Why the ad tech industry needs to transform

Getty Images

This post was written by Jim Continenza, chairman and CEO of Vivial.

When I think about people and companies who have transformed industries or created a new way of doing business, big names come to mind.

Apple, once a niche computer company, developed a way to fit a computer into our pockets, completely changing the notion of individual connectivity. Google created the search industry and then transformed its revenue model to monetize the way businesses advertise online. Amazon changed the way we buy, giving the world unprecedented access to countless consumer products.

For the past several years, the advertising technology industry has been emerging, growing, and shifting in response to new customer behaviors. Content marketing, social media, texting, search engine optimization, location-based services, and data analysis are all ways today's businesses find, reach, and engage with customers. And largely, the ad tech industry has been fragmented - looking for its identity. The industry is loosely defined and operating in silos.

Spending valuable time staying on top of these evolving technologies can be exhausting and unproductive. Business owners need to focus on running their businesses. Companies should be able to consolidate all aspects of the customer experience without having to manage and track multiple systems and work with various vendors and consulting companies, which would inevitably give conflicting advice.

This lack of an integrated solution is complicated and expensive, and it leaves business owners as the confused integrators.

Knowing that customers want a more seamless experience, I saw the opportunity to establish a new category in the ad tech industry. And that is why I'm excited to be leading Vivial - a community of the best-of-breed technologies and talented people working to simplify the process and help businesses find, reach, and build loyalty with customers.

In June, TBC Holdings - an ad tech company backed by GSO Capital Partners, the credit-focused division of Blackstone - announced that our portfolio of companies will fully integrate to form Vivial. This fall, all of our technology acquisitions within the TBC portfolio will not just change in name, but also in the way we help businesses engage with customers.

Vivial is in the connections business - connecting companies to customers, people to products. We bring together multiple components of ad tech into one seamless experience. With easy-to-use customer engagement tools accessible on our software-as-a-service platform, Vivial helps businesses reach customers quickly and easily, and increase return on investment with actionable consumer insights.

The journey to come together as Vivial evolved over time. As Vivial's chairman and CEO, I looked for ways to bring together strong, pioneering companies and led strategic acquisitions to establish a team of strong leaders and best-in-class infrastructure to strengthen our customer's connection to audiences that matter most. A dedicated, results-driven service team is available to support our innovative technology and help customers with the basics and beyond. We have invested in a network infrastructure to own and operate our own mobile messaging network, allowing us to reach customers directly.

While technology and customer behaviors continue to evolve, the one thing that will not change is the need for small and medium businesses, franchises, and Fortune 500 companies to make direct connections with customers and to interact with customers in real time.

So over time, we'll continue to find new opportunities to add to the Vivial portfolio, incorporate more pieces of the marketing mix into our company, and enhance the ways we help companies engage with their customers on a personal level.

Customer engagement only works if it's engaging. At the end of the day, businesses need to adapt to the way customers want to find them, not the way they want to be found. That's what the ad tech industry is all about - keeping up with shifts in technology, advertising, marketing, and customer behavior.

I'm excited to bring a new category to the ad tech industry: helping businesses reach customers quickly and easily so they can get back to business.

Learn more about how Vivial can help businesses connect to their customers in the right way.

This post is sponsored by Vivial.

Find out more about Sponsor Content.