2020 Azbee Awards of Excellence

Category

All Content > Technical Article > Northeast

Awarded to

Sarah Sluis, Senior Editor; Ryan Joe, Managing Editor

Entry details

3 Auctions Rule Digital Advertising. Here’s A Guide To Navigating Them

Issue or publication date: November 20, 2019
Publication name: AdExchanger
Publishing company: Access Intelligence
Website home page: https://adexchanger.com/

Please describe the publication's mission and readership:

AdExchanger’s mission is to demystify the esoteric digital marketing and media space. We empower marketers, publishers and others with information that counteracts the rising complexity that has resulted from an influx of data and technology.

There are a few ways we do this:

We help readers understand the technology. The overcrowded ad tech and marketing technology landscape poses a daunting challenge to marketer and publisher executives who need to rationalize their vendor selection process. Some estimate there were more than 6,000 marketing and advertising technology companies operating in 2018.

We help readers understand the marketplace. Among this crowded advertising and marketing landscape, Google, Facebook and Amazon dominate advertising spending and account for most growth, leaving smaller players to find ways to survive – or get acquired.

We help readers understand the data. Platforms and devices have multiplied, leaving huge trails of data for marketers to interpret as they strive to send the right ad to the right person at the right time.

Our news and features illustrate these dynamics, along with thought leadership from industry experts, two podcasts and a cheeky weekly comic strip featuring AdExchanger Man.

We engage readers via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. We keep them abreast of regular news coverage in a daily newsletter and send breaking news alerts as stories develop. We also bring readers and leaders together at three US conferences per year.

Please describe the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

Google operates the digital advertising industry’s dominant publisher ad server. But with two alternatives emerging to challenge Google and adoption rising, AdExchanger set out to compare the upstarts to Google’s ad server technology.

One option is Amazon’s Transparent Ad Marketplace, the result of the ecommerce behemoth’s expanded advertising efforts. The other product, Prebid, originates from a collaborative, open-source project by Google’s main competitors.

To understand the technical differences of each technology, AdExchanger senior editor Sarah Sluis talked to more than 15 sources, including representatives from Google, Amazon and Prebid. She then distilled some of the complex technical differences into an article that is understandable to readers who hail from different areas of the industry, ranging from buyers to publishers and the ad tech companies in between.

Such a comprehensive comparison piece had never been tackled before, and it received accolades from readers on Twitter. One reader, Jay Friedman, wrote: “Truly brilliant piece by @SarahSluis. Agencies/Marketers - this is must-know material.” Another, Grant Whitmore, wrote, “Outstanding piece. Nice work connecting the dots.”

The story was the third-most read story of the month.

Links to entry URLs

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Entry URL(s), if applicable:
https://adexchanger.com/platforms/3-auctions-rule-digital-advertising-heres-a-guide-to-navigating-them/

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