The evolution of the ad-tech company

One aspect of ad tech that was (almost) unthinkable even until a couple of years ago is its role of agnostic enabler, of infrastructure provider at the service of its clients’ own strategies and assets and whose success fully overlaps with the one of its partners.

In the audience-centric, privacy-first era it is the natural and positive evolution of a category which doesn’t create content, doesn’t own the relationship with the customer/user and his/her data, doesn’t build, grows and manages any digital environment which the audience visits with the goal of buying products, getting informed, having fun.

Those are, in my opinion, the characteristics of today’s and tomorrow’s successful adtech company.

Disclaimer: consumer and media brands MUST have clear and bold strategies. Waiting for their adtech counterpart to develop one on their behalf justifies their technology partners to take the lead and gaining control, with all the related historical issues.