Your Ultimate Guide to Adtech vs. Martech: What They Are, How They Differ, and When to Use Them

In today’s digital world, it’s all about tech. From smartphones to tablets to smart TVs, technology continues to play an integral role in our lives. It’s no different with marketing –– marketing requires using technology to help businesses like yours grow.

When it comes to marketing technology, it’s all about adtech vs. martech. Some people mistakenly use them interchangeably, which can make it confusing to know what each one does. That’s why, in this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know, including:

• What is adtech?
• What is martech?
• Adtech vs. martech: What’s the difference?
• Adtech and martech applications
• Adtech vs. martech: Which should I use?

Keep reading to learn more!

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Adtech vs. martech: What is adtech?

So, what is adtech? Adtech is technology your business uses to launch advertisements to customers. This technology does different jobs to help launch ad campaigns, including buying and selling ad space, launching ads, and more.

Some examples of adtech include:

• Demand-side platforms (DSPs)
• Supply-side platforms (SSPs)
• Ad exchanges
• Ad servers

This technology helps make the process of buying and selling ads easier for everyone.

Martech vs. adtech: What is martech?

So, what is martech, then? Martech is any technology that helps companies facilitate actions with their marketing campaigns. Marketing technology helps your business build campaigns, run them, and measure their performance.

Some examples of martech include:

• Social media management platforms
• Email marketing software
• Analytics tools
• Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms

These tools help you manage your marketing strategies and automate simple marketing tasks to allow you to spend time on more intricate tasks.

Adtech vs. martech: What’s the difference?

If you’re looking at adtech and martech, you might wonder what the difference is between the two. At the heart of it, both involve technology to help facilitate a marketing strategy. The biggest difference lies in what is encompassed in each category.

Adtech is specific to advertising. The only technology encompassed under adtech regards platforms that help facilitate running ads online.

Martech, on the other hand, is broader. It encompasses any technology used for any marketing strategy, from social media marketing to search engine optimization (SEO).

Essentially, adtech is one category of martech that you can use for your business. Martech is the broader category that encompasses all technology used for marketing.

Adtech vs. martech applications: How can I use adtech or martech?

When looking at martech vs. adtech, you may wonder how you can use both in your digital marketing strategy. Let’s look at where and how you might use this technology in your strategy.

How to use adtech

First in the martech vs. adtech comparison, let’s look at how to use adtech.

If you want to use adtech in your strategy, you can use it when running programmatic ads. Programmatic advertising is the automated selling and purchasing of ads. This strategy uses DSPs and SSPs to help you buy ad space and launch your ads.

With programmatic advertising, you provide your advertising materials to ad suppliers. Then, using the DSP and SSP, ads get delivered on websites as users visit them.

Want to learn more about programmatic advertising? Check out this article!

Learn more about programmatic advertising

How to use martech

Now, let’s look at how to use martech vs. adtech.

If you want to use martech, you have multiple avenues and opportunities where you can use it. Here are some strategies where you can use martech:

• Social media marketing: If you have a social media presence on multiple platforms, you can use martech to help you facilitate posts for your profile. Platforms like Hootsuite and Buffer are great for creating an all-in-one hub for posting and monitoring social media performance.

• Email marketing: If you run an email marketing campaign, you can use martech to help you automate your email flow. Email martech can help you set up drip campaigns, create email triggers, and more.
• SEO: A key part of SEO is tracking your campaigns’ performance. With martech like Google Analytics, you can track valuable data and use that performance data to improve your strategy.
• Customer relationship management: If you want to maintain happy, loyal customers, you need CRM software. Programs like Nutshell will help you retain critical data about your audience that you can use to inform your marketing decisions.

These are just a few examples of how you can use martech with your marketing strategies.

Additionally, it’s important to know that some martech enables you to handle multiple campaigns and do multiple tasks. MarketingCloudFX, for example, enables you to handle tracking your SEO performance, automating your email flows, and more.

On top of that, some martech can integrate with other platforms. MarketingCloudFX, with all its features, integrates with the CRM program Nutshell, creating a marketing powerhouse for your business.

Martech vs. adtech: Which should I use?

Now that you’ve looked at adtech and martech, you may be wondering which one you should use. Truthfully, you can take advantage of both for your business.

Adtech is just a subset of martech focused on technology that helps you automate the ad process. You can use adtech to help simplify your advertising strategy while also using other martech to enhance your additional marketing strategies.

If you want to maximize results from your marketing, don’t look at it as adtech vs. martech, but rather, using adtech and martech in unison.

Looking for martech that maximizes revenue?

Investing in the right martech is the first step to helping you increase revenue for your business. If you want to get the most from your martech, look no further than WebFX. We offer revenue-focused martech that helps you increase sales for your business.

Our proprietary marketing software, MarketingCloudFX, helps you do everything from automating email campaigns to tracking SEO performance. Our software also integrates seamlessly with Nutshell, a CRM platform, to give you a marketing powerhouse that enhances your strategies.

If you want to learn more about our martech, contact us online or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist!