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Last week, a leading supply side platform, threw its version of the “end to end” stack into the digital advertising ring. Whether it is from the demand side or the supply side, all end-to-end solutions say that they: 

- Put advertisers in control of their media buying strategy, while simultaneously driving more revenue to publishers.

- Significantly increase spend going towards working media, make it easier for brands and agencies to securely share data, and helps publishers generate more revenue.

- Give a simplified, direct connection to the publishers across the open internet; by supporting an objective, transparent supply path; maximising value for everyone.

- Help trade through the most direct and efficient path to premium omnichannel supply with their demand side to supply side (DSP-to-SSP) architecture. 

- Fully integrate commerce media platform that offers end to end stack bringing consumers to brands, audiences to publishers and brands to retailers.

No prize for guessing who these companies are. With this, the commoditization of Open Web advertising is all but near complete.

When the IAB TechLab launched Project Rearc in 2020 in response to the deprecation (or limitation) of third-party cookies and other identifiers; a set of five initiatives was proposed to address the need. First and foremost was the Global Privacy Platform (GPP) protocol designed to streamline the transmission of privacy, consent, and consumer choice signals from sites and apps to brand, platforms and ad tech providers. IAB TechLab also proposed fresh accountability standards, seller defined audiences, tokenization frameworks for user enabled identifiers and privacy enhancing technologies. For nearly three years, since 2020, the AdTech industry has tried to build various solutions, including the Privacy Sandbox from Google. While there are different solutions that are being developed there is one area where there is absolutely no solution in sight and that related to the “transmission of consent and consumer choice signals”. 

The emergence of the end-to-end stack from all the leading AdTech providers must be seen in this perspective. Transmission of consent and consumer choice signals across the fragmented digital supply chain is not possible in the current form. It requires an alarming level of trust, transparency and compliance sync up from all the participants in the supply chain. The industry has chosen to “centralize and pack up” than to “rebuild and collaborate”. This has resulted in the commoditization of the AdTech supply chain, with no real differentiation. Value exchange and the related value creation has now totally shifted to advertisers and publishers, as they own the consumer choice signals and their consent.

Read more: <a href="https://www.storyboard18.com/quantum-brief/madtech-point-decoding-the-role-of-account-aggregators-15121.htm">MAdtech Point: Decoding the role of account aggregators</a>

Assume for a moment that advertisers and publishers have fixed their consent management obligations and let us play out what next. From an advertisers perspective their ad monies will now be distributed across 10-15 walled gardens and/or end to end stacks, with no common or consistent metrics to compare each one of them. Optimizing media monies between these 10-15 initiatives is not possible, as all of them have centralized their respective tech stacks. Even as advertisers offer their first party data for collaboration to all these 10-15 initiatives, they will struggle to find out which one of them have done better than the other. Cross media/platform measurement will become the most important requirement in the future. 

The industry has only postponed the collaboration agenda. By packing the digital advertising supply chain into an end-to-end stack, they have only temporarily fixed the problem that came with the deprecation of third-party trackers but left the measurement agenda wide open to solve. So far, the advertisers have largely remained silent or at best reacted to the technological changes brought in front of them by platforms and publishers. Now is the time for them to push the measurement agenda. This is the only missing piece in the digital advertising supply chain today. World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) have clearly enumerated the global and local architecture that is required for measurement. Big Tech platforms have all agreed and aligned to participate. It is now left to the local market to adapt and build it. 

Will the AdTech ecosystem and the industry body in India take the mantle and deliver it? 

Gowthaman Ragothaman is a 30-year media, advertising and marketing professional and CEO of Aqilliz, a blockchain solutions company for the marketing industry.

MAdtech Point: Why digital advertising supply chain needs to focus on measurement

'Mirum India MarTech Report' powered by Wunderman Thompson provides an insightful guide to the emerging MarTech landscape in India. The report captures how MarTech solutions are being utilized by brands to effectively communicate their brand messages to the right set of audiences at the right time.

The report highlights that while the global spend on MarTech solutions is around 25 percent of the total marketing budget, in India, majority organizations spend less than 15 percent, indicating significant potential for growth. With MarTech spending set to increase across company sizes and sectors, 88 percent of respondents expect to increase their MarTech spending over the next three years. The report also emphasizes the need for brands and organizations to work with growth partners as preferred by MarTech HEROES, focusing on ROI, and delivering value to the brands.

Data-driven organizations, which make up 15 percent of the respondents, have a data-driven marketing edge that most other organizations might miss. However, the report cautions that with the advent of Web3, and the shift towards a cookie-less world, rethinking marketing strategies is on the cards for most organizations.

Speaking on the launch of the report, Hareesh Tibrewala, joint chief executive officer, Mirum India, said, "The estimated size of the MarTech industry in India is expected to be between $35bn and $50bn by 2026, presenting a sizeable opportunity for businesses. Our latest report highlights how brands are using MarTech solutions to effectively deliver the right brand message to the right customer at the right time, creating fabulous customer experiences and increasing brand loyalty."

CVL Srinivas, country manager, WPP India, said, "The report highlights the need for growth partners, preferred by MarTech HEROES, to ensure strong ROI for clients. It brings clarity to the ecosystem and presents an exciting opportunity for businesses to create fantastic customer experiences and increase brand loyalty. At WPP, we've invested heavily in building our tech and data practices, creating a comprehensive ecosystem where value is delivered at every touchpoint."
 
 



Mirum India: MarTech is no longer only about marketing; it needs to drive sales

When one steps in, the other one takes leave – that’s what the cycle of AdTech and MarTech is all about. Today, consumers have the option of interacting with brands through a surfeit of channels and they expect a seamless experience. It has become even more essential for brands to acquire the right set of customers at the minimal acquisition cost, engage with them, retain them, and maximize their lifetime value.

For businesses to be able to achieve this, traditional ways of approaching Month In Focus Int Logo voottechnology investments do not suffice. Companies need new technologies that can help navigate the complex customer journeys.

Shedding light on this convergence called MadTech, Neeraj Pratap Sangani, CEO, Hansa, Cequity says, “AdTech and MarTech projects are interdisciplinary and collaborative but very few organisations and senior leaders understand or act on this with any urgency. Today everyone talks about delivering a connected customer experience, but a customer experience is not only about AdTech, MarTech and automation. The piece that all organisations need to also focus on equally is about data - its availability, quality, architecture and much more.”

“Both AdTech and MarTech need to work in unison to deliver a superlative customer experience. I keep saying – it takes a lot of hard work to make your customer’s life easy. The fact is that technology has changed the business of marketing forever. Effective calibration of AdTech, MarTech and Data together is a potent combination to enable business impact,” he adds.

Marketing and advertising have been on a trajectory of convergence for a while now - they’ve moved from two sides of the same coin to being ever present in each other’s lives. Pooja Jauhari, Group CEO, VMLY&amp;R Network, India, and Sunder Madakshira, CEO, Rezolve India and ex-CMO, Adobe, cannot help stressing on MadTech being about hyper personalisation.

Jauhari says, “While what we’re termed marketing technologies were always focused on personalised and targeted efforts, broader ad tech was focused on broader data sets to communicate with. In its simplest form, the combination of the two, aka MadTech, is about personalisation at scale.”

Madakshira opines, “The constant search for one source of truth, building a unified profile across channels, a desire to have hyper personalisation and maintaining a strong brand essence are drivers for this.”

From a brand point of view, Arpanarghya Saha, chief digital officer, Nippon India Mutual Fund, says, “Well, we are in the business of money and that puts us in a space where we have to be very, very responsible. So, while brands in other categories are getting gung-ho about MadTech, our endeavor is to build SmarTech. We believe in creating lucid digital solutions and immersive experiences that have intelligence embedded at the core and those which empower our investors to take smarter and well-informed decisions related to their investments.”

With the antitrust lawsuit being filed against Google and Google being asked to segregate its ad business from its other businesses, what kind of a reality check or threat does it provide to other AdTech and MarTech platforms?

Sangani of Hansa Cequity likes to look at this issue differently. “I believe that it is a logical progression, and it brings to fore the monopolistic ecosystem that Google has created, curated, and meticulously cultivated over the years.”

Data went through many years of unregulated usage, and with both the Google lawsuit as well as the privacy measures that Apple has taken, the ability to use data freely has taken a major hit. “And while the focus on first party data by brands has negated this to a certain extent, the only way to move beyond this threat for AdTech and MarTech is to combine forces and focus as much on broader brand building as data driven personalisation. This will drive a growing focus on using brand connections with consumers without over reliance on cookies and will scale the growth of MadTech,” says Jauhari.

At the heart of the matter is a subject of great relevance – how does one reduce data domination of Google? How do we enable transparency in pricing? And, how do we ensure that privacy and personalisation co-exist?

This calls for a huge change in approach and mindset across the ecosystem. Sangani and Madakshira reiterate that brands and organisations will have to recalibrate some pieces of their data and tech strategy to meet their business objectives – customer privacy needs to be preserved, total transparency needs to be ensured in the way technology is deployed, data collected and protected and used to engage with the consumers.

Madakshira points out, “This means that some of the past paradigms and assumptions that platforms made will have to be changed. For instance, you need to follow the most stringent of the laws on the topics and make them global standards for the companies and not try and use different approaches by country that they operate in. This is the time to relook at the business models which served in the past but will simply not work in the future owing to the lack of societal trust in platforms anymore.”

“The lawsuit may come up for hearing in 2023 and nobody knows the outcome but it’s time that we work towards creating a more level playing field,” brings out Sangani.

With the exchange of digital and consumer data, and the blurring lines between AdTech and MarTech, privacy infringement is a major concern for most consumers. How do brands deal with this matter?

Brands believe that such concerns are rooted in the way the commercialization of consumer data has shaped up over the past years and how everyone in the ecosystem has tried to leverage available touchpoints to reach out to their customers.

“However, as can be seen today, the ecosystem is also evolving and appropriate checks and controls are being brought in and there is soon going to be a balance with the power finally resting with the consumers on how, when and where they want to be reached or not reached at all. Taking consent and abiding by it has been our fundamental construct with respect to our consumers. As a brand, our focus is to build our own capabilities which will help us assimilate, analyze, understand and utilize our proprietary data in such a way that we are able to serve our investors in the best way possible and make their investment journeys more fruitful,” says Saha of Nippon Mutual Fund.

Note to readers: Storyboard18’s new Month In Focus initiative spotlights themes and topics that are pushing marketers to reshape and rethink how brands interact with today’s customers. Our theme for this month is Stacks &amp; Strategies, a martech and adtech spotlight on how decision makers and marketers are advancing the adoption of new technologies and tech-driven strategies in the brand marketing ecosystem. From the defining trends and preparing for a cookiepocalypse to how progressive martech strategies help fast track business and brand growth. Catch this special on Storyboard18.

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