Ad tech (also sometimes spelled as adtech) is an umbrella term that stands for advertising technology. Ad tech includes all kinds of tools and software platforms that advertisers utilize to deliver their ads to potential customers.

Today’s ad tech industry is a lot more different from what it was a dozen and even a couple of years ago. While for 20th-century marketers it was enough to make an arrangement between an advertiser and a publisher, nowadays the situation has changed and the way businesses interact with customers is drastically different. The most significant change occurred at the dawn of digital advertising evolution when the first advertising technology was introduced.

The advances in marketing that we have witnessed in recent years are largely the result of the strong influence of technology. Businesses need to adapt to the big changes that have taken place, such as the ever-faster data transfer that enables video advertising, artificial intelligence and data science that has the ability to process large amounts of market and consumer data, devices like Amazon’s Alexa that introduces voice technology and virtual reality devices that allow the user to immerse themselves in an advert.

Classic marketing agencies now have to face the question of whether they are prepared for a market that no longer values ​​creativity in the first place, but depends heavily on technology and databases. Such a development of marketing culture brings with it consequences for the human factor, which is becoming increasingly interchangeable with computer programs.

McKinsey has published research that nevertheless gives an optimistic view of the future of technology marketing. The basic premise is quite clear – computer programs can process much more data than the human brain and can do it much faster and more accurately, but man is the one who will create algorithms for such a program, test it and give a creative input. The most successful marketing agencies today rely on a combination of both.

Another big change is the one in consumer culture. Users are no longer tied to one favourite platform, but constantly reach for those that offer faster and simpler solutions, and in the case of marketing, more creative. It is therefore imperative that brands and agencies adapt quickly to shifting consumer attention from one technology to another. In this sense, those involved in marketing should make sure to offer the user an interesting solution and thus keep his attention in their domain.