July 2015 – At the Silicon Valley Innovation Summit presented by Always On, there was a panel discussion on the directions for ad tech vs marketing tech. This panel followed a keynote presentation by Smaato on their mobile ad micro auction site and service. The stakes are high for the monitization model as the content consumption marketplace shifts from the theater and home TV locations to also being on the mobile platforms.
Currently the ad technology is focusing on the placement of banner ads and in application ads based on views. However the ads are still just being based on placement and not effectiveness of the ad views. As a result, there is a great deal of fraud and fast buck applications on the marketplace that promise views and high volume analytics results. Most of these are not verifiable nor are the ads context aware.
Marketing tech on the other hand is focusing on the content and is very native ad and branding based content. The marketing tech is using machine learning to bring education on the product rather than just exposure. As a result, the context and the content are driving the automation for the marketing tech more than simple placement. The combined marketing tech and ad tech industries are slated to hit $17B by 2017. In 2015 the estimated global ad industry (TV, Radio, print) is on the order of $559B including the digital media advertising and marketing tech.