Top AdTech & MarTech Articles of 2018: The Year Privacy Took Centre Stage
With privacy-centred themes dominating the headlines, 2018 could reasonably be called the year of privacy — and it was a genuinely busy period for the AdTech and MarTech industry.
GDPR and broader privacy concerns sent ripples across the ecosystem. Advertisers and publishers spent much of the year trying to understand and align with new regulations — not only in the EU, but in other jurisdictions as well, including California with its Consumer Privacy Act. The ramifications of GDPR shaped the agenda for publishers and AdTech companies well beyond its May 2018 enforcement date. But privacy was only one of several defining themes that year.
Below is a curated recap of the most significant topics covered across the industry in 2018.
1. In a Post-GDPR World, Who Will Be the Emissions Cheaters of AdTech?
After GDPR came into force, AdTech vendors found themselves in a position not unlike car manufacturers forced to comply with the Clean Air Act (CAA) — required to fundamentally change how their engines worked. Just as the CAA was designed to protect the health of citizens, the GDPR's purpose is to protect the personal data of people living in the EU and EEA — something traditionally at odds with the interests of online advertising companies. The parallels between automotive emissions scandals and potential GDPR non-compliance make for a revealing comparison.
2. How Can Publishers Detect if Someone Is Using an Ad Blocker?
The tug-of-war between publishers and users who resist display advertising has been ongoing for years, and 2018 was no exception. There is no way for users to make ad blockers completely invisible to sites that serve anti-ad-blocking messages. Conversely, there is no way for publishers to make their websites fully and consistently immune to ad blockers. The rise of ad-blocking software has pushed publishers to explore alternatives — from custom ad re-insertion tools to paywalls — to recover lost revenue.
3. What Is Ad Verification and How Does It Work?
In an environment rife with ad fraud, an increasing share of advertiser spend is wasted on impressions that appear on fraudulent sites, fail to reach the intended audience, or are not properly rendered in the user's browser. Ad fraud is just one part of the problem — ad placement, context, and viewability all factor into whether an ad actually performs as intended. Ad verification emerged as a partial remedy, focused on identifying the variables that prevent ads from reaching the widest possible audience.
4. What Is Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) Advertising and How Does It Work?
DOOH represents a significant evolution from traditional out-of-home advertising. Where conventional OOH relies on slow, manual insertion orders and human intermediaries, DOOH enables real-time ad auctions, dynamic creative delivery, and targeting based on variables like time of day or weather conditions. Billboards that update in minutes rather than weeks are no longer hypothetical — the infrastructure to support them is increasingly in place.
5. What's the Difference Between First-Party and Third-Party Cookies?
Cookies remain the most common method of identifying users online and delivering a personalized browsing experience. With growing awareness of privacy issues — and the introduction of regulations like GDPR and ePrivacy — there is a stronger need to clearly explain what cookie files actually do, what data they can contain, and how first-party and third-party cookies differ in their purpose and implications for data collection.
6. Ads.txt and Ads.cert: Countermeasures to Programmatic Ad Fraud
The programmatic ad-buying ecosystem faces persistent threats from fraudulent representation of ad impressions, click fraud, and manipulation of bid requests for financial gain. Ads.txt arrived as a mechanism to partially curtail these practices. The subsequent introduction of ads.cert added a further layer of authentication, together forming a more robust countermeasure to impression fraud in the supply chain.
7. What Is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and What Does It Mean for AdTech & MarTech?
GDPR came into force in May 2018, representing the biggest change in EU data protection law in 25 years. But regulatory pressure on data practices was not limited to Europe. California's government moved forward with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the CONSENT Act — both arriving in GDPR's wake and signalling that stricter data privacy standards were becoming a global trend, not a regional one.
8. MadTech: 3 Use Cases for Marketers and Advertisers
MadTech attracted significant attention in 2018 even as it remained largely aspirational. The concept is founded on data synergy and extends the idea of a single customer view (SCV) by breaking down data silos — combining related datasets from multiple devices into shared, accessible repositories. This includes data from emerging technologies like IoT and wearables. The goal is to make the overlapping data assets of AdTech and MarTech more valuable by ensuring they are no longer locked inside individual companies' systems.
9. What Is a Consent-Management Platform (CMP) and How Does It Work?
Under Article 6 of the GDPR, collecting and using personal data from EU/EEA citizens and residents requires following specific notices for data processing. Publishers and website owners must now obtain freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous user consent before collecting and using cookies for advertising and marketing purposes. Consent-management platforms (CMPs) emerged as the technical infrastructure for satisfying this requirement at scale.
10. Netflix Tests Ads: Here's What You Need to Know
Netflix's foray into on-platform advertising generated significant outrage in 2018 — much of it based on a misunderstanding of what was actually being tested. What users characterized as commercials were, in Netflix's own terminology, promos: recommendations for other Netflix content a viewer might enjoy. These are fundamentally different from traditional third-party advertising. The intensity of the reaction illustrated how little most subscribers understood about what these placements were and how they functioned.
11. Understanding RTB, Programmatic Direct, and Private Marketplace
The online advertising industry offers a range of media-buying methods that can be difficult to parse even for experienced practitioners. Real-time bidding (RTB), programmatic direct, and private marketplace (PMP) all fall under the programmatic umbrella — but they are distinct concepts with different mechanics, access models, and use cases. Understanding the differences is foundational to making informed decisions in programmatic strategy.
12. Waterfalling, Header Bidding, and New Auction Dynamics
Driven by increased pressure for fee transparency and more equitable inventory access, 2018 saw a steady shift away from traditional waterfall setups toward new auction models — most notably header bidding and, increasingly, first-price auction mechanics. These changes reshaped the dynamics between publishers and demand-side buyers, and understanding the underlying mechanics became essential for anyone operating in programmatic markets.