This month Pixalate went to the ad-tech conference in London for the first time, keen to check out the London advertising technology scene. We were interested to see if our friends across the pond were facing the same challenges in the space as marketers in the U.S., or if the hot topics would be different there. While the ad market in the EU may in fact be a bit different, you wouldn’t know it from the buzz words & pain points everyone was throwing around. Phrases like cross-screen attribution, mobile measurement, viewability, non-human traffic and data fragmentation were frequently heard being discussed (in proper British accents of course).In particular, anything to do with mobile advertising (tracking, attribution, cross-screen challenges) seemed to be a favorite topic of the conference, with all of the mobile breakout sessions being heavily attended. Pixalate’s own breakout session, where our CEO, Jalal Nasir discussed mobile & cross-screen measurement challenges (and how we address them), was standing room only…despite a not-so-ideal early morning time slot the day after the big ad-tech party!!! Pixalate has set up several post conference meetings with marketers in need of a viable mobile measurement solution. Need a mobile analytics solution? Contact us now.
So what did I learn / observe last week in London?
• Marketers across the globe are excited about the efficiencies of the RTB marketplace, but also deeply concerned about how to monitor & control the quality of traffic they are getting.
• Data fragmentation is a huge issue and it’s only getting bigger as the ad tech space becomes more and more crowded, and marketers work with multiple partners, platforms and point solutions to cover all of their bases.
• We are now in our 3rd (or 4th?) “year of mobile,” and still the ad spend is relatively modest. Everyone is excited about mobile, but no one seems to know how to get past the inherent challenges to best take advantage of the massive market opportunity.
Do these real & significant challenges dampen my spirit or reduce my optimism about the future of online marketing? Hardly! The fact that huge issues exist in our industry means it’s a very exciting time for an advertising technology company like Pixalate! We are already able to solve many of these issues for our clients and we’re improving our solutions and methodologies every day. We get to develop technologies that never existed before. Pretty cool. Blimey (as the Brits say), it’s fun being on the bleeding edge!
