AdTech and MarTech: 4 Big Similarities and Differences in Technology

Marketing and advertising often share common objectives and occasionally rely on the same technologies. However, you also have access to a variety of dedicated AdTech and MarTech.

So, what is the difference between AdTech and MarTech?

AdTech and MarTech include technologies used to promote products, services, and brands. Advertising technology (AdTech) is primarily used to increase awareness. Marketing technology (MarTech) is used to better understand and serve the needs of consumers.

Advertising is a component of marketing, which means that the technologies you depend on may overlap. The following article explores the similarities and differences between advertising and marketing technologies.

What Is AdTech?

AdTech includes advertising technology designed to help promote things. The main goal of advertising technology is to make more people aware of a product or service.

Advertising involves paid messaging or branding. Businesses pay to release content in a particular location, such as a newspaper, TV show, website, or social media platform.

In fact, social media is one of the largest platforms for ad spending. According to stats from Hootsuite, ad spending on social media is expected to reach $173 million in 2022, which is a 17% increase over the previous year.

Social media ads and other forms of advertising are mostly used to drive brand awareness and increase knowledge of a product or service. The content that you release may help educate consumers and convince them to choose your offerings.

AdTech helps businesses maximize the return on investment (ROI) from advertising campaigns. You use these technologies to track and optimize your campaigns to produce better results.

What Is MarTech?

MarTech includes marketing technology designed to understand or communicate with consumers. You typically use marketing technologies to gather more data on consumer behaviors, wants, and needs.

Marketing also often includes tools and platforms for connecting with customers or providing them with additional information. For example, you may use a website to release digital content, such as informative blog posts or tutorials.

As with advertising, marketing can help spread awareness of a product or service. However, marketing also allows you to inform consumers. You can offer additional information about your offerings or directly answer consumers’ questions.

MarTech technologies make it easier to manage and monitor your marketing content. The information that you gather helps you learn more about your target audience. For example, you may use analytics software to track visitor behavior on your website.

What Are Common Examples of AdTech?

AdTech covers platforms and services for developing and managing advertising campaigns. The available technologies mostly cater to advertisers and publishers. Advertisers rely on demand-side platforms (DSPs), whereas publishers utilize supply-side platforms (SSPs).

If you work in advertising, you likely use some of the following advertising technologies:

• Ad servers

• Ad exchanges

• Ad networks

• Agency trading desks

• Demand-side platforms

• Supply-side platforms

• Data management platforms

Ad servers are applications for hosting and managing ad campaigns. Ad servers automate ad placement on websites and other digital platforms while collecting information on the performance of the ads. These technologies communicate with other AdTech to allow advertisers and publishers to monitor ad campaigns.

Ad exchanges are platforms for buying and selling advertisements on ad networks. Ad networks are the intermediaries between publishers and advertisers. Publishers sell ad inventories on ad networks. The ad inventories are then purchased by advertisers on ad exchanges.

Agency trading desks are services offered by various media agencies. The trading desk allows advertisers to buy and manage ads on multiple platforms without investing in a demand-side platform. business plan for new business

Demand-side platforms (DSPs) are used by advertisers to buy ad spots. Google AdWords is a type of DSP.

According to a report from CNBC, AdWords is also the largest AdTech platform, capturing 20% of ad spending across all online and offline platforms. However, unlike most DSPs, Google only sells its own ad inventory, whereas other DSPs work with a variety of ad networks.

Supply-side platforms (SSPs) are used by publishers to manage their ad inventories and set prices based on real-time metrics.

Advertisers also rely on data management platforms (DMPs). DMPs are used to collect and analyze first-party and third-party data. You can consolidate data from CRMs, social networks, and other platforms.

What Are Common Examples of MarTech?

MarTech is a broad category of technologies used for marketing products and services. Common examples of marketing technology include:

• Customer relationship management (CRM) software

• Email marketing software

• Social media management platforms

• Digital analytics software

• Content marketing platforms

CRM software includes tools for managing customer interactions and data. Marketers use CRM software to track customer journeys and help personalize content and offerings. CRM software can also automate many marketing tasks, such as generating emails and reports.

Email marketing software helps marketers connect with customers. Email marketing is frequently used to nurture sales leads as part of a broader marketing campaign. You may also use email marketing to help retain existing customers.

Social media management platforms assist with planning and posting social media content. You may use these tools to create a social media posting calendar and explore trending topics.

Digital analytics software allows you to keep track of the performance of your marketing and advertising campaigns. You can learn more about how your intended audience responds to your marketing efforts.

Content marketing platforms consolidate multiple marketing technologies to streamline the management and publication of digital content. You can use content marketing platforms to schedule blog posts, social media content, and more.

AdTech Versus MarTech – Similarities

Advertising is part of the marketing process. After developing a product, service, or brand, you will likely use both AdTech and MarTech to help promote it. Both sets of technologies include tools for increasing brand awareness.

For example, you may publish social media posts using MarTech solutions to generate more interest in a product. However, you may also use paid social media ads through an AdTech platform to achieve the same goals.

AdTech and MarTech are also increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence. Both sets of technologies are using AI to make smarter decisions in real-time. Ad servers are using AI to optimize the delivery of ads to targeted audiences. Marketing software is using AI to provide more detailed analytics and automate mundane tasks.

AdTech Versus MarTech – Differences

Successful marketing strategies typically rely on both AdTech and MarTech. However, there are distinct differences between the two. AdTech primarily includes paid media, whereas MarTech is used to generate owned media and earned media.

Paid media includes all types of paid advertising, including print advertisements, radio ads, TV commercials, search engine ads, website ads, and social media ads.

Owned media includes any media that you publish or release through your own channels. Examples of owned media include blog posts, original video content, press releases, and merchandising.

Earned media comes from third parties. You may gain earned media through external reviews and social media endorsements.

Along with managing different types of content, AdTech and MarTech are used at different stages of a marketing campaign. You may use MarTech throughout each stage of developing, promoting, and selling a product.

MarTech is beneficial for tailoring your products, services, or content to better fit the needs of your customers. AdTech is mostly used during the promotion stage.

What Are the Latest AdTech Innovations?

AdTech is helping advertisers reach customers on the most popular platforms, which now include connected TV (CTV). Connected TV is replacing linear TV, as more consumers make the switch from cable to streaming. CTV advertising allows you to target consumers through streaming devices, streaming platforms, and mobile apps.

The latest AdTech innovations also include artificial intelligence (AI). Demand-side platforms are already adopting the use of AI to optimize ad placement. AI can identify the best channels for reaching a target audience based on the performance of past ad campaigns and the behaviors of internet users.

Along with optimizing ad placement, AI is helping to automate other areas of your advertising campaigns. You can rely on innovative AdTech software to automatically set the optimal bid and select the best content for increased conversions.

What Are the Latest MarTech Innovations?

Artificial intelligence is also increasingly used in the latest MarTech platforms. MarTech software backed by AI technology can help deliver greater personalization and targeted segmentation.

For example, you may use AI-based marketing software to optimize and automate your email marketing campaigns. AI is also used to create chatbots for interacting with potential leads and providing a more interactive experience.

In the coming years, we may also see technologies that help bridge the gap between AdTech and MarTech. Instead of building separate AdTech and MarTech stacks, you may eventually use a single platform to manage all areas of your marketing and advertising.

Conclusion

Depending on your role, you may use both AdTech and MarTech. Both sets of technologies help you connect with potential customers. However, AdTech has a narrower scope.

AdTech includes platforms for managing, buying, and selling advertisements. MarTech allows you to perform market analysis and publish marketing content to better address the needs of your intended audience.

The latest MarTech and AdTech solutions provide increased automation and greater access to the platforms that consumers use most. You can now reach customers on video streaming services, game consoles, and more.

Paying attention to these developments can help ensure that you are prepared to take advantage of the latest technologies. Continue to monitor new AdTech and MarTech innovations to gain an edge over the competition.