Constructing the Ad Tech Ecosystem: What You Need to Know

Today, organizations can reach their target customers in new ways. The average user spends over 6.5 hours on the internet every day, using a variety of websites and social media platforms. Digital marketing allows organizations to engage prospective customers across these channels. In fact, businesses can interact with them, learn about their pain points, and show them why their organization can help.

Businesses can utilize different tools and techniques to capture the attention of their prospective buyers. However, these tools are rapidly evolving, making it important to stay informed about these changes.

For example, powerful automation empowers organizations to identify particular triggers that can guide the sending of an email or a similar touch point to a prospective customer. Meanwhile, multichannel campaigns and high-powered analytics can provide businesses more information about their customers, allowing them to create more tailored campaigns.

Modern digital marketers—interested in excelling within this complex ecosystem—need to have a comprehensive understanding of the intricate advertising technology (ad tech) world. This will allow them to find their audiences online in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Our guide will help organizations understand this critical modern system and the most important components that influence marketing efforts.

Understanding ad tech: Innovative marketing methods

Ad tech consists of the various tools available to businesses as they design their marketing campaigns and the technology involved in getting those ads in front of customers. These tools allow organizations to create targeted ad campaigns that reach their intended audiences effectively. To efficiently use the wide range of tools available, marketers should understand how the ecosystem of agencies and technologies fits together.

Marketing has changed considerably. In the past, single publishers or channels negotiated media buys with brands and agencies. It’s become significantly more complex, with businesses requiring an understanding of complicated dynamics between different aspects of the ad tech system.

Overall, you have two main sides to the ad tech system. On one side is the advertiser, who creates the demand. Advertisers want to efficiently use their budget to bring traffic and attention to their ads and websites, building a strong return on investment (ROI) and increasing revenue.

On the other side, you’ll find the publisher who generates their revenue by publishing the ads on websites where visitors are likely to click. The professionals on this side work to increase ad impressions and engagement for their advertisers while collecting data so that the two sides can work together.

The ad tech ecosystem: Major players and platforms

To better understand how the Ad tech system works, we’ll break down the major components and explore how they interact with each other. This will help you better understand how to manage your ads, grow your ROI, and build your revenue through the wealth of opportunities that digital marketing offers.

Media agencies

Media agencies serve as the middlemen between the brand that wants to buy ad space for their promotions and the publisher who posts and promotes their ad. They help businesses buy ad space and guide them toward different publications that might be a good fit for their advertising.

Note that this role differs from an ad agency or ad designer. An ad professional helps design the ads. For example, suppose you need to create an ad to promote a particular service or landing page. In that case, you can find independent ad professionals on Upwork and review their portfolios to find the right fit.

With a media agency, you take the ad campaign designed by the ad professional that you want to be promoted. They’ll help you use your resources wisely and secure the spots you need to help your business attract attention.

Agency trading desks

An agency trading desk applies to media agencies, and is the list of services that the media agency provides to businesses, such as:

• Planning and buying the space needed for a particular campaign
• Managing ad campaigns
• Running programmatic services
• Optimizing and strategizing the use of the ads

Often, when media agencies have various clients, they can negotiate better prices with the publishers for ad spaces. This allows the media agency and their trading desks to offer better prices and deals for businesses, handling the stress of purchasing ad space, which works well for many organizations.

Demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs)

Demand-side platforms (DSPs) and supply-side platforms (SSPs) manage and control the buying and selling of ads.

DSPs operate on the advertisers’ side. They function as third parties, meaning the publishers do not run them. Instead, they help businesses track the ad spaces available across multiple platforms. They also work with several types of ads, including video, mobile, and those on search results pages. With the DSP, those who want to purchase ad space can do so in real time.

The SSP functions largely as the mirror to the demand-side platform. However, instead of existing for the advertisers, SSPs are for the publishers. They allow publishers to list the ad spaces they have available. They also communicate valuable information about the impressions and spaces available, which help advertisers and their demand-side platforms increase or decrease their ad bids for a given space, depending on the value.

Data management platforms (DMP)

The amount of data that businesses and websites collect on customers continues to grow. Thanks to big data, algorithms and marketers are becoming increasingly adept at uncovering trends and consumer information that can be used to better identify prospects and leads.

The data management platform (DMP) helps to bring information together from various sources, including different websites where ads are hosted. That data is then used to better understand what customers want to see and the type of customer that a particular business should target.

Some business professionals may find it overwhelming to try to interpret the wealth of data available through DMPs. However, with platforms like Upwork, they can find a variety of qualified, independent advertising professionals who can use the data to design promotions, plan campaigns, and help brands get the most out of their advertising strategy.

Ad networks

Ad networks bring together any unsold ad spaces that publishers have and offer them to advertisers. They’ll often work with several publishers, creating a portfolio of ad options that advertisers can select.

Successful marketers will bring their target customer insight into the ad network and make strategic buying decisions based on the ads most likely to help them reach their audiences.

Ad exchanges

An ad exchange is a marketplace where the buying and selling of ads occur. On an ad exchange, buying and selling occur in real time, with the prices of the ads determined by the demand for the ad space at that particular moment.

Many advertisers and publishers will connect their DPSs and SSPs with the ad exchange. They can then use their platform to participate in real-time bidding on their desired ad slots.

Ad tech expertise, accessible on demand

Ad tech has certainly become more intricate than during the era of pre-digital marketing, but it also empowers businesses to get more in depth to understand customers, know where to find them, and display ads that truly resonate with them.

If you’re ready to begin developing digital advertising campaigns and want to work with independent professionals who can manage the ad tech ecosystem, Upwork has the resources you need. Tap into a global talent pool, explore portfolios and reviews of previous work, and find the team members who can help your advertising excel.