What is ad tech?
Ad tech (advertising technology) is the software and services used to buy, sell, deliver, target and measure digital advertising. It includes demand-side platforms for advertisers, supply-side platforms and ad servers for publishers, data and identity tools, and verification and fraud-detection services. Together they let billions of ads be traded and shown automatically every day.
Ad tech sits between advertisers (and their agency) and publishers. Key parts include the DSP, SSP, ad exchange and ad server, plus data platforms such as the CDP, measurement companies and ad verification vendors. The famous LUMAscape chart maps thousands of such companies.
Most of the market is dominated by walled gardens such as Google, Meta and Amazon, which run their own end-to-end systems. The independent open web ecosystem connects everyone else.