How to Equip Your Agency with Advanced Ad Tech

Maria Esteban

5/13/2025

In the previous part of our Agency Partnership Growth Series, we covered how utilizing a paid media management partner can help agencies scale faster, meet rising client expectations, and free up internal resources without the complexities and overhead of building an in-house media team. However, there’s another key area where the right partner can make a major impact.

To stay competitive, agencies are feeling the pressure to keep up by leveraging innovative ad technology strategically. In fact, the ad tech market is surging. In 2024, there were 83 mergers and acquisitions–the highest number in at least five years–highlighting the industry’s fast pace of innovation and consolidation. At the same time, the digital advertising space is evolving fast, with trends like programmatic expanding into CTV, audio, and DOOH, along with a rise in AI-powered immersive formats. Keeping up and staying ahead means real investment, specialized expertise, and ongoing maintenance of your ad tech stack.

The good news is that agencies no longer need to absorb these costs internally. Instead, a trusted partner in paid media management can unlock instant access so your agency can offer enterprise-grade capabilities to clients without additional overhead.

In this installment, we’ll break down what a modern, sophisticated ad tech stack looks like, how creative technology is transforming programmatic campaigns, and highlight how partnering strategically can help your agency stay ahead of the curve.

Understanding Advanced Ad Tech

When we talk about “advanced ad tech,” we’re referring to an ensemble of various technologies that collaborate and benefit one another to provide increasingly smarter, faster, and better campaigns. A well-thought-out ad tech stack enables brands to see in-depth insights into customers’ behaviors and interests so they can mold content according to their consumer profile. While building out this kind of stack internally can be labor-intensive, partnering with the right paid media management provider gives your agency immediate insights. We’ll go over integral parts in an ad tech stack:

DSP (Demand-Side Platform)

Ad tech software that enables advertisers to buy digital ad inventory programmatically among various channels through a single interface. It uses real-time bidding (RTB) to automatically bid on and place ads based on targeting, budget, and campaign goals.

SSP (Supply-Side Platform)

On the publisher side, the SSP makes premium inventory available to buyers by connecting to multiple demand sources. It automates the sale of ad impressions, allowing publishers to maximize revenue through real-time bidding and yield optimization.

DMP/CDP (Data Management Platform, Customer Data Platform)

DMPs and CDPs centralize and segment audience data, including first-party, third-party, and behavioral, to power precise targeting and more personalized ad experience.

Ad Server

This is the backbone of ad delivery. An ad server manages where, when, and how ads appear, while tracking key performance metrics across every channel.

CMP (Consent Management Platform)

Privacy regulations are evolving, and CMPs help you build trust while staying compliant by managing user consent and data preferences.

PMP (Private Marketplace)

PMPs offer a more exclusive, controlled programmatic environment by giving advertisers access to bid on high-quality ad placements through curated deals with premium publishers. Essentially, these deals increase your ad effectiveness while protecting brand safety because the advertiser defines the audience, and the platform curates the best ad spots to align with the audience.

DCO (Dynamic Creative Optimization)

DCO technology automatically tailors ad creative in real time by adjusting visuals, copy, sizing, and CTA based on a variety of parameters like behavior, context, and performance data. This allows agencies to deliver highly relevant and localized creative at scale without manually building every variation.

Brand Safety & Verification Tools

These solutions make sure your ads appear in suitable environments, detect fraud, confirm viewability, and help maintain your clients’ reputation at every touchpoint.

Attribution & Analytics Tools

These tools tie the whole ad tech ecosystem together by providing a clear view of how campaigns perform across channels and devices. Essential in omnichannel strategies, they help your team understand what’s driving conversions, where spend is most efficient, and how to continuously optimize.

The Role of Creative Technology in Advanced Programmatic Advertising

Creative technology, or “creative tech” has emerged as a critical differentiator for agencies aiming to deliver more engaging and memorable ad experiences. According to recent insights from McKinsey, 71% of consumers now expect personalized interactions, and 76% express frustration when brands fail to deliver tailored experiences. It’s clear that agencies must innovate creatively to truly connect with audiences in omnichannel strategies.

Unlocking High-Impact, Rich Media Formats

Consumers are experiencing digital ad fatigue from standard display ads, and agencies now have a critical opportunity to differentiate themselves. Leveraging partnerships with leading creative tech solutions provides the toolkit and expertise for agencies to offer non-disruptive and highly personalized ad formats.

For example, high-impact ad formats like enhanced native ads and rich media creative continually produce better performance. Based on TripleLift’s study with MediaScience, showing traditional CTV ads with enhanced ad formats raised unaided brand recall dramatically, from 50% to as high as 83%. Additionally, context-targeted ads performed 1.2 to 2.5 times better than targeting methods with no relevance, emphasizing just how important highly relevant ad contexts play in viewer satisfaction¹.

In the same way, dynamic creative experiences powered by providers like Perion (formerly Undertone) reinforce deeper personalization. Tailoring creative in real time based on location, weather, and behavior leads to more relevant ads and stronger engagement.

Scaling Social Investments Across Channels

One of the most effective ways to scale creative is by converting high-performing social content to programmatic-ready assets. Creative automation technology enables agencies to easily repurpose successful social content for display, mobile, and CTV advertisements seamlessly without production delays.

Innovative automation partners such as Nova have reported impressive performance gains, with social-inspired display creatives driving 5-7x better CTR than standard display ads². Leveraging creative automations supports agencies in easily scaling high-performing social campaigns, maximizing their impact on the open web and on CTV.

Meaningful Conversations Through Interactive Ads

Today’s consumer doesn’t seek passive interaction; their expectation is dialogue and individualized experiences. It’s now possible for agencies to transform banner display and video placements into engaging interactions through conversational advertising solutions.

By integrating conversational ad platforms such as our partners Cavai and Vyde strategically, agencies can offer uniquely engaging experiences ranging from conversational videos that engage viewers actively to personalized, interactive commerce ads that make users interact with each ad unit. It turns passive viewing into participation, which effectively raises the relevance and performance of campaigns.

Optimizing Creative Performance with Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)

With increasingly fragmented audiences and diverse tastes, it’s becoming increasingly complicated to stay relevant across campaigns at scale. DCO, which relies on generative AI and real-time data, allows agencies to produce multiple personalized ad variations from a single creative concept. This approach tremendously boosts relevance, consumer interaction, and overall campaign performance.

According to McKinsey, companies employing targeted and dynamically optimized campaigns typically see 1-2% incremental lifts in sales and 1-3% improvements in profit³. With DCO, agencies can continuously fine-tune creative elements such as imagery, messaging, and CTAs to align precisely with audience context and preferences, resulting in sustained campaign performance without manual effort.

Why the Right Paid Media Partner Makes All the Difference

Accessing advanced ad tech is one thing, knowing how to wield it effectively is another. While large agencies can sustain extensive in-house teams and resources, many independent and mid-sized agencies find themselves in a continuous race to keep up. That’s why having a trusted agency partner, one that not only specializes in programmatic advertising but also brings deep ad tech expertise, can fundamentally change how an agency competes and grows.

A strategic paid media management partner provides specialized expertise to make the tech work. They provide licensing fees, onboarding, continuous optimization, and present simplified reporting. This end-to-end management means your agency can provide clients with advanced, high-performing campaigns that were previously unattainable.

The right partner also acts as your innovation scout, regularly assessing new tools, formats, and suppliers. Proactive vetting means your agency is ahead of the trend in every area: DCO, upgraded CTV buys, or conversation ads. It all adds up to staying ahead, not just keeping up.

Finally, the right media partner maximizes your buying strength. You enjoy preferential rates and simplified vendor management, which translates to reduced ad spend friction and better ROI for your clients. Consolidated billing and single reporting translate to less ops hassle, allowing your team to focus on strategic growth and client relations.

Why Ad Tech Alone Isn’t Enough—And What Agencies Really Need

With the ongoing transformation of ad tech, it’s not access that matters, but rather how you use it to drive results. From building a modern ad tech stack to delivering high-impact, personalized, and omnichannel experiences, agencies require more than just tools. They need a strategic ally who can harness an ad tech stack in a precise manner at scale.

For advertising, creative, and full-service agencies, a trusted paid media management partner unlocks advanced ad tech, deep platform expertise, and seamless execution without the complexity of managing it all in-house. It’s a smarter, more scalable way to offer clients innovative solutions and improve campaign outcomes to stay competitive.

Be sure to check back for Part 4 of our Agency Partnership Growth Series: How Your Agency Can Measure Ad Performance and Campaign ROI. We’ll dive deeper into tracking effectiveness and maximizing your clients’ ad investments.