Data Skeptic: Ad Tech

Later in 2022, we're going to be launching our new season of episodes on Advertising Technology or "AdTech".

In the earliest days of the internet, marketers started looked for ways to get their message to potential customers via this emerging channel. Technology made this problem easy. Website creators could add small amounts of Javascript to their pages in order to enable an advertising platform to place ads on their site. As the web evolved and became mobile, adtech evolved along with it.

Today, internet users encounter search ads, display ads, video ads, podcast ads, sponsored content, and other advertising messages. These ads are powered by complex, data-driven set of technologies designed to optimize the distribution of the ads by some quantitative measure.

AdTech demands a great deal of mathematical modeling. On the bidding side, many advertisers track impressions, clicks, and conversions and adopt statistical methods to optimize their campaigns. The advertising platforms must decide on a mechanism or algorithm to govern the decision process about what ad to show, to who, and when. Game theory has influenced many of these choices, notably Google's second price auction system which is similar to the Vickery auction.

The volume of traffic on the internet has turned these systems into true marketplaces. Data on search terms, trending topics, and brand interest can be analyzed in similar manner to study of the stock market. And without a doubt, fraud exists at every level of the supply chain, yet data scientists can put their skills to work to detect and twart this fraud. There are also privacy and ethical considerations to be discussed given the degree to which users are tracked and analyzed by ad serving systems.

I've hinted at a few of the areas we plan to cover during this season. Data Skeptic "AdTech" is going to be a broad exploration of the technology, algorithms, and ramifications of modern digital advertising.

Kyle Polich Executive Producer