Flooded ad tech industry presents both opportunities and barriers
As marketers with more than 30 years of experience, we at Capital Media have seen firsthand the dramatic shifts caused by technology in the advertising world. We live a time where marketers have unprecedented access to data to help make better decisions, improve advertising efficiency and reach, and provide new revenue streams, all thanks to technology. And it seems like almost every day there’s a new technology on the market that promises to solve all of advertisers’ woes. From helping marketers more accurately reach audiences to better interpret campaign results, and everything in between, if there’s a problem out there, there’s likely a technology to solve it.
However, this flood of new technology isn’t always a boon to marketers, and a recent survey from research marketing firm Ascend2 points out the double-edged nature of ad tech. For example, 39 percent of respondents said that “attributing revenue to marketing” is a high priority for marketers, but 47 percent also said the technology presents a barrier.
In fact, for marketers’ most pressing priorities—improving decision making, gaining a competitive advantage, and integrating systems—the technology is seen as about equally a barrier and an opportunity. Only in regards to increasing ROI and improving efficiency did survey respondents consider the tech a priority more than a barrier. But overall, as great as the tech may be, it appears to be holding some marketers back.
Surely, that’s a symptom of the extremely fractured technology market, and to be sure there’s no easy fix. A Harvard Business Review study found that there are some massive obstacles that marketers need to overcome in order to take advantage of any new ad tech. These include dealing with legacy systems, data and organizational silos, and complexity of the multichannel sales environment. Clearly, while technology can solve some problems when it comes to marketing, it can’t solve all of them, and it surely can’t solve organizational problems (at least not easily).
If your marketing seems too fractured, you may not be getting the best return on investment possible. That’s where we come in. Capital Media can help you maximize ROI by ensuring your ad buys work as hard as you do. Contact us to find out what we can do for you.