It is over a hundred years since the Philadelphia retailer John Wanamaker famously said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” Recently, the ISBA published a report that claimed 15% of programmatic advertiser spend was lost to an “unknown delta”, demonstrating that the measurement, trust and attribution issues that Wanamaker identified all those years ago are still with us. Meanwhile, commentators are predicting a rocky road ahead for the advertising industry. According to MarketingWeek, UK digital ad spend will decline for the first time ever this year.

If you’re an adtech vendor it’s not easy to stand out from the crowd: for instance, visitors to DMEXCO’s digital event will see scores of companies with very similar looking solutions. And yet it’s not all doom and gloom: technology has the potential to provide increased profitability and at the same time meet Wanamaker’s transparency issues head-on.

So, if you’re a vendor in the adtech space, your challenge is to demonstrate to customers and industry commentators how your solutions can help buck the decline in ad spend and address the long-standing transparency concerns.

This report looks at the best way to meet these challenges and help adtech vendors stand out from the crowd.

We talked to some of the most influential media, analyst and vendor players in the industry to understand the most significant communications challenges that adtech companies face today, including: