The ad tech and martech landscapes are complex, changing rapidly, and crucial for marketers to master in our digital world. With over $100 billion forecasted to be spent globally on advertising technology this year according to Statista, understanding these key technologies is critical for driving business growth.
In this comprehensive guide as an industry expert in web scraping and data analytics, I’ll unpack the differences between ad tech and martech, outline top solutions in each space, and provide predictive insights into 2023 trends. Consider this your ultimate resource for leveraging advertising and marketing technology to gain a competitive advantage this coming year and beyond.
Demystifying Ad Tech vs. MarTech
Many marketers use these terms interchangeably, but ad tech and martech serve distinct purposes. Let’s break down the key differences:
Ad Tech
- Optimizes the delivery and performance of individual ads and campaigns
- Focuses on targeting, automation, and analytics at the ad unit level
- Leverages data to buy, place, and measure digital media more efficiently
- Improves results of specific media buys and click-based conversions
MarTech
- Provides solutions for marketing analytics and automation at the brand level
- Encompasses technology to understand customers and optimize broader brand goals
- Includes platforms for driving customer engagement across channels and touchpoints
- Aligns closely with sales and CRM to nurture leads and loyalty
In simple terms, ad tech supercharges campaigns, while martech strengthens brands long-term. But they work together to convert awareness into sales.
Let‘s explore some other key differences:
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| Category | Ad Tech | MarTech |
|---|---|---|
| Main Focus | Ad campaign level | Brand level |
| Billing | Variable based on ad volume | Fixed SaaS pricing |
| Ownership | Agencies or advertisers | Internal marketing teams |
| Main KPIs | Clicks, conversions, ROI | Brand awareness, customer retention |
Clearly these technologies are deeply intertwined, which is why over 65% of organizations have integrated their ad tech and martech stacks according to Regalix. When coordinated properly, they multiply results.
Now let‘s examine the key solutions in each space and how they drive impact.
Top Ad Tech Solutions to Deploy in 2024
Ad tech comprises the nuts and bolts tools that operate behind the scenes to target audiences, automate media buys, verify performance, and optimize every impression.
Here are the core ad tech solutions you should understand:
Data Management Platforms (DMPs)
DMPs aggregate 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party data into one centralized database for advertisers to leverage. By organizing disparate data sources like websites, apps, CRM data, and more into one platform, DMPs allow you to:
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Create targeted audience segments – Combine various data signals to define and target highly-specific groups, like “women ages 20-30 interested in fashion and travel.”
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Connect online + offline data – Identify customers across devices and touchpoints by tying together cookies, mobile ad IDs, email addresses, loyalty accounts, and more in one profile.
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Activate data across campaigns – Share actionable segments with your DSP, social platforms, email service provider, and other execution channels.
This segmentation makes advertising extremely personalized and relevant. Over $22 billion was spent on DMPs last year according to Statista. Major vendors include Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce, and The Trade Desk.
Demand Side Platforms (DSPs)
DSPs automate media buying by leveraging data to algorithmically bid on ad inventory that matches your target audiences and bids. Rather than manually negotiate with individual websites or ad networks, DSPs use software and machine learning to optimize bids across ad exchanges and supply sources.
Key capabilities include:
- Media buying automation – DSPs connect with various ad exchanges and sources to find suitable inventory that matches campaign parameters.
- Behavioral targeting – Integration with DMPs and other data allows targeting specific user types and behaviors vs. just contextual placements.
- Cross-device reach – Cookies and device graphs enable ads to reach customers as they move between devices.
- Real-time optimization – Machine learning constantly adjusts bidding and inventory sources to meet KPIs like cost per click or conversion at the most efficient price.
Programmatic advertising based on DSPs now exceeds $100 billion globally according to eMarketer. Major DSPs include The Trade Desk, Adobe Advertising Cloud, and Google DV360.
Ad Verification and Fraud Protection
As programmatic advertising grows, so does the risk of ad fraud, bots, and invalid traffic. Ad verification tools utilize sophisticated technology to ensure ads are viewed by real people.
Key solutions like Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify, and Pixalate provide:
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Viewability measurement – Determine if an ad appeared on screen using technologies like computer vision. Industry standard is 50% in view for 1+ second.
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Invalid traffic detection – Identify and filter out impressions from bots, infected devices, and other fraudulent sources.
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Brand safety – Ensure ads don‘t appear next to harmful or objectionable content via content analysis.
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Multi-platform measurement – Provide comparable analytics across display, video, mobile, social media, and more.
Invalid traffic costs digital advertisers over $35 billion a year according to ANA. So ad verification is a must-have.
Leading MarTech Solutions for 2024
Now let’s explore the vital marketing technologies that operate above the ad campaign layer to fuel customer engagement, branding, and loyalty across every channel.
Social Media Management Platforms
Over 4.62 billion people now use social media worldwide according to Statista. Platforms like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Sprinklr allow brands to:
- Publish content across multiple networks from one tool
- Schedule and queue 100s of posts in advance
- Track performance and listen for brand mentions
- Manage influencer partnerships
- Run both organic and paid social ad campaigns
- Conduct social listening with natural language processing
With social increasingly driving both awareness and conversions, having a unified management strategy is a must.
Web Analytics Platforms
Understanding exactly how people interact with your website provides incredible insight into your customer journey and conversion funnels. Solutions like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and Mixpanel can track every aspect of user behavior on your site or app, including:
- Pages visited
- Time on site
- Clicks and taps
- Scrolling depth
- Form submissions
- Transactions
- And much more
Advanced platforms also provide heatmaps to visualize clicks, A/B testing, and plug into broader suites like CRM and email marketing platforms. With over 4 billion internet users worldwide, optimizing your digital touchpoints is more important than ever.
SEO Tools
SEO never sleeps, as Google processes over 40,000 searches per second according to Internet Live Stats. So ranking high in organic results is critical for brands to get discovered and drive qualified traffic.
Dedicated SEO tools like Moz, SEMRush, and Ahrefs provide:
- SEO audits to identify issues impacting rankings
- Keyword research to optimize content
- Backlink analysis to improve authority
- Page speed tests and technical fixes
- Local SEO optimization
- Rank tracking and site crawler alerts
By constantly honing your SEO strategy, you can exponentially grow your visibility and organic website traffic.
Brand Protection Services
As brands expand online, monitoring for trademark infringement, fake social accounts, competitive threats, and other reputation risks becomes crucial.
Vendors like MarkMonitor and BrandVerity use advanced AI to continuously scan across domains like:
- Websites
- Social networks
- Mobile apps
- Domain registrations
- Ecommerce platforms
- Review sites
By detecting brand abuse early, companies can minimize damages and take action to protect brand integrity. This is especially important on marketplaces like Amazon.
CRM Software
Customer relationship management platforms like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho are the central databases that sales, marketing, and service teams use to store prospect and customer data to track pipeline and nurture relationships long-term.
Key capabilities include:
- Contact management
- Lead scoring and routing
- Workflow automation
- Email marketing
- Reporting and forecasting
And with browser changes like the cookie apocalypse impacting digital advertising, leveraging 1st party CRM data for personalization will only grow more important over time.
Key MarTech and AdTech Trends for 2024
The ad tech and martech landscapes continue advancing at a dizzying pace. Based on my industry experience and research, here are a few key trends to watch for 2024:
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The rise of new data privacy regulations will force advertisers to rely more heavily on contextual targeting and 1st party data vs. 3rd party cookies. Solutions for managing consent and "privacy-safe" data will be key.
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Streaming and CTV advertising will surge even higher as more consumers shift to ad-supported connected TV and digital video services. Ad tech platforms are rapidly evolving to meet this demand.
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The adaptation of artificial intelligence and machine learning will accelerate in both ad tech for media optimization and martech for data-driven customer insights.
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Omnichannel personalization and journey orchestration will become more pivotal, requiring brands to seamlessly coordinate messaging across platforms with the help of customer data platforms (CDPs) and journey analytics.
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Walled gardens like Google, Facebook, and Amazon will maintain their dominance in digital advertising and shopping. But alternatives to their proprietary platforms will also proliferate.
The bottom line is that ad tech and martech innovation moves fast, so brands must continually evaluate emerging solutions to remain competitive. Mastering these technologies is impossible without also mastering customer data.
Key Takeaways and Recommendations
Here are the big lessons to remember about ad tech vs. martech as we enter 2023:
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Ad tech focuses on optimizing actual ad performance and conversions at the micro campaign level.
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Martech focuses on driving customer engagement, branding, and loyalty at the macro brand level.
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Top ad tech solutions include DMPs, DSPs, and ad verification while top martech includes web analytics, social management, SEO, CRM, and more.
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Ad tech and martech integration is key to coordinate messaging across the customer journey to accelerate sales.
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New innovations, regulations, and consumer behaviors require brands to constantly evaluate their ad tech and martech stacks.
My recommendation for brands looking to maximize their capabilities in 2024 is to partner with an unbiased web scraping and data analytics expert like myself. With over 10 years in the field extracting data, I have the experience to help you:
- Audit your current tech stack and identify gaps or redundancies.
- Assess infrastructure needs and integrations to unify data.
- Build custom scrapers to unlock data from websites, apps, or competitive sources.
- Continuously harvest first-party data across platforms to inform your strategies.
Feel free to reach out to discuss your needs. In this complex martech and adtech environment, leveraging outside expertise can provide a major competitive advantage. I look forward to helping drive your marketing technology strategy in the year ahead!
