First-party data at scale: what’s driving consolidation in mobile adtech

Everyone is buying someone in mobile adtech these days, it seems. And some companies, like Vungle and Digital Turbine, are buying multiple companies in pursuit of a modern mobile walled garden, in a sense. The key, in the era of privacy driven by regulation and iOS 14.5-style platform fiat, is amassing more and more first-party data.

From my latest post on Singular’s blog:

There are two strategies that adtech and martech leaders are using separately or together, as they wish and are able, in the current rush to acquire, merge, expand, and dominate. (Or just survive.)

  • Build a verticalized tech stack to better enable the flow of demand
  • Build a content platform that enables the supply of demand

The first strategy is about the tools and the tech: creating, packaging, and offering the “picks and shovels of the gold rush” that Silverman talks about to app developers and marketers. The second strategy is about creating what Eric Seufert calls a content fortress, an entirely first-party way to both create and satisfy demand.

Get the full story in my interview with Vungle’s SVP of Revenue Scott Silverman here