What’s adtech? What’s martech? Are they fancy names for the same thing? We’re here to clear up any confusion you may have around adtech and martech since more people are using the terms as time goes on. Every day, we see even marketing specialists using the terms incorrectly. Therefore, we recommend reading on because you may just learn some intricacies between the two.
What’s Martech?
In truth, this is a broad field that contains all technology designed to help with at least one component of the marketing strategy. While some tools help with managing workflows, others help with analytics. Either way, the term covers any piece of technology you implement into the business to make the lives of your marketing team easier (and we’re sure they appreciate the assistance!).
Every year, the martech niche grows; recent years have seen a growth of between 25% and 30%. What does this mean? Thousands of new solutions. While this might seem headache-inducing at first, you just need to find the right tools for your strategy.
Depending on your goals, you might use martech to improve the customer journey and encourage more people to convert. Alternatively, you might use it to organize the marketing team more effectively. Some marketing technology aids the social media planning process with scheduled posts, calendars, collaboration features, and more.
What’s Adtech?
So, what’s the difference between martech and adtech? Essentially, the best way to answer this question is to look at the names. While martech is short for marketing technology, adtech is short for advertising technology. Martech is an umbrella term that covers all tools in the marketing niche, as we’ve seen, but adtech focuses specifically on the advertising process. Generally, adtech is all about programmatic ad buying and selling.
If a tool contributes to the programmatic ad buying and selling process, it falls into the remit of an adtech tool. Some examples of which include:
As a business, the reason you would use adtech is to eliminate wasted spending because it allows you to reach out to the right audience. Finally, the people who need your products and services the most are accessing them. We all know the value of effective ad spending but making the most of your budget isn’t the easiest task.
Differences Between Martech and Adtech
As we’ve seen, the biggest difference between the two is that martech covers all marketing tools while adtech is specifically for the advertising part of the marketing strategy. Your ad campaigns form the foundation for adtech and it gathers impressions, unique users, views, and other data. Over time, you receive insights and find more effective ways to reach your audience (even if this means shifting the audience itself!).
Of course, there’s also the selling side of adtech to consider. In other words, people with ad space to sell on their websites and apps. Without adtech tools, these sellers would find it much harder to sell their inventory.
When you look at martech tools, you’ll notice that the focus is on lead generation, nurturing, customer journeys, and other areas of the marketing strategy. Since martech covers the whole strategy, you will see some advertising tools labeled as martech. All adtech tools are martech tools, but not all martech tools are adtech tools.
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We specialize in connecting professionals with opportunities in Advertising Technology (AdTech) and Marketing Technology (MarTech). These sectors require individuals proficient in leveraging technology to optimize marketing strategies and enhance advertising performance.
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By focusing on these key industries, we ensure that our recruitment process is tailored to meet the specific needs and challenges of each sector. Whether you’re a growing company seeking top talent or a professional looking for the next big opportunity, our services are designed to deliver exceptional results.
The AdTech and MarTech landscapes have evolved significantly over the past decade. What began with ad networks and cookies has now transformed into a complex ecosystem dominated by programmatic buying, Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), Data Management Platforms (DMPs), and Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs). As the landscape changes, so does the need for specialized talent capable of navigating this fast-paced environment.
The recruitment process begins by pinpointing key functional areas that are crucial to the industry's success. This includes:
Understanding the specific skills needed in each of these domains is essential for building effective teams.
Candidates with experience in emerging technologies and platforms are in high demand. Recruiters typically seek out professionals who have demonstrated expertise in:
These skills are critical for leveraging cookie-less identity solutions and other advanced technologies that define modern AdTech and MarTech.
Once potential candidates are sourced, a rigorous screening process follows. This often includes:
To ensure a high-impact team, recruiters look for candidates who not only have the technical acumen but also possess a deep understanding of the industry’s three-letter acronyms and their applications.
Given the rapid pace of innovation, successful recruitment also involves identifying individuals who are committed to continuous learning. Many organizations offer ongoing training programs to help new hires stay ahead of technological advances.
Finally, cultural fit and collaborative abilities are crucial. High-impact teams in AdTech and MarTech thrive on strong interpersonal connections and the ability to work effectively across various departments and functions.
In conclusion, recruiting for high-impact teams in the AdTech and MarTech industries involves a strategic approach that combines an understanding of evolving technologies, targeted skill assessments, and a focus on continuous learning and cultural fit.
Navigating the dynamic AdTech and MarTech landscape demands a diverse array of specialized roles and functional areas. Here are the critical components that make it all work:
These roles and functional areas collectively ensure that the AdTech and MarTech ecosystem remains at the cutting edge of innovation and efficiency. Each plays a pivotal part in driving success and fostering growth within the industry.
At the dawn of AdTech, the industry was dominated by ad networks. These networks acted as intermediaries between advertisers and websites, aggregating inventory from publishers and selling it to advertisers in bulk. This was a groundbreaking approach during its time, as it streamlined the process for both parties.
As technology advanced, so did the needs of advertisers and publishers. Enter the era of Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs). Unlike ad networks, DSPs allow advertisers to buy inventory programmatically in real-time. Instead of bulk purchases, advertisers now target specific audiences with unparalleled precision, leveraging data and algorithms to maximize ROI.
Initially, cookies were the backbone of online advertising. They enabled tracking user behavior and preferences, allowing for personalized ad experiences. However, growing concerns over privacy and data security led to the development of cookie-less identity solutions. These new technologies authenticate users without relying on traditional cookie-based methods, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations while still delivering targeted ads.
Today's AdTech landscape is a complex ecosystem of technologies that prioritize user privacy while delivering effective ad campaigns. As the industry continues to evolve, new innovations will undoubtedly shape the future of digital advertising.
When it comes to hiring top talent, businesses often turn to specialized recruitment services. Two of the most common methods are contingency search and retained search. Understanding the differences between these approaches can help companies choose the right strategy for their hiring needs.
Contingency search is characterized by its performance-based fee structure. Here’s how it works:
Retained search, on the other hand, involves an exclusive, long-term partnership between the recruiter and the hiring company. It has its distinct characteristics:
Choosing the right approach will depend on your specific hiring needs, budget, and the level of the positions you aim to fill.
Our recruitment service specializes in connecting top talent with leading companies across a variety of dynamic industries. These sectors include:
In essence, our recruitment service caters to some of the most rapidly evolving and high-demand sectors, ensuring these companies can focus on what they do best while we supply the human capital they need to thrive.
Example Martech Platforms
We touched on it briefly, but we want to explore some of the most popular martech tools. This includes:
SEO - Despite all the changes and the evolution in the marketing world, SEO still plagues the minds of marketing professionals because it’s still so important. Fortunately, the process doesn’t require as much manual effort as before because of the martech tools in this area.
Marketing Automation - If you’re like most marketers and businesses, you’re finding that you need a 30-hour day if you’re to complete your to-do list. As marketing strategies grow and opportunities are aplenty, it seems impossible to keep up without constantly hiring more staff…this is where automation comes in. Utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence, technology can perform simple tasks that otherwise would have been a burden. You can streamline the marketing process, spend your time on more valuable tasks, and enjoy a healthy ROI.
CRM - Short for customer relationship management, CRM tools manage all data related to your customers. However, this isn’t just a box to place all your data into. Instead, the idea is that CRMs provide insights into your audience whether this is segmentation, demographics, or other information that you can use.
Analytics - Finally, another example is tools that collect and analyze marketing data. Often, these provide insights into the brand, products, and audiences. As you learn, you can improve your website, resonate with your audience more effectively, and generate more clicks throughout the customer journey.
Example Adtech Platforms
You’ve seen about martech platforms, but what can you expect when it comes to adtech?
Supply-Side Platform - Here, publishers sign up and sell any inventory they have on the many ad exchanges available to them. For example, you might have ad space on a website or app that you want to sell to buyers. The very best tools offer automation and various other features to keep the process pain-free. Although publishers can sell ad space with an SSP, they’re generally used because of the simplicity and the insights they can provide into an audience.
Demand-Side Platform - What about the buyers? Demand-side platforms are where buyers purchase ad space through ad exchanges and other routes. Using real-time bidding, buyers can purchase using a ‘per impression’ model. Once again, the idea is to find the ad space that matches the audience of the buyer. With the right ad space, you’ll reach out to your audience effectively.
Ad Exchange - Essentially, this is the tool that connects both supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms. Essentially, this is the equivalent of the Dow Jones stock exchange because buyers and sellers can transfer assets without a third party. Buyers want impressions and sellers have them available.
Ad Server and Network - Ad servers control the ads shown on a website - as well as serving ads, they also collect data on impressions, clicks, and other interesting points. Meanwhile, an ad network purchases unsold inventory from publishers and attempts to sell it to advertisers.
SEM - Remember we said that SEO tools were martech platforms? Well, SEM (search engine marketing) tools are generally considered adtech tools because of the advertising features. Here, businesses use paid advertising to reach their audience and boost search engine rankings.
Martech and Adtech
Click on a handful of articles on this topic and most will contain some form of confusion relating to adtech and martech. For example, some people mix up media, targeting, operators, and even the billing process between the two. Fortunately, the information in this guide means that you're in a better position to either correct those who are confused or sit smugly as they make mistakes.
If we use targeting as an example, adtech is designed to reach out to people who aren’t aware of the brand at all. For instance, you’ll advertise to people who match your needs in terms of location, demographics, behavior, browsing history, or another factor. On the other hand, the idea with martech is to reach out to people you know. These people have shown some form of interest in the brand, and you’re now attempting to nurture them and encourage them through the funnel. If all goes well, they reach the end of the funnel and spend their money with the brand.
Elsewhere, another point of confusion is the use of data between the two solutions. Typically, adtech tools rely on third-party data because you’re reaching out to unknown people. With martech, you’re targeting known prospects, and this means that you’re more likely to use first-party data to complement third-party data. Additionally, martech tools use PII (personally identifiable information) including email addresses and names. Normally, prospects have already provided this information for a whitepaper or a free eBook.
Additionally, we should mention that media leads to question markets. Historically, martech uses free media while adtech uses paid media (advertising on social media platforms, for example). Yet, the line between paid and free media is blurred these days. Also, you might say that the commission or fixed fee added to the CPM is a different billing system from martech (normally based on a monthly fee).
Summary
Adtech tools aid the advertising process for publishers and advertisers while martech tools help the marketing strategy in some way. While there is some overlap between the two, it’s important to differentiate between the two fields as they grow apart. Start to add adtech tools to the martech niche and everything becomes unnecessarily convoluted.
Which tools do you need this year? Adtech, martech, or both?
