What AdTech is about in 2025

Is traditional advertising actually dead or there's a reshift happening? The most important word in the market here is vocabulary is test. And with modern ad tech, it's never been easier to test at scale. Open bidding, check, alternative stores already proven. But at what point do you say, OK, this is going to be here for a while? Users became much more selective nowadays. They want value in exchange for attention. Yeah, thank you, AI, for this beautiful contribution for our launch campaign. I need more coffee. Hi, everyone. This is Points of Growth, a podcast about the ad tech industry by Yango Ads. Here we unite marketing and business people to discuss advertising, ad monetization, current trends and challenges. My name is Neha Dewar. I'm a business development manager at Yango Ads, and I will be hosting this podcast alongside with our speakers. I've actually always wanted to try this because I'm still considering a stand up comedy as my side career. So you see, advertising is all about communication. Yet somehow people in the industry rarely get a chance to sit down at the same table and just, you know, kind of discuss the work that they do every day. Well, here's your chance. Points of Growth is where ad tech experts can come together to share their insights, ask the big questions and believe it or not, find some common ground along the way. Maybe we'll see. So we are kicking off the first episode about ad tech, about the now. What is this industry exactly? Where is the advertising currently headed? What events shape the industry as we know it? And what are the key insights we have for 2025? So my guests today are Malika Kennedy, chief business development officer at Yango Ads in the Middle East and Africa. Hi, everyone. And our second guest today is Denise Chivchi, senior monetization expert at Yango Ads. Hello, dears. Thank you for your invitation. So I'm very glad to have both of you here. This is actually like a great combination since Malika is going to be covering the advertising side while Denise will enlighten us on the app monetization. So can you tell us and this is everybody's like favorite question in the world. Tell us a bit more about what you do. I work with the top mobile developers and publishers and helping them scale revenue through smart monetization in app advertising and analytics. My focus is emerging markets, alternative app stores, open bidding and automation. So basically everything that helps turn an app into a real business. So I help our partners grow sustainably, reduce operation complexity and unlock new revenue streams they didn't even know existed. I've been in Middle East for the past 18 years. I love the market. I've been in the advertising industry for over a decade. I guess my role is a bit of a person wearing many hats, I would say. I help Yango Ads really establish its ground in the region. I work alongside a variety of teams by building partnerships and truly beneficial win-win kind of scenarios for our clients, aka advertisers across the span of Middle East and Africa are very strongly present across UAE. We establish our grounds in Saudi and Amman and some of the more emerging markets such as Jordan and Egypt. So, yeah, that's pretty much it. Wow, that's quite a background, Malika. That's quite impressive. In this episode, we kind of want to make a good intro into the ad tech industry for our listeners. So can you give us an overview from your side what ad tech is about? What are the major tools or services we're talking about? From my perspective, ad tech nowadays is no longer just about placing ads. It's about building a full ecosystem where data, automation and UX come together to drive monetization. So in the app world, ad tech, I would say, is how you turn user sessions into sustainable business outcomes without hurting your product. And you, Malika, what does the ad tech industry mean to you? David Ogilvie himself said that the most important word in the marketeer's vocabulary is test. And with modern ad tech, it's never been easier to test at scale. So ad tech covers all sorts of cool topics like the market, ad tech covers all sorts of cool topics like more, quote unquote, traditional topics like DSPs, SSPs, DMPs, MMPs and so on. But it also covers emerging topics, really amazing ones like how can we better use AI to rapidly iterate on creative concepts and machine learning, which helps us optimize in real time to our business objectives. So it's quite wide, but also very exciting. So I would add that for me, ad tech is a full stack approach to add businesses. So from monetization to acquisition and back again. And I agree with Malika, that was so deep. Well, I'm very glad we chose you to be the first guest of our podcast. I'm wondering what were sort of the game changers over the past few years, the moments that kind of, you know, like changed the advertising industry? Was there like a specific event that made you personally think that, OK, this is it, like there's no coming back from this one? For me, that moment was when I first saw a case study by Digitas, which I was part of. And the case study was from U.S. called Delta is the path you make. Basically, we use template based personalized video ads to generate to each premium user of data airlines using AI. And it blew my mind by that time because it was over 600,000 personalized videos, which were simply blending in the data that airline has been collecting about their loyalty program users. But at that moment on, I knew that if we can deliver such data powered personalization at scale, that changes the game forever. And at that time was truly unimaginable. What do we see in apps? We have alternative app stores as a game changer. So, for example, Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung and Russor, these stores together give access to, I guess, 600 million users, something like this. So it's a huge number. First of all, what we saw for the last like two years, we have open bidding. It's a huge game changer nowadays. We saw an average plus 30 percent revenue uplift for partners who switched to it using different mediations to call the ads. It's like transparent, efficient and way more scalable than waterfalls. Now, people who know about monetization, they would understand that open bidding is really like having the massive impact on the market with the apps and games. That is absolutely fascinating. How do you kind of identify which trends to kind of, you know, pay attention to? Like, how do you know something is long term or just like a short term thing? We're constantly fed with so much information on a daily basis. Like, it's actually so hard to keep up. I'm struggling. But at what point do you say, OK, this is going to be here for a while versus something that'd be like, nope, OK, this is going to disappear over the next, you know, two months? Now, I would say here, very simple. If it saves you time and brings revenue at scale, it's worth following. Let's do it like this. Open bidding. Check. Alternative stores. Already proven. AI powered ad targeting based on prediction LTV. Absolutely. So if a solution makes the, for example, app team faster and smarter, that's what we double down on. So the rest, just noise for us. That was possibly the most short and concise and extremely helpful answer that I've ever heard. So thank you. Honestly, yeah, I agree. The key here to identify, is it solving any fundamental problems? Is it being adopted across different levels of the industry from startups alike to major platform? If the answer is yes to both. So it's worth tracking. Agenting, learning, probabilistic measurement, rapid iteration. They're all becoming the norm for what we need to do as marketing experts. So it is exciting. then as long as it makes your life easier, right, this is it. Can we say that, you know, traditional advertising is dead or are we waiting for, you know, any kind of comebacks? Because everything's like so digital nowadays, like everything you do, you do on your phone or your computer. But at what point do you get, you know, advertising fatigue? People are just constantly like, no, OK, I kind of want to switch off. I would love to answer this question. Honestly, when I started my career and I started from performance marketing back when search advertising was considering something ultra technical and complete puzzle for most of the people from the advertising business. And we were hoping to get anything between like five to 15 percent share of the whole marketing budget when the shift did happen towards digital nowadays, and it's a completely flip kind of ratio. Traditional media is still alive and kicking, but it plays a different role than before. It's all becoming more integrated. You think of digital billboards, you think connected smart TVs, digital packaging with QR codes is becoming more aware. And it's true that the shift is moving away from broadcast media where you spray and pray and towards more personalized communication. And traditional media is adapting to it. Not everywhere, but we see a lot more of digital billboards tracking type of cars driving and passing by them. You know, you see a lot more exciting retail media in stores that connecting with a different type of customer. So it's just becoming more digitized and more and more personalized and evolving this way, because at the end of the day, you have so many points of interaction with brands on a daily basis and you cannot just think that we'll live our life in a digital world because we're not. We're going outside. We go to cinema. We drive from point A to point B. We take our walks. So, no, I think it's just evolving. I would like to say, first of all, as we say in Serbia, 100% true. And in mobile, what we see, we are moving toward integrated monetization and ads that feel like part of the experience, not a disruption. So that's why, for example, when you use the app or you're playing the game, rewarded videos and native formats perform so well. So users became much more selective nowadays. They want value in exchange for attention. So if you do that, well, users are OK with all your ads you will show. But for example, previous week I was in Hanoi meeting my partners, app developers, game developers, and they are saying that, yeah, nowadays, spammy banners are out. They are remaking their apps in new formats. For example, they are moving from hyper casual games like so easy, you know, playing. For example, you have three in a row or playing chess, all that stuff. All those apps for the last like five years, seven years, they were fully like covered by banners over. And nowadays those gaming studios are moving to more mid-core games, which are harder to play. You need to spend more time playing them, for example, from five, 10 minute sessions, which was before they are switching to 20, 30, 40 minutes of gaming sessions. That's why, yes, I would say that is not about the traditional advertising. I would say it's no longer the hero. Actually, coming back to Malika's mention about retail media. So one actually major shift that we saw over the past year was the rise of retail media. So before, you know, I kind of talk about how it's impacted your work, etc. Can you explain to our listeners what retail media is? Oh, yeah, 100 percent. Retail media, it's like having to see advertising while you shop for the products contextually. So, for example, Amazon already have nine percent of their revenue being generated by retail media. And globally, we see a trend going from one twenty three billion dollars in retail media in twenty three projected to become nearly two hundred billion dollar business. And it's going to double from three point two million to nearly six billion here in the Middle East. And I absolutely see this happening because you have a lot of e-commerce players really picking up. So, yeah, in the simple terms, it's a great solution for shoppers to be shown advertising for something that they contextually want to see. It's great for advertisers, of course, because it can benefit by getting more revenue production from the retailers. And of course, it's an additional revenue stream for retailers. So it works as a win win solution for all three. I hope I painted the picture quite clearly on this one. Yes, you certainly did. You actually did. I just wanted to ask, do you have any examples like how has this impacted your work or do you foresee it happening? No, I am kind of retail media expert. It was a very exciting journey because you're taking this traditional powerhouse of retailers and traditional shops that's been here almost from the inception of the UAE. It's been here for the past 50 years nearly. And you're trying to change their mindset to see the value of getting an additional revenue stream from digital for enhancing the digital to bring the ecosystem, to get them to use the data that they have been accumulating for all these years. And that shift wasn't a simple one. What I can say, like, in addition, in apps, developers are now thinking more like platforms. So they are building their own ad ecosystems, leveraging user behavior to create valuable inventory. It does the impact how we think about demand, targeting and how value flows inside the app. I'm going to, you know, talk about everyone's favorite subtopic when it comes to advertising, like you cannot talk about advertising and not mention AI. And well, since we're all here, it does look like our jobs are safe for now. Do you see any risks of over-automation down the line? I wouldn't say that it impacts my future job, but I would say in our ecosystem, ML models predict LTV and adjust bids in real time. I would say, for example, app campaigns. We also use auto-targeting in app campaigns. The system matches the app with the user based on interest and behavior. So not just keywords, as we got used to for two decades before when the search engine just started, right? It was working with only keywords. Nowadays, it's much deeper. The apps, the ad machines, the ad networks, the mediations, they help to dive deep into the people's minds, what they want, what they want to buy, what they're willing in the future to buy. This is crazy. And this works pretty well here. But the risk is also in blind automation, right? You can't let the model run wild because human input is still critical. AI has been already doing a lot of tasks for digital marketeers for years. Automated bidding systems have been around since the early 2010s. And while they're not quite as amazing as turning your photo into Studio Ghibli, it's still a powerful tool since then. I remember the days when I just started in search advertising, that we started the day by checking the bids and budgets and making the changes based on data. And if you have huge global campaigns, I was managing advertising for Dubai tourism, for Abu Dhabi tourism, so we had global search campaigns. It was quite a task. And when the bidding system came in, we were able to breathe. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I worked in digital marketing for years and can honestly say we need more help with automated controls, more creative support, more ways to fill our CPMs and so on. Bring more AI to the field, I say, and use it as a co-pilot. Benefit from it. Learn how to make the most of it. And to the point, is it taking our jobs? Not quite yet. There was a funny story with some of the clients I wouldn't disclose, but it's a very luxury real estate developer. And as any real estate developer that usually always has tight deadline for campaign launches because of the project commercial schedule, they didn't have time to do a proper creative launch for their new project. So they decided to use AI. And the production of AI was quite funny because it wasn't clear what is even being launched. I remember discussing it with a client when she said there was a room full of super senior marketeers and we were discussing what color of the robe the girl should have at the background of the C in the backdrop, when at some point we've just all realized that the woman has two left legs. Oh, dear God. Yeah. And we're talking about a billion-dollar project kind of development. Oh. Yeah. Thank you, AI, for this beautiful contribution for our launch campaign. But no, it's not taking our jobs. OK, so let's wrap it up by discussing geography. I want to discuss the geography of advertising today. What kind of markets do you think are becoming more and more promising, in your opinion? Oh, guys, I came prepared here today with this question. Go for it, Denisse. Emerging markets are booming nowadays. So I would say eight out of the top 10 countries by app downloads are emerging markets. Just imagine, we see huge momentum in MENA, SEA, Eastern Europe, Latin America, lots of like countries and lots of publishers, gaming studios, they are going to only like their main focus is United States and Europe, for example, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain. That's it. But emerging markets are booming nowadays. For example, in these regions, at Yango Ads, we offer localized monetization through alternative stores. They have deep coverage with the app campaigns. So growth is faster, acquisition is cheaper, and users are mobile first. It's like a no-brainer. I would say this one is the main topic nowadays. Yeah, I'm actually of the same opinion. I think your next big thing is emerging markets. I think there's a lot of potential, a lot of untapped opportunity, and businesses should kind of be grabbing it as soon as possible. I'll probably go from my region specifics. So for me, Saudi Arabia is dynamic and innovative market with their Giga projects. You can really feel the buzz from the moment you set foot in Riyadh airport and Riyadh season makes it the place to be. You have mega projects like Neom, Red Sea. They have really done a lot of work by keeping their heritage with Hegra and Alula. And at the same time, of course, we cannot overlook UAE, which is a hub always humming with innovation. And beyond this, we've also seen amazing things coming up from other markets, whether it's Oman or Pakistan, Burjing as well, with an intra-city digital display and so much more underway. This is an exciting part of the world to be in and we're looking forward to what's next. Well, Malika and Denise, thank you so much for this conversation. I'd like to kind of wrap it up here because we've unpacked a lot today. Like I don't want to scare our listeners. And I think we've set the stage for some sort of big conversations in our future episodes. And of course, to our listeners, thank you for tuning in. If you want to dive deeper into advertising and monetization trends, tap the link in the description. At Yango Ads, we've created the AdTech Trends Playbook to help you stay ahead in the industry. Learn more about advertising, monetization, and the tools Yango Ads has to offer. Actually, the tools deserve a separate episode. We will be discussing the advertising toolbox next time. And this is going to be a very hands-on conversation. Hit subscribe and stay tuned.