AdTech (Advertising Technologies): A Breakdown
AdTech aka Advertising Technologies
As you’re journeying through the marketing world, your marketing team, or a marketing team you’re considering using, may mention some unfamiliar terminology. One of those terms might be AdTech, also known as advertising technologies. AdTech plays a big role in today’s advertising and marketing strategies, and if it has been proposed to you, it should be strongly considered. Keep reading to learn more about AdTech, the benefits of advertising technologies, and a breakdown of the major ones you will learn to love.
What is AdTech?
According to AmazonAds, advertising technology,. also known as adtech, is an overarching term that describes the tools and software advertisers use to reach audiences, and deliver and measure digital advertising campaigns. As buying and selling digital ads became more complex, adtech emerged to streamline the process. Common AdTech tools, such as demand-side platforms, are technologies that enable advertisers to buy impressions and select audiences across many publisher sites. Now, adtech enables advertisers and agencies to manage integrated campaigns effectively. It also allows brands to make the best use of their budget and help maximize their return on investment (ROI) in digital advertising. Ultimately, the AdTech landscape allows advertisers to strategically plan and optimize their advertising campaigns.
In addition, 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.
Benefits of AdTech and Why It Is Important
As the technology surrounding advertising and digital campaigns becomes smarter and smarter, the marketing world has to adjust. As machines are able to gather more and more data and process larger and larger amounts of information, a great deal of benefits comes along with that. Let’s break down all of the benefits of AdTech and why it is so important for not only you and your bottom line but for your marketing team to be more effective.
Your Budget Goes Farther
Advertising technologies do a lot of the leg work, including getting the right content out at the right time to the right audience. Usually, a marketing team will have to do a lot of research and testing to gather this sort of information. With sophisticated AdTech, this is not the case and is already done automatically as machines get smarter and smarter.
By taking out all of the guesswork and research out of the equation for your marketing team, you will be able to invest more, and your marketing budget will go much farther than it normally would. It also means better results quicker.
Your Marketing Team is More Efficient
Now that a lot of your marketing team’s research and testing time has been freed up thanks to AdTech, they can focus on the bigger picture items and help you reach your goals quicker. Your marketing team is able to work more efficiently and deliver great results to you much faster.
Before AdTech, or if you’re still using traditional methods of advertising, it could take months of research and testing before finally finding the sweet spot of results. Now that results can be achieved in a fraction of the time, your marketing team is able to do more and grow your business better.
A Clearer Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel is the different stages where someone from your target audience lays in their shopping (or final decision) journey. A marketing funnel has four stages:
- Awareness. This is the stage where you introduce yourself to a brand new person. They have never heard of you before and are likely seeing your name and ad for the first time.
2. Interest. As the name suggests, the individual has now taken on interest and either subscribed to your mailing list, followed you on social media, or filled out some type of form.
3. Desire. Interest has grown, and they are now clicking on your ads, engaging on social media, browsing your website, attending your webinars, using your free materials, and much more.
4. Action. This is the final, coveted step: An action to buy is taken, and they are now a customer.
With AdTech, you now have access to exclusive insights to more easily refine how to reach audiences at different stages in the funnel.
AI & Machine Learning in Advertising
According to IBM, machine learning leverages historical data and identifies patterns without the help of human interaction. Essentially any task that utilizes information or requires a set of rules can be streamlined through machine learning technology. Companies can save time and money by automating processes that previously would need human intervention. Employees then have time to solve more complex business problems, leading to more profits and less time on tasks that are time-consuming and mundane.
Octopus Ad Network
Used in taxi cabs, Lyfts, and other varieties of rideshares, Octopus is a new ad network that is really taking off and shouldn’t be ignored. According to DigiDay, Octopus places screens inside vehicles for Uber and Lyft to let riders decide if they want to play a game to win cash, which also means watching a 15- or 30-second ad. The startup, which launched in 2018, isn’t the first of its kind, but it’s been able to impress some brands like Red Bull and agencies like Omnicom.
DigiDay continues, Octopus’ current audience is about 2 million unique passengers per month, said Octopus co-founder and CEO Cherian Thomas. The passenger demographics are 32 years old, 48% female, and 52% male with a Bachelor’s degree or higher, on average, per the pitch deck reviewed by Digiday.
Octopus charges on cost per impression, where CPMs range from $15 to $30, depending on the extent of the deal. For example, buyers can purchase a 100% share of voice for a particular area of the city and choose specific cities.
OTT (Other The Top)
According to Adjust, OTT stands for “Over The Top” and refers to any streaming service that delivers content over the internet. The service is delivered “over the top” of another platform, hence the moniker. Because OTT is a relatively new phenomenon, there is a huge amount of growth potential. Lots of companies are entering the OTT space, leading to a wide variety of options for consumers and increasing quantities of ad inventory for marketers. As more people cut the cord and move towards online-only media consumption, the way to reach these consumers will increasingly be via OTT services. How marketers can take advantage of these platforms remains widely, to be seen.
Services like Netflix, Hulu or Disney+HotStar are video OTT services that provide users with a number of programming options, both in terms of a licensed library of TV shows and films, as well as original programming.
CTV (Connected TV)
CTV stands for “connected TV” and is any television set used to stream video over the internet. These are most often videos that are streamed via apps that are downloaded. Devices that are classified as CTV devices are:
- Smart TV – a TV with a built-in internet connection and media platform. This means no additional equipment is needed to stream videos on the TV.
- Connected Device – referred to as an OTT device, these are devices that plug directly into your TV and are connected to the internet, which enables apps and video streaming to be used on the television regardless if the TV itself is a smart TV. Examples include Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, Roku, and Chromecast.
- Gaming Consoles – Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and Playstation are essentially acting as the connected device with their built-in app stores for streaming video content to your television.
The OTT and CTV industry is continuously evolving and growing. With OTT and CTV advertising, you can reach viewers that you wouldn’t be able to reach with traditional linear TV. The rise of OTT & CTV viewership is creating new ways for advertisers to reach their target audience by combining the impactful nature of TV with the precise targeting of digital. With OTT and CTV, advertisers can now target, measure and retarget TV-viewing households, providing an enormous opportunity to reach more users.
Geofencing
We completely broke down Geofencing in another one of our blogs, which you can click here to read. But, basically, if you’re a local business, or your business otherwise takes advantage of regional marketing, you’ve likely heard about geofencing. With the exponential growth of marketing via smartphones over the last few years, marketers are taking advantage of just about everything they can when it comes to our trusty devices—including our locations.
A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. A geo-fence could be dynamically generated (as in a radius around a point location) or match a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighborhood boundaries).
The use of a geofence is called geofencing, and one example of use involves a location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user entering or exiting a geo-fence. This activity could trigger an alert to the device’s user as well as messaging to the geo-fence operator. This info, which could contain the location of the device, could be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account.
Taking Advantage of AdTech with Navazon Digital
At Navazon, we do things differently. Navazon helps businesses increase profits through data-driven marketing that expands opportunities and reduces risk. As marketers and entrepreneurs, we understand the value of developing a memorable brand through creativity and consistency.
This is accomplished through targeted graphics, videos, and websites that reflect our proven, time-tested methodologies and detailed analytics. It is an approach that’s proven effective for companies of all sizes, from start-ups and medium-sized businesses to large firms with an international presence. We are content creators who listen to our clients so that we can formulate ideas and strategies based on your unique goals and philosophies.
Ready to get started and see what AdTech can do for your business? Visit our website and get in contact with us today! Set up your free consultation now at navazondigital.com.
