Top AdTech & MarTech Topics That Defined 2017

2017 was a remarkably busy year for the AdTech and MarTech industries. Headlines were dominated by AI, acquisitions, consolidation, and header bidding — but by far the most discussed and shared topics were the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the broader question of data ownership. Those themes didn't disappear with the calendar; they carried straight into 2018 and beyond.

The GDPR came into force on 25 May 2018, and its implications touched publishers, advertisers, and technology vendors across the globe. But data privacy was just one thread in a much larger tapestry. For anyone wanting a quick recap of the defining ideas from that year, here is a look at twelve of the most widely read and referenced topics in AdTech and MarTech publishing from 2017.

1. Don't Fret — the GDPR Is a Good Thing for AdTech

Over the years, advertising companies and data providers steadily layered more and more trackers — primarily third-party cookies — onto websites in pursuit of deeper user insight. That practice eventually reached a scale that pushed users to push back: browser plugins like Ghostery, Private/Incognito browsing modes, and ad-blocking software all became mainstream responses to pervasive data collection.

Legislative institutions in the EU took notice and channelled those concerns into the GDPR. Rather than treating the regulation as a burden, this piece — originally published on Mediapost.com — made the case that companies could turn GDPR compliance into a genuine competitive advantage and that the industry as a whole stood to benefit from the reset it forced.

2. Transparency in AdTech: The Problems, Fallouts, and Solutions

Transparency remained the industry's most elusive frontier. The challenge isn't limited to hidden fees, though those are part of the picture — it also spans ad fraud, traffic quality, measurement integrity, and viewability. Meaningful progress requires platform consolidation, a reduction in the number of intermediaries extracting margin, and a genuine willingness from vendors to be upfront about costs and quality.

Complete transparency was (and arguably still is) years away, but mapping the areas that most urgently needed improvement was an important starting point for the conversation.

3. The History of the Advertising Agency: From Print to the Internet

Advertising agencies have been a fixture of commercial life for over 230 years. The rise of AdTech initially looked like an existential threat to the traditional agency model. Yet agencies that leaned into the potential of programmatic technology and data-driven targeting found ways to remain indispensable partners for brands. This retrospective traced how the agency's role evolved from print to the internet era and how the industry adapted to each wave of disruption.

4. How Do First-Price and Second-Price Auctions Work in Online Advertising?

The second-price auction has long been the default model in programmatic advertising — it allowed advertisers to bid aggressively to win impressions while ultimately paying only a marginal amount above the second-highest bid. By 2017, however, the industry was observing a clear drift toward first-price auction mechanics. This piece traced the origins of that shift and laid out the practical differences between both models in plain terms.

5. What Is Intelligent Tracking Prevention and How Does It Work?

Apple has positioned itself as a champion of user privacy for years, and the release of Safari 11 and iOS 11 brought that commitment into sharper focus. Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) is a feature built into WebKit — the engine powering Safari — that limits the ability of third-party trackers to follow users across the web. This explainer unpacked how ITP works under the hood and what it meant for advertisers and publishers relying on cross-site tracking.

6. The Benefits of Building Custom AdTech and MarTech Platforms

"Custom" increasingly became the watchword across the industry. Growing emphasis on privacy, transparency, operational efficiency, and competitive differentiation was pushing companies to question whether off-the-shelf platforms could truly serve their needs. The argument here was that building bespoke AdTech or MarTech — or thoughtfully integrating with existing platforms — was no longer an extravagance but a sound business decision when approached with clear objectives.

7. Predictive vs. Rules-Based Personalization: What's the Difference?

Content personalization — tailoring a website's content to match individual user preferences — had become a standard expectation rather than a nice-to-have. But not all personalization is created equal. Rules-based approaches apply fixed logic, while predictive personalization uses machine learning to surface relevant experiences dynamically. This post mapped out the practical differences between the two methods and when each makes the most sense.

8. What Is Look-Alike Modeling and How Does It Work?

Look-alike modelling is the practice of identifying audiences who resemble a company's most valuable existing customers. If an e-commerce retailer's best customers buy cosmetics and perfumes, spend over $100 per transaction, and purchase at least twice a month, look-alike modelling surfaces other users who share those behavioural and demographic characteristics — effectively expanding reach without sacrificing relevance.

9. What Is Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and How Does It Work?

Account-based marketing is a B2B strategy built on identifying specific companies that match an ideal client profile and directing highly personalized messaging at the key decision makers within those accounts. Unlike broad-reach demand generation, ABM aligns marketing and sales efforts around a defined list of targets. This overview walked through the key steps in building an ABM funnel and translating it into new client relationships.

10. What Is Video Header Bidding and How Does It Work?

Header bidding emerged as a mechanism for publishers to receive bids from multiple demand sources before ad calls reach their DFP ad server — a direct response to the longstanding problem of DFP giving preferential treatment to Google's own ad exchange (AdX), which effectively shut out competing buyers willing to pay more. By 2017, header bidding had extended well beyond display into video inventory, reshaping how publishers monetized their video content.

11. What Is Ads.txt and How Does It Work?

Ad fraud has been one of the industry's most persistent and costly problems, estimated to drain approximately $6 billion per year from the digital ecosystem — often without the affected companies even realizing it's happening. After years of exploring complex solutions, the IAB proposed something refreshingly straightforward: ads.txt, a simple text file that authorized sellers of digital inventory can use to signal legitimacy to buyers. Sometimes the most elegant solutions are the most obvious ones.

12. What Are VAST, VPAID, VMAP, and MRAID?

Digital video advertising was on a steep upward trajectory, with double-digit annual growth projected through 2020. As more advertisers moved into the space and publishers opened up video inventory, confusion around the technical standards governing video ad serving became a real friction point. VAST, VPAID, VMAP, and MRAID each play a distinct role in how video ads are delivered and rendered — and understanding the differences between them was essential for anyone operating in the video advertising ecosystem.

Those twelve topics neatly capture the tensions and transitions that shaped AdTech and MarTech heading into 2018: tightening regulation, a growing demand for transparency, maturing auction mechanics, privacy-first browser behaviour, and the continuing evolution of video as a primary advertising channel. Most of them remain just as relevant today.