Adtech

Adtech
Subsidiary of AOL
Founded 1998
Headquarters Frankfurt, Germany

Adtech is a German–American digital marketing company, providing publishers, agencies and ad networks with products to manage, serve and evaluate online advertising campaigns, including display, video and mobile formats. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, Adtech is the ad serving platform of AOL's digital advertising business. Globally, Adtech has customers in more than 25 countries. It was acquired by AOL on May 15, 2007.[1]

History

Adtech was founded in 1998 in Frankfurt, Germany. In 2000, the American Internet holding company CMGI acquired a controlling interest (80%) in Adtech. During the same year, Adtech became a private limited company.

Adtech’s ad serving technology has its roots in 1994 in Silicon Valley when Imgis Inc. established the basis for centralized ad serving using high-speed servers from Silicon Graphics (SGI). In 1998 Imgis Inc. was renamed AdForce Inc. Based on AdForce Inc.’s technology, Adtech opened its first data center in Frankfurt (Germany) in 1998.

In the fall of 2000, Adtech delivered its billionth banner ad since the opening of the original data center in September 1998. By 2001, Adtech had delivered its ten billionth banner ad. In 2002 Adtech supplied its 100,000th advertising campaign and delivered more than 100 million banners every day. In the first quarter of 2009, volume increased to over 125 billion ads per month.

In 2004, the AdForce technology was replaced by Adtech’s own ad serving solution. Shortly after, the second ad serving data center was launched in Frankfurt.

On May 16, 2007, AOL announced its acquisition of Adtech AG. Adtech was acquired to provide AOL with an advanced ad serving platform that includes an array of ad management and delivery applications, enabling Website publishers to manage, traffic and report on their online advertising campaigns. Adtech now operates as an independent and wholly owned subsidiary of AOL's Advertising.com division. Adtech is the ad serving platform for AOL Advertising (previously Platform-A).

Products

Adtech provides an integrated ad serving platform. This flagship product allows publishers, advertisers, agencies and ad networks the ability to manage their display, video and mobile digital advertising campaigns. Some of the benefits of this platform include: instantaneous campaign deployment, inventory management, live monitoring, user tracking and targeting and interactive reporting.

Adtech's ad server responds to ad requests (banner requests, prompted by user’s browser) through XML and delivers it to the specified end terminal: PC, TV, iPhones, mobile phones, advertising pillar, PlayStation/web compatible game consoles, radio streams, advertising panels for sports stadiums and billboards—the only provision being the end terminals must be online.

The open conceptual design of the Adtech Adservers allows for the implementation and fusion of external technologies. In the discipline of targeting, Adtech collaborates with specialized vendors, such as Nugg and Wunderloop.

Integrated ad management

In the fall of 2007, Adtech presented a new integrated suite of display, video und mobile ad serving technologies for digital publishers at ad:tech London and ad:tech New York. The new suit provides solutions for all three forms of digital advertising. According to Adtech, incorporating video and mobile advertising into the existing ad serving platform creates significant new marketing opportunities for their customers.

Working in collaboration with technology partners Lightningcast and Third Screen Media, Adtech is merging the new video and mobile applications directly into the existing user interface and reporting system.[2]

The video solution is targeted at Web publishers that want to manage and control ads displayed in on-demand videos, live streams and video downloads. Through its integration into the Adtech video ads are simultaneously created, tracked and managed analog to the ad management of display ads. Adtech supports all common video ad formats as well as ads synchronized with video plays. The solution also offers smart playlist functionality, which allows customers to specify the sequence of requested content and ads.

According to Adtech, through the solution’s mobile advertising component, digital advertisements can be distributed to mobile devices of any type, including mobile and smart phones. Adtech customers are also able to apply selective targeting options to address advertiser needs.[3]

Research

Since 2004, Adtech interprets the banner requests to their ad servers for periodical Web analyses in Europe. Adtech surveys document different aspects of Internet usage, ranging from browser trends to click-through rates.[4] They often serve as a reference in professional articles about trends in the digital marketing industry.[5]

External links

References

  1. ↑ "AOL Acquires Adtech AG". AOL. 2007-05-15. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
  2. ↑ netimperative.com: “Adtech merges display video and mobile”, September 9, 2007, http://www.netimperative.com/news/2007/09/10/Adtech/?searchterm=Adtech
  3. ↑ Adtech - Your ads will love it! - News -> Adtech announces integrated ad serving platform; launches new behavioral capabilities
  4. ↑ http://www.Adtech.com/news/pr-04-01-2009_en.htm; http://www.Adtech.com/edition_no8_int/newsletter_Feb09_CTR.htm
  5. ↑ Examples of articles quoting Adtech surveys:
    netimperative.com: “IE 8 gets just 1% of browser market” April 15, 2009, http://www.netimperative.com/netimperative/news/2009/april/ie-8-gets-just-1-of-browser-market
    Brand Republic: “French lead European internet users in ad click-throughs”, March 06, 2009, http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/888148/French-lead-European-internet-users-ad-click-throughs/