AdTech: What is it? Main Tools

Nowadays, advertising technologies (AdTech) play a key role in the automation and optimization of advertising campaigns. They allow brands to effectively interact with the audience, analyze data, and set up personalized ads. But what is AdTech and what tools are included in this ecosystem? In this article, we will analyze what AdTech tools are, what technologies are used in digital advertising, and how they help businesses achieve their marketing goals.

What Is AdTech?

Ad Tech is a set of digital tools and platforms that are used to create, distribute, analyze, and manage (optimize) online advertising campaigns. They allow advertisers to effectively and accurately deliver their messages to the target audience, optimize costs, and maximize the return on marketing investments. Ad Tech includes a wide range of tools that are used at all stages of an advertising campaign - from searching and selecting an audience to analyzing the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

The main principle of AdTech is to automate and improve the process of buying and selling advertising space on the Internet. If previously companies spent a huge amount of time and resources on planning and placing advertising, now the process has become much simpler and more efficient, since ads are automatically shown to the selected audience on the right sites.

What Is The Purpose of Advertising Technologies?

AdTech solves the following problems:

• precise audience targeting (Ad Tech allows advertisers to show ads to the desired segments of the target audience, which increases conversion);
• automation of advertising processes (using technology, you can optimize advertising campaigns, for example, by automatically changing the rate per click to reduce costs);
• analysis and measurement of effectiveness (Ad Tech tools help to most accurately track how advertising works and which channels are most effective in order to get maximum conversion at minimum costs);
• personalization of messages (Ad Tech allows you to conduct an in-depth analysis of the target audience and adapt creative content to the interests of a specific segment);
• management of large-scale campaigns (advertising technologies allow you to set up thousands of ads on different platforms simultaneously);
• improving user experience (thanks to more accurate targeting and personalization, advertising becomes less intrusive and more relevant to users);
• quick launch of advertising campaigns (AdTech technologies allow you to put advertising materials up for auction in a split second, which reduces the time it takes to launch an advertising campaign significantly).

AdTech Tools

Let's look at the main AdTech tools:

SSP platforms

SSP (Supply-Side Platform) are platforms used by media platform owners, such as websites, channels, or applications, to sell their advertising space. They help increase advertising revenue and quickly find platforms for placement with the desired audience.

How SSP platforms work:

Platform owners upload their advertising space to the platform, and specify the minimum price, audience, reach, and other parameters. The SSP puts these spaces up for sale through other platforms, where advertisers bid on displaying their ads.

DSP platforms

DSP (Demand-Side Platform) are platforms that allow advertisers to automate the process of purchasing advertising space on various websites and applications. The main task of such platforms is to facilitate and optimize the process of placing creatives, easily find channels with the desired audience, and so on.

How DSP platforms work:

Advertisers upload their campaign descriptions to the platform, specifying the parameters of the target audience, budget, ad types, and other settings. The DSP analyzes available ad spaces and offers those that match the parameters. An auction system is usually used to determine the cost.

DMP platforms

DMP (Data Management Platform) is an AdTech platform for collecting, storing, and analyzing user data. They help advertisers and media platforms better understand their audience and more accurately customize ad impressions to interested consumers. In this way, website owners monetize information, and companies receive materials to improve the effectiveness of their advertising.

How DMP platforms work:

DMP platforms collect data from various sources, such as cookies, mobile identifiers, and CRM, and combine them into a single database of information on demographic parameters, interests, user behavior on the network, etc. These materials are used for more detailed audience segmentation and targeting of advertising campaigns, due to which ads bring high conversion and pay off faster.

Ad Exchanges

Ad Exchanges are platforms that connect DSPs and SSPs. They provide venues for the automatic exchange of ad spaces between advertisers and media owners, where ad spaces are bought and sold in real time.

How Ad Exchange works:

Ad Exchange collects offers from SSPs and requests from DSPs, compares them, and holds an auction, where the bid that best matches the advertiser's request and the media owner's offer wins. The exchange allows both parties to receive the most favorable conditions, including the best price with high efficiency.

Advertising Networks (Ad Networks)

Ad Networks are platforms that combine advertising offers from different sites and applications into one common interface and then offer it to advertisers for purchase. In AdTech advertising, they act as intermediaries between brands and media platform owners and simplify the process of placing creatives.

How advertising networks work:

Sites enter into an agreement with advertising networks, indicating places on pages where they are ready to place banners. Algorithms analyze resources and determine coverage, target audience characteristics, user behavior, and other parameters. Brands that want to place an advertisement indicate the criteria of the sites that are important to them - after that, places that meet the requirements are automatically selected on them.

Advertising Server (Ad Server)

Ad Server is software that manages the storage, delivery, and targeting of advertisements on different platforms, such as sites, mobile applications, and other digital platforms.

How the ad server works:

The server automatically selects and displays suitable advertising materials to the desired users based on specified parameters, collects data on impressions and interactions with advertising, and generates detailed analytics that can be used to optimize subsequent campaigns.

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AdTech is a complex and dynamically developing area, combining many tools and platforms for effective advertising placement. From DSP and SSP to DMP and AI algorithms, each technology plays its role in increasing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Understanding what AdTech is, and its key tools allows companies to build a data-driven promotion strategy, improve targeting, and achieve high results. If you want to get to know AdTech better or use one or a set of components of its ecosystem, we recommend paying attention to SmartyAds.