Digital Advertising and Ad-Tech

The advent of digital media has opened a new era of advertising. No longer is advertising restricted to print publications, static billboards, radio, and television. Marketers can now reach customers through digital media, such as internet, mobile, tablets etc. In fact, a study by Media Dynamics observed that a typical adult’s digital media consumption in US has grown by 40% to 9.8 hours in 2014 since 1985. In addition, the ad formats have also evolved from simple text to various other formats, such as video, multiple images, and interactive. Worldwide, the Internet’s share of that pie is exploding, with $145 billion (~27%) of that going to digital advertising and $42.6 billion (~8%) going to mobile Internet advertising, according to eMarketer. Some estimates also peg digital advertising spend to grow at 16% yoy.

The multiplicity of digital channels, types of ad formats and the continuous pressure to deliver customized ad experience across these channels has resulted in development and advancement of ad technology. Ad technology refers to a wide range of technologies that seek to automate the buying, placement, and optimization of advertising. These combine rich advertisements with the ability to resonate with the right audience, using the right ads, in the right places along with making ad buying less expensive and simply more efficient. As expected, the advertising technology market has also been growing significantly over the past few years and is currently pegged at $15B market size, with an overall growth rate of 17% yoy (mediapost, 2014).