If the Ad Tech SF exhibit hall can be used to measure the hot trends in online advertising, it seems that we see a big shift in the industry.
If in recent years you could see big booths and signs from all the analytics companies as well the behavioral ad networks, this year they all don’t exist not exhibit floor.
You don’t see much talk about optimizations, data, measurement, engagement, BT and other buzz words that ruled the industry in last couple of years. Also the words CPM and CPC don’t appear anymore on any of the booths big signs.
So what are the hot trends that replaced them?
The first one is gaming and offers. The hall is ruled by companies that develop gaming experiences and the ad and offers networks for games.
The second big one is definitely mobile. There are many new mobile ad networks and other vendors that push their mobile offering.
Another new buzz word is performance marketing. Stop suing CPX. Now it’s all about paying for performance, whatever it is actually mean.
And of course social media. Besides the big booths from Facebook and LinkedIn, there are many booths of agencies and networks that boost on their capabilities to target users on social networks.
What made me curios is the obvious lack of location/geo based advertising. With all the hype around smart phones and the iPad you could have guessed that location will be the hit of the show. Apparently location based advertising is still not really here.
So what does this all mean?
Did the measurement and targeting markets matured enough that the companies behind them don’t need to push their brand so much? Or is it simply the way the buzz cycle work, when new trends take the place of the old ones?
To be honest – I don’t really know. I guess time will tell as we see where the industry go throughout the year.