Guides
How-tos, explainers, and deep dives.
Real-Time Bidding (RTB) vs. Programmatic Advertising: Understanding the Difference
Advertising technology has developed a language all its own. Pay-per-click, demand-side platform (DSP), ad exchange — the list goes on. Among all the jargon, two terms have become particular buzzwords: programmatic and…
What is First-Party Data Onboarding and How Does It Work?
At the heart of every marketing and advertising campaign is data, and in the online world there are enormous volumes of it — with even more on the way thanks to the continued growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). This…
Why Modern Marketers Need to Be More Tech Savvy
Technology has reshaped how most professionals do their work — and marketing is no exception. The digital age has drastically altered the speed, relevancy, and range of marketing campaigns, pushing marketers everywhere…
5 Steps to Building a Successful Enterprise SaaS Solution
Software-as-a-Service has become one of the most dominant delivery models in enterprise technology, and the pipeline of companies looking to build SaaS products shows no sign of slowing. The opportunity is real — but so…
How Data Management Platforms Work: Collection, Segmentation, and Activation
More than 80% of worldwide panelists have said data is affirmatively important to deploying their advertising and marketing efforts — and a further 92.2% said it's likely to play an increasingly important role in the…
Commercial vs. Enterprise Apps: UX & UI Design Considerations
Designing software is rarely a one-size-fits-all exercise. The people who use a given application — their expectations, skill levels, and daily routines — shape nearly every decision a designer makes, from information…
The Essential Guide to AdTech Terminology
Understanding the programmatic advertising landscape requires a working vocabulary. This guide covers 14 core AdTech terms — from creatives and DMPs through to verification services — giving practitioners and newcomers…
What Is Cookie Syncing and How Does It Work?
Cookie syncing is one of those mechanisms that sits quietly at the centre of programmatic advertising infrastructure, yet rarely gets explained clearly. This guide covers what cookies are, why AdTech platforms need to…
The Key Ingredients to Building Enterprise SaaS
Enterprise adoption of cloud-based software has moved quickly. IDG's Enterprise Cloud Computing Study reported that 69% of enterprises had applications or infrastructure running in the cloud as of 2014 — up from just…
How to Select the Right Features for an Enterprise-Grade SaaS Platform
Cloud adoption in the enterprise environment has been on a sustained upward trajectory. A Centaur Partners study projected that revenue from SaaS and cloud-based business-application services would grow from $13.5…
The Growth and Advantages of SaaS for Software Vendors
For a good part of the 19th century, factories and large buildings drew their electricity from generators installed in their own basements. Maintaining those generators demanded constant attention, and the power supply…
How Online User Data Is Collected, Shared, and Sold: A Plain-Language Guide
Before the Internet era, advertisers reached their audiences through broad, blunt instruments — TV spots timed to the right demographic, newspaper ads placed in the right section, billboards positioned in the right…
The Essential Guide to Building an MVP
The rapid evolution of software development over the past decade has introduced a wave of new techniques, methodologies, and processes that have fundamentally changed how startups and development teams approach building…
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Native Advertising
Newspaper print circulation has fallen sharply as readers migrated to consuming news on computers, tablets, and smartphones. That shift created a structural problem for publishers: content that once generated revenue…
What Is a Data Management Platform (DMP) and How Does It Work?
Around 1,683,862,863 people use the Internet every day. In the eyes of brands and online advertisers, that's 1.6 billion potential opportunities to get ads in front of a target audience. The fact that the average person…
3 Key Areas Ad Agencies Need to Consider Before Renting or Building a DSP
The rise of technology-driven processes like real-time bidding (RTB) has fundamentally reshaped the online advertising ecosystem. AdTech companies have developed algorithms and platforms that now allow brands to bypass…
6 Key Differences Between On-Premises and SaaS Software
According to Jupiter Research, revenues generated from enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) reached $53.8 billion in 2018, up from $23.2 billion in 2013 — more than doubling in five years. Those numbers reflect a…
How to Build an MVP in 4 Months
Four months doesn't feel like a long runway, and it's fair to be sceptical about producing genuinely usable software in that window. The honest answer is that it is demanding — but with the right planning and execution,…
3 Things to Avoid When Starting Your MVP
Startup failure is common, and while any number of factors can sink a given venture, a handful of recurring mistakes determine whether most MVP projects succeed or fall apart. If those mistakes can be identified in…
4 Essential Post-Launch Activities for Your MVP
Launching an MVP is a milestone, but it is not a finish line. The moment a minimum viable product goes live, the real work begins — and in many ways, the workload intensifies rather than eases. There are a number of…
5 Things to Know When Building Your MVP
Once a plan and high-fidelity prototype are in place, MVP development is the next — and most demanding — phase. It requires the design team and developers to synchronize and begin the critical crossover from design to…
Why Prototyping Before Your MVP Is a Must-Do, Not a Nice-to-Have
The early stages of building a skyscraper have a lot in common with the early stages of building software. Architects create illustrations and draw up blueprints to give builders and developers a shared vision of the…
How to Successfully Plan an MVP
The startup founder's life has a certain mythology around it — being your own boss, building something from scratch, and watching an idea become a real product. That version of events exists, but it's far from…
What Is a Demand-Side Platform (DSP) and How Does It Work?
One of the most influential additions to the advertising ecosystem over the past decade has been the rise of demand-side platforms (DSPs) and the real-time bidding (RTB) infrastructure that powers them. This guide…