Gartner last week released a study in which nominates The Trade Desk, MediaMath, Google, Adobe and Adform as leaders on Ad Tech. Amazon, Amobee, and Criteo are the challengers. Verizon Media, and Xandr are the niche players.
Gartner defines ad tech market as the technology for managing digital advertisements across channels, including search, display, video, mobile and social, with functions for targeting, campaign design, bid management, analysis, optimization and automation.
Weaknesses by vendor
- Adform’s limited market presence may represent a disadvantage in terms of demand.
- Amazon only reaches Amazon Audiences, which limits advertisers.
- Adobe UI cited as “clunky,” “cumbersome” and “difficult to master.”
- Amobee’s video DSP had some of the lowest satisfaction evaluations among vendors in this Magic Quadrant.
- Criteo dependence on tracking cookies presents a vulnerability for this business as privacy-based restrictions mount.
- Google-certified resellers represent variable support resulting in different user experiences.
- MediaMath reports fewer plans to support emerging industry standards from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
- Advanced functionality, options and flexibility that The Trade Desk offers can intimidate users who lack a strong programmatic ad operations background.
- Verizon Media’s evaluations are mixed on product reliability, pointing to bugs caused by platform updates as a concern.
- Xandr primary focus on sell-side enablement may translate to trade-offs and gaps in the buy-side features and functions that matter most to marketers.
Strengths by vendor
- Adform engineering skills provide a reliable product.
- Adobe’s Advertising Cloud integrates data and media buying across screens and formats.
- Advertisers can leverage Amazon audience segments to target on-site and off-site inventory via the Amazon DSP.
- Through its partnership with Nielsen, Amobee matches clients’ first- or third-party data to Nielsen panelists to enable TV and video planning and activation.
- Criteo: Effective, efficient and easy-to-use retargeting platform that they would choose again and recommend to others.
- Google’s DV360 is the only way advertisers can access YouTube inventory.
- MediaMath: Early to market with support for emerging channels and formats, CTV, mobile app advertising and digital out-of-home.
- The Trade Desk has hundreds of partnerships spanning advertising inventory, third-party audience data and campaign measurement.
- Verizon’s Audience Builder leverages a broad spectrum of data, with access to over 1 billion consumers globally, including Verizon Media proprietary data (e.g., Verizon, Yahoo, HuffPost) alongside client and third-party data, to provide audience customization and cross-device targeting.
- Xandr has over 1,400 publisher relationships, including 270 sources of connected TV inventory.