The creative ad tech market is consolidating, said Nikhil Lai, senior analyst at Forrester. In other words, there’s increasingly higher demand for vendors that can address the entire production cycle, “from building ads all the way to optimizing them.”

This thinking informed the evaluations made in Forrester’s 2024 creative advertising technology wave, which the research and advisory firm released earlier this month.

Of the nine companies featured, only Smartly and Flashtalking were selected as leaders, primarily for their strong road maps and cross-channel capabilities.

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Smartly, a company that got its start with Facebook ads, and Flashtalking, a dynamic creative optimization (DCO) platform that now sits as part of Mediaocean’s ecosystem, both represented the “most complete vendors in the set,” according to Lai.

Smartly achieved its leader status in part due to its unique approach and product innovations, including its conversational commerce functions, which allow for direct communication with consumers on Meta and TikTok, and its ability to predict or flag potential creative ad fatigue.