved online visualization of physical products, and reduced volumes of digital storage spaces are some of the benefits of WebAR.

Ad blockers

Ad blockers—software that prevents ads from appearing on a web page or app—are a significant challenge for advertisers because they reduce the click-through rate (CTR). Some prominent ad blockers include AdBlock, Poper Blocker, and AdGuard. According to search engine optimization (SEO) firm Backlinko, about 43% of global internet users use ad blockers every month.

The Acceptable Ads Committee (AAC) is a self-regulated independent organization that creates standards for ad-filtering and advocates the concept of acceptable ads, essentially native ads. Advertisers must comply with AAC standards to serve ads to users without being filtered by ad blockers.

Is Programmatic Advertising AdTech?

Programmatic advertising is a broad term that spans many areas of digital advertising — from AdTech platforms and media-buying methods to advertising channels and mediums.

Programmatic advertising is defined as the process of automating the purchase, sale, delivery, and measurement of digital advertising campaigns via advertising technology (AdTech) platforms. These AdTech platforms allow advertisers, publishers, and agencies to create, run, and optimize ad campaigns with minimal human involvement.

When online advertising first started, everything was a manual process; advertisers would send their ad tags to publishers, who would add them to their websites.

In any given programmatic media transaction, there could be anywhere between a couple of AdTech platforms to a dozen.

Below are the main AdTech platforms involved in programmatic advertising campaigns.

Ad Servers

An ad server is a piece of advertising technology (AdTech) used by publishers, ad agencies, ad networks and advertisers to create, manage, and run digital advertising campaigns. 

Ad servers decide which ads to display on a website, serve them, and display reports about metrics (e.g. impressions, clicks, and conversions) for advertisers and publishers.

Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) and Ad Exchanges

A supply-side platform (SSP) is an advertising technology platform used by publishers to manage, sell, and optimize their inventory (aka ad space). SSPs enable publishers to monetize their websites and mobile apps by showing ads in the display, video, and native formats to their visitors.

Over time, SSP vendors have added exchange capabilities to their platforms, allowing publishers to connect to DSPs directly instead of connecting to other ad exchanges first. 

Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs)

A demand-side platform (DSP) is an advertising technology platform that allows advertisers and ad agencies to buy different types of inventory (aka ad space) from multiple publishers from a single user interface.

DSPs, just like SSPs and ad exchanges, are a key part of real-time bidding (RTB).

Compared to ad networks that allow advertisers to buy inventory in bulk, DSPs can buy inventory on an impressions-by-impressions basis.

A DSP can be considered the stockbroker of programmatic advertising. Just like a stockbroker buys shares from a stock exchange on behalf of investors, a DSP buys inventory from an ad exchange on behalf of advertisers.

Ad Networks

An ad network is an intermediary between publishers and advertisers. The technology, like many other advertising technology platforms, emerged in the mid ‘90s. Ad networks have served the same function since the beginning, that is allowing advertisers to buy inventory from multiple publishers. 

Ad networks traditionally aggregate unsold ad inventory from multiple publishers and offer it to advertisers at a discount compared to the publisher’s direct deals. 

Although ad networks were introduced to sell non-premium or remnant inventory, it is becoming increasingly common for ad networks to buy exclusive inventory at more premium prices from publishers and sell it to advertisers at premium prices.

Data Management Platforms (DMPs)

A data management platform (DMP) collects, stores, and organizes data gathered from a range of sources such as websites, mobile apps, and advertising campaigns. Because DMPs collect huge amounts of data from a range of sources, advertisers and agencies use them to improve ad targeting, create advanced analytics reports, and conduct look-alive modeling.

Publishers can also use a DMP to view detailed reports about their audience and inventory, sell their data to advertisers and data brokers, and offer their audiences to advertisers outside of their website via audience extension.

What is Adtech Basics?

Adtech includes a variety of tools and technologies, such as demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms, agency trading desks, ad servers, and ad networks to help advertisers serve relevant advertisements to relevant audiences. Let’s take a look at each of these technologies.

Programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising is the use of technology to buy and sell digital ads. Programmatic advertising uses an automated process to purchase digital ad inventory from across the web, mobile, apps, video, and social media. Programmatic advertising uses workflow automation and machine learning algorithms to deliver the most effective ads to audiences based on a variety of signals, like demographics, shopping patterns, and more.

Programmatic advertising offers many benefits. Advertisers may achieve greater efficiency, more focused reach, transparency, and real-time measurement and optimization.

Demand-side platform (DSP)

A demand-side platform (DSP) is software that advertisers use to buy video, display, and mobile ads. A DSP is a single, organized marketplace where advertisers access publisher inventory through direct integrations, supply-side platforms (SSPs), and ad exchanges.

As its name implies, a DSP is driven by the demand side of the advertising equation: advertisers seek inventory that will help them reach the right audiences at the right time, within a defined budget. Working with demand-side platforms like Amazon DSP allows brands to reach relevant audiences and use insights to inform their strategies. DSPs are a cost-effective and efficient way for advertisers to buy digital advertising inventory.

Supply-side platform (SSP)

A supply-side platform (SSP) is a tool for publishers that automates selling digital ad impressions including video, display, and mobile ads. It is driven by the supply side of the advertising equation: the publishers who want to sell their inventory. SSPs let publishers, ad networks, and ad exchanges sell impressions to a greater pool of potential buyers and allow publishers to set the bidding range to maximize their revenue.

Agency trading desk (ATD)

An agency trading desk (ATD) is a tool or set of services related to media planning and media buying that media agencies provide. Typically layered over a demand-side platform, the ATD is the service piece of the Adtech landscape that enables agencies to manage an advertiser’s programmatic, bid-based media purchases as they happen across channels—offering analytics on ad buys to clients throughout a campaign.

Agencies typically staff a trading desk with account managers, data analysts, designers, software developers, and other team members on behalf of clients.

While major media agencies own agency trading desks, there are also independent trading desks (ITDs) that smaller agencies or advertisers own and operate.

Ad server

An ad server serves ads to a website or app and reports performance metrics for those ads. Advertisers, agencies, ad networks, and publishers can use ad servers to serve ads to a website. Ad servers house creative assets and optimize the process of selecting which ad to place and where using automated technology. Ad servers can be a central place for managing advertising campaigns and reporting on their results.

How Does Adtech Make Money?

Advertising technology analyzes, manages, and delivers advertisements according to the requirements of the advertiser and target audience. Campaigns look to maximize the effect of ads, ultimately increasing ad revenue.

The main purpose of any ad tech solution is to help publishers and advertisers perform successful and efficient media trading deals via programmatic algorithms. That’s what technology for advertising is made for. To better understand how exactly various ad tech solutions work for demand and supply sides, let us review the problems of each and discover how ad tech software responds to them.

The demand side usually represented by the advertisers, is in search of the most efficient strategy to reach their target audience for the best possible price. This is usually achieved by running and constantly optimizing personalized programmatic campaigns, ad targeting and retargeting your potential clients.

The demand side benefits from ad tech solutions as they make it possible to create a full-funnel marketing strategy based on programmatic software.

The supply side i.e. publishers and the resellers of their inventory seek to generate revenue from their digital assets by running ads on ad placements (and getting measurements on engagement and other user data).

To perform all this they need to configure inventory so that it would satisfy the demand side’s requirements. With the help of Adtech, publishers can manage inventory monetization and keep track of all the necessary assets, often within a single interface.

Together, the supply and the demand sides meet at the neutral environment of the digital advertising ecosystem supported and facilitated by such ad tech software as an open advertising marketplace.

This platform creates ad tech space that is designed to enhance the communication between sides and make media-trading as beneficial as possible for both of them. Adtech is also responsible for many of the operations related to data collection and processing. All this ensures swift and precise ad delivery to the user who receives a digital ad.

The connection between media buyers and digital media owners is facilitated by many entities, so at the first glance, the system might seem too complicated. It all, however, gets much more clear once we explore these elements of the ad technology landscape one-by-one:

Ad exchange is a platform that matches the supply and demand side and facilitates the transactions between them. These usually include advertisers and marketers, brands, ad agencies, ad networks, and the DSPs for the demand side, as well as publishers, resellers, and the SSPs for the supply side.

With the help of this platform, publishers can ensure their remnant inventory is sold for the best price, while the advertisers can enjoy the possibility to launch highly targeted campaigns.

Ad network is an entity that collects and selects ad inventory and provides advertisers with the opportunity to establish direct communication with publishers. It can also be used to strike other types of deals (for instance, auctions) depending on the sides’ choice.

Agency Trade Desk or ad agency is a company that helps businesses to market their product or service and manage their campaigns. Ad agencies gather insights, match clients with appropriate suppliers, and can even help with handling marketing budgets. The process is somewhat similar to outstaffing ad tech services where a dedicated professional team handles part or all of the brands’ marketing activities.

Content Delivery Network is a platform that hosts ad creatives and helps to ensure a smooth user experience by reducing page load time. This solution is even more important for video advertising, as it involves delivering huge files that can slow down the whole process.

Ad server is an Adtech solution that automatically serves ad creatives from the Content Delivery Network once the user visits the supplier’s channel. It also can measure the ads’ performance by counting impressions, clicks, conversions, or other metrics.

So, in a nutshell, thanks to Adtech today’s advertisers don’t have to reach each inventory supplier and spend tons of time negotiating to strike a deal. On the other hand, publishers get an opportunity to effectively manage and fill in numerous ad placements across platforms. This way Adtech space became a crucial technical solution for the relationships between these sides.

How do I Learn About Adtech?

We’ve gathered some of the best resources to demystify the intricate landscape of the ad-tech industry.

Xandr Industry Reference

For professionals, the Xandr Industry Reference is an invaluable resource bridging the gap between industry insiders and everyone else. This wiki functions like a translation guide for professionals, providing clear, concise coverage of the fundamentals of ad tech. It also offers those new to the industry an opportunity to obtain a firm grip on the basics and is easily searchable for those still on the learning curve.

Keep this resource handy for the next time you need to succinctly explain a specialized ad-tech term to the uninitiated.

AdExchanger

In an industry that’s constantly innovating, the best way to continue learning is to stay informed. AdExchanger is one of the top sites to follow if you want to stay up-to-date with current trends and the goings-on in the advertising industry.

But AdExchanger offers more than just news coverage. They have an expansive event resources section that covers selected sessions from their recent events and a series of email newsletters for every digital marketing niche (we particularly like their “Data-Driven Thinking” and The “Sell Sider” Publisher Newsletters). Additionally, AdExchanger produces two podcasts: The Big Story, a weekly roundtable discussion on the week’s top news stories; and AdExchanger Talks, a series of weekly interviews with industry leaders.

For the socially inclined, AdExchanger maintains a Twitter directory of industry insiders, allowing you to take part in the ongoing ad tech conversation when you’re on-the-go (or bored after lunch).

Digiday

Digiday provides news coverage and content relevant to the media and marketing industries with candor and wit. Their WTF series provides excellent coverage of a variety of complex topics facing the industry, and the corresponding subseries, such as WTF Programmatic, offer in-depth explanations aimed at clarifying industry argot for both newbies and professionals.

But wait, there’s more! Digiday also produces two podcasts: the Digiday Podcast, a weekly show where they discuss the big stories and issues around the transition to the digital age; and Making Marketing, where marketing leaders are asked about the big ideas that inform their business decisions today.

AdAge

AdAge is another great site for news and industry updates. But beyond their excellent journalism, they also provide a number of resources for insiders to stay informed.

An extensive resource section featuring well-designed white papers, webcasts, and research reports? Check.

A podcast featuring interviews with the biggest names in media and marketing? Yep, they’ve got that.

A super cute video series explaining complex ad tech concepts in ways so simple an eight-year-old could get it? Yeah, they even have that.

Keep AdAge in mind as a resource that’s both educational and entertaining.

IAB

IAB is a well-known trade association that guides the online advertising industry with standards and best practices. It’s probably not shocking to learn that the largest driver of research in the digital marketing industry has a vast amount of educational material available for public consumption.

Take a look at their research page for just that, plus white papers and case studies. Their learning section features news, educational articles, certifications, and comprehensive webinars.

Ad Ops Insider Blog

The Ad Ops Insider blog is, unsurprisingly, written by an ad ops insider. Ben Kneen has been working on the publisher side of the ad ops industry since 2006 and created his blog specifically to educate budding professionals.

From Ad Ops 101 to more advanced topics such as header bidding and ads.txt, Ad Ops Insider provides clear, comprehensive guides to the latest industry innovations. Check out Ad Ops Insider for great content written by a professional with professionals in mind.

reddit & Quora

Still not finding the info you need? Have a very specific question you want answered by an industry professional? When all else fails, crowdsource it.

The r/AdOps subreddit is a place for ad ops professionals to share their knowledge and experience.

Quora topic pages are another great way to link up with industry professionals. Search through previously asked questions or pose your own. Here are some relevant topic pages to get you started:

Ad Operations
Ad Network and Ad Serving Technology
Supply Side Platform (SSP) and Demand Side Platform (DSP)

Video Series

Need an excuse to have YouTube open on your work computer (just kidding, time theft is serious business)? Check out these videos for informative content presented in a fun, visually appealing way.

LiveIntent videos are entertaining and well-produced looks at ad-tech topics combining good
info with wink-y pop culture references. Plus they’re short, so they’re great to binge-watch.

Jellyfish Agency’s Digital Marketing Insights offers a series of engaging videos offering a look into the strategies and technologies they’ve utilized to become a top digital marketing agency.

Digital Marketing Institute’s Google Hangout Series is another engaging conversational series focused mostly on providing educational webinars.

Both this series and the Digital Marketing Insights series highlighted above speak mainly to issues topical to buy-side professionals, but publishers can also benefit from a comprehensive understanding of the world of digital advertising.

Podcasts

Need to take a break from your screen but still desperate for ad-tech info? Give your eyes a rest and take in some of these aural offerings.

NYC Media Lab Podcast facilitates conversations between university students and industry professionals that address issues facing digital media from across a range of perspectives.

Programmatic Untangled is a podcast that provides an extremely in-depth look at how programmatic works and why it has become one of the hottest topics in ad tech.

What Happens in Adops, the eponymous podcast of the popular blog, delves deep into the tech part of ad tech to educate and entertain with wry humor.

There’s a multitude of great blogs, websites, and other informative content available on the internet.

10 AdTech Technology Trends That You Need to Know

AdTech continues to improve and evolve along with digital marketing strategies. Trends to keep an eye out for in this area include the following.

1. The Move Towards Consolidation

Advertising Technology continues to expand and grow, reaching into new territories and platforms. This attracts more attention, especially from larger corporations.

A trend shows that larger AdTech corporations are moving towards consolidation of companies within respective niches. This is a way for them to not only strengthen but also scale the level of options they can offer.

Soon publishers and advertisers may be able to go to one or two of these platforms to fulfill many if not all of their digital advertising campaign needs.

2. Niche Product Offerings

While larger corporations will dominate the AdTech market, smaller startups will arrive on the scene and cater to more niche product offerings.

Options beyond Facebook and Google may soon be available as a result, reaching consumers by way of native advertising options and various new platforms and apps.

3. Increasing Transparency

Components of the AdTech supply chain are expected to become more transparent to publishers, advertisers, and the end-users alike.

Publishers will be pushed to disclose their methods of consumer data collection and how it is analyzed or used.

4. Mobile Growth

The popularity and use of mobile devices for researching and consuming information continue to rise. 

With the important characteristics of portability and convenience, mobile devices are always on hand and a huge opportunity for increasing digital ad revenue.

As a result, AdTech is adapting and targeting in on ways to advertise better on these popular mobile devices.

5. New Ad Channels

Reaching consumers means staying informed of various ad channels becoming available, such as Smart TVs and OTT (over-the-top) platforms like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.

These OTT media services are offered to consumers directly over the internet, eliminating the need for the more traditional cable or satellite tv platforms, once the controllers of ad buying.

Expansion of AdTech options for these new ad channels will increase in the years ahead. 

Other ad channels on the radar of AdTech companies include DOOH (digital out-of-home) and DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands.

6. Storytelling Through Ads

Advertisers, through their ads, will begin telling more compelling stories to reach their audience, leading to more meaningful customer interactions with their brand.

While designs, colors, and aesthetics may first draw the eyes of consumers, it’s the message and story surrounding it that needs to emotionally connect with consumers to make ads more efficient and effective.

This storytelling may be accomplished through emphatic marketing methods and possibly even immersive experiences such as Augmented and Virtual Reality.

7. Offering More Self-Service Options

A new trend in Advertising Technology is the introduction and adoption of newer technologies to increase self-service options.

Advertisers will have more control over their time and choices by working through these self-service options and managing advertising campaigns from them as well.

8. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Aided AdTech

As programmatic advertising continues to grow in importance, the overall process will move toward utilizing automated AI technology.

With AI, the ad purchasing process can be automated, allowing advertisers to target intended audiences.

Automation measures will continue to grow in popularity, and the use of AI will be able to make adjustments in real-time across various channels and platforms.

9. Automation Header Bidding

Header bidding, an automated auction technology, facilitates publishers’ receipt of bids from numerous advertisers at the same time.

This process showcases the level of demand and can lead to reasonable base prices for advertisers, making it a popular option for growth.

10. MAdTech

MAdTech is the convergence of marketing technology (MarTech) and advertising technology (AdTech) and is one trend to be on a special lookout for in the years ahead.

Both technologies utilize customer data and can work together.

Analyzing MarTech customer insights can lead to better ways of identifying and purchasing digital ads through AdTech, making them a powerful combination for digital marketing strategies.

Why do you Want to Work in Adtech?

Let’s now look into the three main reasons and benefits  for pursuing a career in this industry:‍

The Ad Tech Industry has Vast Potential

There is tremendous growth potential for Adtech jobs with the increased spending in advertising. With more and more companies and startup jobs cropping up every year and rapid innovation, employees are not only awarded competitive salaries but also get the chance for upward mobility and future investment in the ad tech company.

Ad Tech Jobs are Diverse and Multi-faceted

With a career in this industry, employees can wear many hats – from exercising their creative muscles to developing communication skills, dipping their toes in technological advancements and being a part of operations, sales and online marketing.

Ad Tech Jobs Focus on a People-Centric Future

With cookies on their way out, the industry is moving toward a more privacy-forward future. Instead of relying on behavioral tracking, ad tech companies are looking into alternative methods such as contextual targeting, first-party data and joint data platforms to reach people online. From now on, people, not their behavior, come first. 

As the advertising and marketing industry encompasses many different online platforms and technologies to bring campaigns to life, job candidates can also consider positions in the technology and operational side of the business.

Here are a few skills to keep in mind:

• Software Development
• Software Engineering
• Ad Operations
• Data Science
• Data Privacy
• Business Development

Here are the different types of roles that you can apply for:‍

Software Engineer

Software engineers focus on applying the principles of engineering to software development. This role includes analyzing and modifying existing software as well as designing, constructing and testing campaigns via software programming languages to execute all marketing and advertising functions.‍

Data Scientist

A data scientist mines large amounts of data to develop hypotheses, make inferences and analyze customer and market trends. Basic responsibilities include gathering and analyzing data, using various types of analytics and reporting tools to detect patterns, trends and relationships in data sets.‍

Account Executive

An account executive works in many fields and helps companies grow by finding leads and closing sales deals with existing clients or new prospects. They also act as intermediaries between other departments within an organization to ensure the success of their clients.‍

Human Resources Rep

A human resources rep is responsible for all things people-related. That includes recruiting, vetting, selecting, hiring, onboarding, training, promoting, paying and off-boarding.‍

Product Manager

A product manager is a professional role that is responsible for the development of products for an organization, known as the practice of product management. Product managers own the product strategy, specify its functional requirements and manage feature releases.

Read Also: How Machine Learning Can Improve Real-time Bidding in Digital Marketing

These are some of the diverse roles available at an ad tech company. Now, we are going to look more closely at GumGum as an advertising technology company, its mission, business solutions and career opportunities.

Who are Publishers in Adtech?

Publishers are the owners, “suppliers”, or “sellers” of digital ad space online.

They’re referred to as the “first-party” in digital advertising because they have direct ownership over the ad space that they sell to the advertisers they work with.

Some examples of different types of digital publishers include:

• Website owners
• Blog owners
• Podcast productions
• Video content creators (YouTube, etc.)
• Mobile apps/games
• Software platforms

The unifying factor between all of these diverse publisher mediums is that various types of ads can be placed within them – meaning that these channels create available ad space.

Some examples of large ad publishers you may be familiar with include:

• The New York Times
• Time Magazine
• Microsoft
• The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast
• Steam
• ASUS
• Costco

It’s important to understand that “ad space” isn’t restricted to things that ad blockers target in web browsers – like display boxes and banners located on websites, or video ads that appear in videos.

Anywhere that’s capable of promoting a product or service is considered “ad space”.

For example, millions of players log into Steam’s gaming service each day using Steam’s desktop application – which manages and launches a user’s library of owned games.

Steam promotes games from different developers within their launcher – which effectively serves as “unblockable” premium ad space for developers to promote the games they make.

Publishers are referred to as such for a few reasons:

• In a broad sense, the creators of content online (commonly referred to as “content creators” or “content publishers”) are “publishing” their creations when they share them with the web. Similar to how multiple copies of the same “published” magazine issue might be distributed, once a publisher “publishes” their content, multiple “copies” of that content are made available to people who engage with it.
• From an ad tech perspective, owners of ad space are sometimes referred to as “ad publishers”. This is because a single “issue” of an ad is being “published” and distributed multiple times to various users that view them online.

What is Adtech Ecosystem?

The ad tech ecosystem consists of Advertisers, demand-side platforms, ad exchanges, ad networks, supply-side platforms, and publishers.

Publishers make their impressions and ad space available through supply-side platforms and ad networks at ad exchanges. Demand-side platforms bid on those ads through real-time bidding, selecting the most relevant ad types and placements for the target audience. Thanks to Adtech, this supply-demand loop takes place in seconds, in the time that takes a page to load.