Interview with Founder and CEO of The ADEX – Dino Bongartz

 

 

“Audience extension is a great tool for digital companies to increase their marketing performances ”

1. Tell us about your role at The ADEX and how you got here?
We started ADEX back in 2013 based on the idea of safe and private data management platform. After screening the market, we thought the time was right for starting a European based DMP.
I am the CEO at The ADEX. Maybe you want some information about my background which basically brought me to where I am now:
I studied economics at the University of Marburg. After my studies, I founded mediasquares in 2001 and established it in the TOP 4 of the German online marketers within the next 4 years. In 2005 I sold the company to the market-listed marketer Adpepper. Until April 2007 I continued to manage mediasquares as Managing Director and helped Adpepper AG set up Mediasquares subsidiaries worldwide. In 2008 I started Jogo Media. I was an investor in tech companies like smartclip or Kush TV. Since then I am engaing myself in the topics related to digital marketing and technologies. I am also    part of the IAB Germany and Europe as Vice Chair of Programmatic Boards.

2. What’s the most fascinating aspect of working with The ADEX? How about sharing with us a cool picture of your trendy work environment?
We collect a lot of data every single day, so it´s a 24/7 job and you will never know if something unexpected will happen. We work with huge enterprise clients, which makes the work a great experience. Especially company events such as our rebranding summer event we had this year are enormous fun – not just for the team but also for our customers:
https://www.theadex.com/about/news/the-adex-company/recap-the-adex-s…rebranding-event/

3. How is the martech industry different from when you first started?
It has become difficult to start a new company. In 2010 you needed a mobile phone and   a notebook. Now you have GDPR and eprivacy as an entrance hurdle. You have Google, Facebook and Amazon that are eating lot of the market and building monopoles and Wallet Gardens for entire markets.

4. Given the changing dynamic of marketing analytics and customer insights, where do you see your Company name fitting in the ecosystem?
We have a great development team and launch lots of new features every year, so we will keep up the pace and always try to be ahead in development. We see ourselves as pioneers for data management, marketplaces and verification. Just this year we launched very interesting and pathbreaking updates such as:

Audience Extension: Is an approach of targeting users based on the analysis of their CRM, mobile or desktop data. Depending on this data, audience extension is increasing the reach of an audience by finding users that are similar to the original target group. User with similarities in data, behaviour, interest or geo are more likely to become customers in the future. Therefore Audience Extension is a great tool for digital companies to increase their marketing performance. Find out more here:
https://www.theadex.com/data-management-platform/audience-extension/

Audience Verification: Is the process of auditing the reached target group within a served campaign. The aim is to control the actually served group of people to its initially intended audience which was specified in the insertion order. Find out more here:
https://www.theadex.com/the-adex-verification/audience-verification/

Contextual Keyword Targeting: Is based on contextual & sentiment analysis. The   contextual evaluation contains e.g. automatic language detection and text analysis. Sentiment or emotional analysis is important to understand the general mood of a text including the core feelings of the respective content. Find out more here:
https://www.theadex.com/data-management-platform/contextual-keyword-targeting/

5. How do you differentiate The ADEX from the competition?
We understand data privacy and security better than anybody else. We have an agile team to be more dynamic compared to the big competitors.
In times of GDPR compared to our worldwide competitors it´s a strong benefit of The ADEX to be GDPR-complient since we started back then in 2013. Furthermore as an European company we prefer and ensure to safe data in our local datacentres, we do not use cloud services. The acquisition of the verification provider batch Media in 2017 also added some unique values to our DMP e.g. the integration of viewability as an attribute for segmentation or the aspect of audience verification. The various possibilities of data sharing to an enormous array of DSP´s, DMP´s, SSP´s,… within our multi-client capable system are also highly requested in the market. Last but not least we are the exclusive technical enabler of the European Opt-In-Alliance.

A full overview about our strengths can be found here:
https://www.theadex.com/why-adex/

6. How do you think you can scope the best with the growing complexities in analyzing real time customer behavior and enhancing customer interest?
Data and complexity will increase every day, so best way is to enhance technology every day as well, if you lean back and stay with your technology, you will be outdated very quickly.

7. What do you think is the main factor in orchestrating customer interests and actually build the pertaining customer trust?
Have a deep understanding of data and how to make the best relevant offer out of it. The topics are very complex, so we have to take out the complexity and just make it relevant and easy to get/ understand.

8. Can you share with us in a fun video a short glimpse of your functioning as a firm and your core values?
Mission Statement

WE ENABLE … unlimited access to the fascinating and sometimes overwhelming world of data management, the enormous amount of sharable data on marketplaces, and the various ways of verification. Personalised for your needs we create the most sophisticated approach to a holistic, data-driven marketing environment to rule them all.

WE ENSURE … results, safety and confidentiality for every individual partner and their data based on the highest understanding of accountability. In our view data is the most precious benefit ever in the digital economy – and we possess the skill, proficiency and business intelligence to protect it.

We EMBRACE … every opportunity given by the market and its current development to offer the best services to our clients and develop the most valuable technical system to welcome you on board as a contented part of our constantly growing “data family” with its diversity of passionate people, nationalities and skills.

Company Values
As a company in the world of digital data, we are far from the end of our growth. Constantly emerging technologies and the special challenges of the market require a continual expansion of our team – also on an international level. We are looking for pioneers, enthusiasts, thinkers and doers – please contact with us if you see yourself in the following.

Be innovative.
It takes drive, courage and lateral thinkers to stay tuned to the digital age. We believe in the fast pace of our industry, are fascinated by the rapid technological developments and always look for “the next big thing”.

Be Committed.
Our work is based on dedication to what we do and a firm belief that anything is possible. The creation of real added value – in a team or for our customers – can only happen with cooperation and enthusiasm.

Be passionate.
The energetic commitment of every single person, the mutual inspiration coupled and close teamwork have always been an incentive for the creation of outstanding products and experienced company philosophy.

9. What tools would you recommend to CEOs and CMOs as a Sales Hack in 2018?
Understand the landscape of technologies and based on the company ressources decide what will best the best way ahead. Learn about your customers and their needs. Take all data you need and make data collection and management transparent within your company.

10. What do you think are the new standards of tech integrations? How do you manage the dire data complexities that come along with tech integrations?
I think in times of GDPR and the upcoming eprivacy the leading new standard is the iab consent framework which basically helps to manage data (consents) since everybody has to adopt the same technique. Other than that we experience that more data sources are coming up such as DOOH or TV data but we are well prepared for that as well because of our presence in the market.

11. Which startups in the martech and adtech industries are you keenly following?
All startups dealing with data, video and gaming topics.

12. What book are you currently reading?
‘The Hard Thing About Hard Things’ Ben Horowitz

13. One piece of advice you always follow irrespective of circumstances
Get things done, don´t matter what.