The advertising technology industry is undeniably hot. By one estimate, over $2.5 billion has been invested in nearly 200 companies spanning 24 categories. The upside to all this activity: innovation keeps coming. The advent of ad exchanges gave birth to demand-side platforms and data exchanges, giving rise to agency trading desks. But it’s also led to innumerable point solutions, like ad verification, tag management and dynamic ad creative. That gives rise to the downside of all this: it’s a complex, messy landscape that’s hard and expensive to navigate. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said this week, “It’s still too complicated to get a campaign up. It’s just too hard.”
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