Have you ever seen a commercial on a social media? Did you notice that this advertisement  exactly corresponded to clothes you had just seen on a website you visited 10 minutes ago?
If you keep attention to this new uses, you may realized that Internet follows you during your navigation on the net. What is that technology? How does it work?

What are ad-tech?
The new publicity of the 21st Century is a targeted advertising. This new business reached $40.1 billions in the first semester 2017 in the United States.[1] This amazing result highlights the impact of these advertising technologies in the world. And it is only the beginning!
Firstly, this new way of doing publicity relies on “Ad-tech” (contraction for “Advertising technology”) and “refers to different types of analytics and digital tools used in the context of advertising.” [2] By creating targeted advertising, ad-tech helps advertisers to earn money.  Ads are less massive, more focused and produce better results. Ad-tech business model is based on data, on your personal details.
Data is a large term which combines all the information collected on the internet. It can be personal details of an identified user or impersonal details collected through navigation on the web.
Exploiting technical tools, these companies are looking for a maximum of accurate details on consumers uses. The more information is collected, the more companies target better advertisement on the web. They earn money, time and get clients easier.
What are the tools used by Ad-tech to track your datas?
Traditionally, Ad-tech used cookies to collect data. Cookies designate small files stored on  the user’s device.These files enable to send information to companies about the user’s navigation on different websites. For example, due to cookies, companies can know exactly know when the user stops its navigation on an e-commerce platform.
There are two types of cookies:

  • The “persistent” cookies which are closed to the browser and are not destroyed but remain until an expiration date
  • The “presset session” cookies which are destroyed every time the browser is closed.[4]

But the issue today is that the consumer of the 21st Century is used to switch between 3 or more devices. A qualitative study of 200 people highlights that an average of this people “switched between devices 21 times over the hour”. [3] Thus, the new aim of ad-tech is to develop new technologies able to track the consumer on all its devices.
[1] According to the Pwr 2017 report : https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/IAB-Internet-Ad-Revenue-Report-Half-Year-2017-REPORT.pdf
[2] https://www.techopedia.com/definition/31293/ad-tech
[3] https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/people-swap-devices-21-times-hour-says-omd/1225960?src_site=brandrepublic
[4] http://www.bikitech.com/extended-information-of-cookies/