5 companies disrupting ad tech with blockchain right now
Smarter and more secure advertising is closer than it appears. Here are some projects who are on the path to turn the ad world on its head
The online marketing industry as a whole is at a crossroads: According to a Forrester agency study, 56% of all display ad dollars were lost to fraudulent or unviewable inventory in 2016, accounting for 7.4 billion dollars in 2016. That number is predicted to go up to a whopping 10.9 billion dollars by 2021. Add the additional problems such as ad-blockers and high fees to the story and you’ve got yourself a market in need of disruption.
Here are some companies that are spearheading the improvement of Ad Tech using blockchain right now:
1. Amino Payments
Amino Payments developed a blockchain-based payment system to helps advertisers and publishers transfer money instantly (and according to real-time data) using smart contracts. Ad buyers create their own digital signature which allows for instant money transfers upon buying an ad. The software logs all activity of the companies involved in the media buying process and automates the payment procedure. Amino Payments’ software test partners include AppNexus, Dstillery, and T-Mobile.
2. AdShares
As a decentralized, peer-to-peer market for programmatic advertising, AdShares removes the middleman of the advertising world (usually an ad exchange) by using blockchain to connect between publishers and advertisers directly. Among the company’s many promises is a 90% reduction of fees, resistance to ad-blockers, and the ability to serve what are considered controversial segments such as gambling and cryptocurrencies for example.
3. AdChain
AdChain is a MetaX project meant to help curate a list of ad-supported websites. The site uses its own token called AdToken (ADT) to incentivize the community to add websites to the registry. The project’s goal is to form a human-curated list of legitimate publisher websites that are not fraudulent and are operated and used by real people.
4. IBM and Salon Media Group
The computing giant in concert with Salon Media are piloting a blockchain-based project meant to prevent fraud in advertising. “The Campaign Reconciliation Project” was developed by Adledger, a nonprofit consortium developing shared ledger technologies for digital advertising. The project aims to increase transparency by removing intermediaries between advertisers and publishers and recording contractual conditions using blockchain.
5. Brave
Founded by the inventor of Javascript and co-founder of Mozilla Brendan Eich, Brave is a blockchain-based browser that is already changing our we interact with display advertising. Brave blocks all trackers and intrusive ads making it not only more secure but also a lot faster. Users of the popular browser are paid when they opt-in to see ads from advertisers they like, and can support their favorite publishers and content creators by making micropayments in cryptocurrency to see the content they opt in for.
