The Simplest Case for Adtech Marketing

(Check out this week’s episode of Open Market, which covers why you should hire a chief audience officer. The episode, a conversation with Eric Franchi, covers lots of ways you can build your reputation and relationships to drive more sales — which is the point of adtech marketing and this post.)

For many adtech companies, especially startups, the question is not how to do marketing but whether to do it. This is one of the most common questions I get from adtech CEOs and founders. What is the value of marketing? Why should I spend any money on this?

So, I’d like to propose the simplest possible case for adtech marketing.

High-value, high-consideration B2B deals hinge on a company’s reputation and relationships. Adtech marketing is the art of building your reputation and relationships. So, if you believe your reputation and relationships affect sales, you should be marketing your company.

It’s really that simple. Do your customers know they have the problem you solve? Are you top of mind to solve it? Do they understand how you differ from competitors and why you’d be a better fit to solve it? These three questions are critical to closing more deals, and marketing handles all of them: boosting awareness of a problem in the market, establishing you as the no. 1 option to solve the problem, and cultivating differentiation between you and competitors.

How marketing builds your reputation

Most adtech companies suffer from one of two marketing problems (sometimes both): a lack of awareness and differentiation. 

Consider the case of an SSP that is, let’s say, the 15th biggest SSP in the US market. This company is likely to face both problems.

From an awareness perspective, they’re just not top of mind. Everyone thinks of Magnite, Pubmatic, FreeWheel, and Index Exchange — not our relatively obscure 15th-largest SSP. And when they do become aware of it — let’s say by meeting a sales rep at a conference or hearing an exec appear on a podcast — they don’t know what differentiates the SSP from larger competitors. So, why should they give this challenger the time of day?

Marketing exists to solve these problems. Because here’s the beautiful thing — adtech discourse is actually not saturated. It’s pretty quiet out there. If our SSP’s CEO were posting thoughtful takes or original data every day on Twitter or LinkedIn — or even if they were just super present, commenting thoughtfully or amusingly on posts by prominent adtech people — the company’s awareness would arise. People who themselves wield influence would take note. The company would get mentioned on podcasts. It would be able to build an audience for its owned content (blogs, white papers, etc.). It would be more likely to get noticed by journalists. (Of course, social is just one way to build your reputation and relationships. There are at least four ways to win, and I’ll cover those next week.)

This growing audience — this awareness — translates into business opportunities for our hypothetical SSP. Because the company wouldn’t be invisible anymore. It would gradually work its way into SSP consideration sets. People would not just know that it exists, but also, if the company developed a differentiated story, they would slowly start to remember that story. “Oh, they’re the retail media SSP” (or whatever their particular schtick is). 

Frequent exposure; thoughtful, differentiated takes; and original data or information boost awareness, which gets you in the consideration set. The value proposition is not rocket science. And it’s critical to growing any business.

How marketing builds your relationships

While you’re growing your reputation by creating content and earning media attention, all while developing a differentiated story, you’re also building relationships. When you start a marketing program, only your customers, employees, investors, and partners have heard of you. If it’s early days, you’re likely still invisible. But as you get loud, smart, and consistent, you’ll build relationships with people you don’t even know based on your marketing efforts.

Adtech is a relationships business. And this network of relationships will have a compounding effect. Through your marketing efforts, you’ll win new champions who will introduce you to customers and advocate on your behalf even without your knowledge. Your champions will introduce you to new champions, and your growing network and growing reputation will reinforce each other, begetting additional growth. 

I am talking, of course, about the oldest growth driver in business: word of mouth. Marketing is just the discipline of accelerating and scaling word of mouth by creating an army of influencers who will go to bat for you based on the strength of your online presence, be that podcasts, social posts, reports, or media coverage.

Marketing Is Simple

Adtech and martech have almost paradoxical relationships with marketing. These are the advertising and marketing technology industries; yet many leaders within them do not believe in marketing their own companies. No doubt, this is because adtech and martech tools are largely built for B2C marketing programs that can be more easily measured, whereas it’s difficult to track the reputation and relationships that B2B (adtech) marketing facilitates.

But don’t get lost in the attribution rabbit hole. Don’t get paralyzed by the difficulty of measuring your reputation and then conclude that the proper response is simply not to systematically build a reputation. 

We want to make things complicated when they’re not. 

Adtech (and martech) marketing is the art of building your reputation and relationships. There is no doubt that each of these things has a huge impact on pipeline and closed deals. 

Companies with greater awareness, trust, and networks of advocates win. Marketing is the art of building those assets. So, let’s get to it.