Agencies and tech companies that represent advertisers in online exchanges face a complicated auction environment on one side and sophisticated clients demanding more data-driven results on the other. This award recognizes outstanding demand-side technology companies that consistently meet the highest standards.

FINALISTS
Beeswax – Beeswax’s Bidder-as-a-Service Technology
Cognitiv – Cognitiv’s NeuralMind™ platform
Jelli – Jelli SpotPlan
Rubicon Project – Rubicon Project’s New Estimated Market Rate Feature
The Trade Desk

Publishers need technology companies that drive their direct revenue and turn visitors into loyal or more valuable audiences. This category recognizes vendors that excel in helping publishers build stronger and more sustainable businesses.

FINALISTS
AdsWizz – AdsWizz Monetization Platform: Fueling the Growth of Audio
InMobi – InMobi Publisher Platform
SendtoNews – SendtoNews’ Video Distribution Platform and AI-Powered Smart Match Video Player
Sourcepoint – Sourcepoint’s Consent Management Platform (CMP)
TRUSTX – Building the Sustainable Future for Trusted Advertising

From industry stalwarts like DMPs to new data management and activation technologies such as customer data platforms, customer identity companies and data consortiums, this award recognizes the leading companies that bring data to bear in programmatic media.

FINALISTS
Civis Analytics – Civis Customer Science: Empowering Data-Driven Organizations
Integrate – Clean Data Enables Marketers to Drive Pipeline and Orchestrate Demand
Numberly – Leveraging CDP Data to Prioritize Call Center Targets In Real Time
Tealium – Tealium’s Universal Data Hub
Zeotap – Fuel For Growth

Multitouch attribution or media-mix modeling? Mobile- or web-focused? Offline and cross-channel? This award recognizes the best in campaign measurement and analytics that cut through the noise and deliver meaningful insights.

FINALISTS
Datorama – Datorama, a Salesforce Company, Brings Key Data Insights to Marketers
Kochava – Eliminating Unwanted, Fraudulent Traffic Before Attribution
Merkle – Customer-Value-Driven Full-Funnel Paid Search Automated Bidding
Nativo – Nativo Helps Brands Unlock Their Return-on-Content with ContentQ
Nielsen Auto Cloud – J.D. Power and Nielsen Launch Auto Cloud to Transform Automotive Advertising

The human touch still matters, especially as technological complexity increases. The top platforms in this category help their customers resolve issues and succeed with outstanding personalized service.

FINALISTS
GumGum – Behind Every Great AI, There are Great Humans
MediaMath – Tech & Talent: How MediaMath Helps Brands Maximize Their Technology Investments to Drive Outcomes
Mediaocean – Anchors Aweigh! Charting a course to Customer Success in the Mediaocean
MoPub (a division of Twitter, Inc.) – MoPub: Bringing the Personal Touch to Programmatic
Productsup – A Feed Management Platform with Support that Kicks SaaS
Smartly.io – When It Comes to Customer Service, Everyone at Smartly.io Offers Time and Expertise

Ad tech is consolidating, but it’s also expanding. This award recognizes the best and most innovative of the new wave of technology firms. Applicants should have been founded less than three years ago.

FINALISTS
Ad Lightning  – The Industry’s Most Comprehensive Ad Quality Solution
Amino Payments – Transparency & SPO for Digital Advertising
boostr – The Future of Revenue Management for Media Companies
ID5 – A Universal ID Solution to Empower Independent Ad Tech Platforms and Premium Publishers
TRUSTX – Building the Sustainable Future for Trusted Advertising

Whether through thoughtful strategic or “test-and-learn” execution, the industry’s most innovative publishers have set a high bar for their use of technology, data, platforms, internal organization and partnerships to position themselves for success. This category recognizes publishers who have found new and creative ways to reach and monetize their audiences.

FINALISTS
Bloomberg Media
Dotdash
Edmunds – The Big Switch: Edmunds Becomes First Car Shopping Site to Provide Action-Based Reporting to Clients
Vox Media – Concert by Vox Media – The Industry’s Only Publisher-Led Ad Marketplace
WebMD – Medscape’s Programmatic Marketplace

Whether it’s a new integration or going deeper with an existing technology, leading publishers have found ways to make the tech work for them to boost results. This category recognizes publishers who have built, partnered or bought technology that is driving notable business success or audience growth.

FINALISTS
Axel Springer / Media Impact – Axel Springer Media Impact Ad Stack (ASMIAS) Platform
Meredith – Meredith’s In-Image Shopping Technology
National Review – National Review Innovates With CDP to Design, Build, and Implement Significant Revenue Driving Product and Initiatives
Megaphone – Megaphone Targeted Marketplace Brings Efficient Targeting at Scale to Podcast Advertising
WeatherBug – WeatherBug Ups Revenue by Moving to a Unified Auction

Data drives digital results. Publishers in this category used first-, second- and/or third-party data to skillfully generate insights, target campaigns or measure results and optimize in ways that increased effectiveness for their clients.

FINALISTS
Bloomberg Media – BloombergAiQ, an AI-Powered Proprietary Audience and Content Platform
Dow Jones – WSJ | Barron’s Group Contextual Targeting Breakthrough
NCC Media – Comcast/Charter/Cox – NCC’s Media Lab & Incremental Reach Strategy
The New York Times – Feeling It: How NYT Targets Emotional Context
USA TODAY NETWORK/GANNETT – Building the Perfect Creative: How the USA TODAY NETWORK Hones Ad Performance with Data

This award recognizes agencies who have mastered programmatic buying – and not just by pulling levers on platforms. The best agencies have demonstrated programmatic excellence through a deep understanding of the vendor landscape. These agencies also take bespoke approaches to planning, optimizing and measuring programmatic campaigns to move the needle on clients’ businesses.

FINALISTS
Cadreon – Orchestrating the Future of Ad Tech and Accelerating Performance
DSPolitical – The Best Data and Technology to Reach the Exact Right Voter, On Every Device, Everywhere
Essence – Mastering Programmatic in the World’s Most Challenging Markets
Goodway Group – Goodway Group Generates “Cord-Keepers” for the Cable Industry by Promoting SmartMove
Hearts & Science – Programmatic Capabilities
Mindshare – Driving Growth for Tyson by Running Towards Disruption within the Programmatic Ecosystem

Data has always been the lifeblood of media investments, but with the rise of digital, there’s more data today than marketers know what to do with. Agencies nominated for this award show a deft ability to not only leverage data to improve clients’ media investments, but to know which pieces of data can make media dollars work harder.

FINALISTS
360i – Roto Rooter’s Creative Use of Data
DSPolitical – The Best Data and Technology to Reach the Exact Right Voter, On Every Device, Everywhere
Havas Media – Titleist, Havas Media
Mindshare – Tyson Programmatic: Where Data is Only as Good as the Imaginations that Use It
The Shipyard – Weleda. Reverse Declining Sales for a Mature Brand

As the ad tech landscape continues to explode, agencies must have a deep understanding of platforms and how to best leverage them for their clients’ specific needs. Agencies nominated for this award have either demonstrated exceptional understanding and ability to work with top platforms in the space or built technology in-house to plug gaps in vendor solutions.

FINALISTS
DSPolitical – The Best Data and Technology to Reach the Exact Right Voter, On Every Device, Everywhere
Essence – Automating Advertising with Self Driving Campaigns
Nebo Agency – Bringing A Human-Centered Approach to Tech Stack Development
Numberly – Numberly Leverages AppNexus Programmable Bidder to Increase Incremental Customer Value
Operam – Combining Relationships with In-House Technology to Drive Data-Driven Decision Making in Programmatic

Programmatic is confusing. This award recognizes firms that guide clients deftly through a complex landscape and help them determine how to best apply programmatic to achieve their business goals by, for example, better leveraging agency partnerships or taking programmatic in-house.

FINALISTS
Jounce Media
MightyHive – Providing the Transparency, Tech Expertise, and Strategic Guidance Marketers Have Been Missing
Prohaska Consulting – The Most-Experienced Global Programmatic Consulting Firm

Call it “in-housing” or “hands on.” This award category recognizes advertisers who have built media-buying and advertising capabilities in-house. Winning entries will excel in one or more of these areas: data strategy, technology integration, supply relationships, creativity, measurement and continuous improvement.

FINALISTS
Adobe – Adobe’s In-House Performance Operation
Bayer Consumer Health – Bayer In-housing Strategy
The New York Times – How The Times Revolutionized its Media Strategy and Measurement
Uber – The Uber Bidder Project: Our Three Month Journey To Incremental Rider Marketing
Wayfair – Wayfair’s Homegrown Media Operation

Among marketers’ most important jobs is evaluating the merit of marketing technologies and deploying solutions to maximum benefit. It’s easier said than done. This award recognizes those advertisers that have succeeded, whether it be with scaled platforms or custom setups.

FINALISTS
Cisco Systems Inc. – Overcoming the Odds: How Cisco Amplified the Use of Programmatic Technology in B2B
Sprint – Sprint Increases Online Conversions from Programmatic Display by 99% Through New Transparent, Data-Driven Operating Model
Kellogg’s – Kellogg’s Best Use of Programmatic Technology
Target – Target’s Guest-led Approach to Programmatic Buying Delivers Wins for Brand Marketing and Their Partners
Uber – Uber Rider Programmatic Creative Project

This category recognizes nominees that have identified, targeted and purchased an audience on linear TV or over-the-top. They have also successfully measured the effectiveness of their buy.

FINALISTS
Dataxu – Reaching Cord-cutters with Controlled Reach and Frequency
Net Conversion and Nassau Paradise Island – 2018 Geo-Targeted Addressable TV Advertising for Nassau Paradise Island
ZM Communications and Volvo, Modi Media & Innovid – Volvo, Modi Media & Innovid Drive Engagement through Volvo S90 CTV Campaign

Advertisers are increasingly executing and measuring video campaigns across multiple channels. This award showcases the most noteworthy video campaigns executed across channels such as linear TV, video on demand and over-the-top.

FINALISTS
true[X] – true[X] for Amazon Echo
Yoyi Digital – Yoyi Digital’s Corona Lime Ritual OTV Campaign

As programmatic has matured, marketers have been able to creatively apply the methodology. This category recognizes campaigns that applied programmatic concepts and techniques in unique ways, from their planning to execution, optimization and measurement.

FINALISTS
AdsWizz and Mercedes-Benz – Mercedes-Benz and SkySection Use AdsWizz AudioMatic To Drive Traffic into Pop up Store
Clinch and BJ’s Restaurants – BJ’s Restaurants Runs First Personalized Digital Campaign Using IBM Weather Data
Cramer-Krasselt and Kings Island Amusement Park – How Kings Island Amusement Park Used Data to Make Personal Connections
Essence and Google – Essence and Google use Machine Learning to Drive Incremental and Higher Value Google Store Conversions
Mindshare and Dyson – Mindshare Programmatic: Planning for Agility in Dyson’s Black Friday / Cyber Monday Drive Period

Demand for digital skills is outpacing the supply of available talent. This category recognizes the solutions or processes that cultivate mastery of data-driven marketing, with proven results.

FINALISTS
Adobe – Adobe Helps Over 1500 Marketers Close the Advertising Skills Gap
Google – Google’s Ads.txt-only Inventory Control – Educating an Industry Through the Power of Research
Jounce Media – The Little Black Book Series
MediaMath – MediaMath’s New Marketing Institute Meets the Learner Where They Are
Publicis – Publicis Media Precision Pioneer & Voyager Training Programs

This category draws from all award entries submitted and recognizes excellence in its service and contribution to stakeholders, such as marketers or consumers, and the industry at large. Entries will be judged on how clearly they align a product, service or campaign with proven results, innovation and creativity.

This category recognizes emerging leaders in digital advertising and marketing, with a focus on mid-level professionals under 40 years of age who already have demonstrated a track record of achievement, exceptional growth and huge potential to disrupt the industry.

FINALISTS
Randy Cotta – Director of Data Science, Drawbridge
Mark Jablonowski – Managing Partner & CTO, DSPolitical
Pooja Kapoor – Head of Global Strategic Alliances & Corporate Strategy, Google
Maurice Powers – Director of Digital Ad Operations, AMSI/AAG
Michael Provenzano – CEO & Co-Founder, Vistar Media

This category recognizes digital advertising and marketing professionals who typify visionary leadership by effectively guiding their organization or business unit to meet business goals while advancing innovation and inspiring their teams.

FINALISTS
Michael Barrett – CEO, Rubicon Project: Illuminating the Programmatic Market Through Leadership
Alex Block – Managing Director, Global Platform Investment, GroupM: Platforms Solutions Superhero
Sissie Hsiao – VP of Product, Mobile App Advertising, Google: Gamer Extraordinaire & Defender of the Apps Universe
Brian Lesser – CEO, Xandr: Making Advertising Matter
Scott Rosenberg – SVP, GM Platform Business, Roku