2. TABLEOF
CONTENT 1|1
2|1
2|2
2|3
3|1
3|2
3|3
1|2
What Is AdTech?
Shift to Digital
Iran ICT Developments
Iran AdTech Stats
Video Platforms
Impact of Smartphone
Programmatic Buying & RTB
The Evolution Of Advertising
...............................................2
...........................3
.................................................7
....................................9
............................................10
..........................17
..................................15
............................................13
Iran AdTech Overview
1
01 INTRODUCTION ...............................................2
02 IRAN ADTECH ECOSYSTEM ................................6
03 ADTECH’S LOCAL AND GLOBAL TRENDS ...........12
04 CHALLENGES .................................................18
05 OPPORTUNITIES ........................................... . 21
3. 01 Based on the name, AdTech is the short term for Advertising Technology. A broad range
of technologies such as Consumer Behavior Analysis, Fraud Detection, Advertising
Exchange and many others are used in the context of advertising. These complex systems
are designed to show digital advertisement to targeted audience. The front-end of
AdTech includes items such as digital banners, social network ads, search engine ads and
video and mobile ads. The back-end system helps to target the right audience. It also
provides analytics and tools for both, publishers and advertisers.
In the recent years, AdTech has changed the traditional advertising industry. This
technology provides a platform for advertisers to plan and manage their own campaigns.
With the recent developments, digital advertising is shifting from displaying banners, to
new platforms such as social media, video and mobile advertising. These new content
delivery platforms, may provide invaluable data about elements such as location, age and
gender for advertisers. As advertisers have more valuable data about individuals, they
can plan more successful campaigns as well. It is believed that these new platforms will
be the key drivers of the whole advertising industry. Also the growth of interest on digital
advertising has created a great potential for investing on AdTech ecosystem. In general,
AdTech’s purpose is to show the right content to right audience with the most reasonable
price.
INTRODUCTION
Iran AdTech Overview
2
1|1 What is AdTech?
4. INTRODUCTION
Advertising has always been the main tool for businesses
to introduce and promote their products and services.
Therefore companies spend a considerable amount of
money on advertising. Currently Many of the markets
have become heavily competitive and as a result, the
volume of advertising has increased.
Iran AdTech Overview
3
Currently Television advertising has the biggest ad spend
share with 37.5%. Digital advertising and Newspaper are
in the next places with 33.3% and 12.2% respectively.
Since the emergence of Internet, digital advertising and
AdTech have also been developed rapidly. It is expected
that by 2017, digital advertising consisting of desktop and
mobile advertising will become the largest sectors of
advertising.
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
0
10
20
30
40
50
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Digital Television Newspaper Out-of-Home
Total global spending on Advertising (US $ billions). Source: McKinsey Global Advertising Shares by Category (US $ billions). Source: McKinsey
1|2 The Evolution of Advertising
$1,208B $1,287B $1,365B $1,446B $1,521B $1,604B $1,681B $1,780B $1,869B
5. INTRODUCTION
Iran AdTech Overview
4
A key factor that shows the effectiveness of each
advertising medium, is the time that the audience spends
on ads. Currently digital advertising has the major share
with 45%. As internet services expand and mobile devices
develop, digital advertising’s share will also consistently
rise.
Global Time Spent on Ads by Category (%). Source: E-marketer
12.5
%
25%
37.5%
50%
Digital 45%
Television 38%
Radio 12%
Out-of-Home 5%
6. INTRODUCTION
money on the internet platforms. AdTech as an internet
service is no exception.
Total spending on advertising in the Middle East is also
experiencing one of the fastest growth in the world.
Iran AdTech Overview
5
Total Global Spending Growth on Advertising by Region (US $ billions). Source: McKinsey
Economical growth in the Middle East has led to an
investment increase in internet and telecommunication
infrastructures. As an outcome, internet penetration is
growing and smartphone adoption is on the rise.
Therefore people’s lifestyle is changing, internet services
are gaining more trust over time, and people spend more
4.0%
2.8%
11.5%
5.9%
10.6%
7. 02
Until 2007, advertising in Iran was mainly communicated through television, newspaper
and environmental billboards and digital advertising was not a category to consider.
Thanks to the developments in the country’s internet and telecommunication infrastruc-
ture and the high internet penetration rate, digital advertising has seen a consistent
growth in the recent years. Aside from these facts, the efficiency of online advertising,
high ROI (return on investment) in short time and the impact of online campaigns have
convinced Iranian companies to shift their advertising from non-digital to digital.
IRANADTECH
ECOSYSTEM
Iran AdTech Overview
6
8. IRANADTECHECOSYSTEM
With the JCPOA agreement and the lifting of the sanctions,
Iran as a developing market anticipates a healthy
economic expansion. This would increase the household
income and will directly elevate content spending on
media and advertising. Spending on media is anticipated
to see a shift from traditional to digital by a rapid pace in
Iran. In 2015 total spending on advertising in Iran was
$1.57 billion with 2.15% digital. By 2020, Digital Advertising
in the country will account for more than 20% of the
overall advertising share.
In 2016, digital advertising’s share is expected to increase
from 2.15% to 3.5% of the total advertising, which indicates
62% growth. Also, spending on digital advertising accounts
for more than $53 millions.
Iran AdTech Overview
7
2|1 Shift To Digital
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Non-Digital
Digital
Non-digital and Digital Ad Spend in Iran
$1.43B $1.53B $1.65B $1.69B $1.72B $1.8B $2.13B
$0.017B
$0.04B
$0.053B
$0.144B
$0.256B
$ 0.34B
$ 0.426B
9. IRANADTECHECOSYSTEM
Because of the economical sanctions in the past years,
Iran’s AdTech ecosystem was shaped within the country.
Iran’s AdTech ecosystem has been shaped locally without
international player presence. Currently there are more
than 26 active players in Iran’s AdTech ecosystem.
Iran AdTech Overview
8
Iran AdTech Ecosystem Players
AD NETWORK
Anetwork
Saba Vision
Clickyab
Adtube
Netbina
AdNegah
Adad
+17 More
SSP
ADRO
ADRO
AD EXCHANGE
DSP
RASANEX
RETARGETING
RASANEX
MEDIA AGENCY
& HUB
CARAT
DMCMCG
10. IRANADTECHECOSYSTEM
Heavy investments on Iran’s ICT sector in the recent years
has helped with the developments of the country’s
internet infrastructure. Today, Internet Penetration has
just reached 52% which means Iran has more than 42
million internet users. As a result, internet based services
are more highlighted in people’s daily lives which
eventually would have a positive impact on the digital
advertising ecosystem.
In 2013, Iran’s internet bandwidth was 624 Gbps1
.
Currently it's 14,000 Gbps and is planned to be 120,000
Gbps in 2017. With these changes the growth of internet
bandwidth will shift consumer behavior towards a digital
lifestyle.
Iran AdTech Overview
9
2|2 Iran ICT Developments
0
15
30
45
60
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
52
46
40
30
22.7
19
16
42
36
30
23
17
14
11
Users (Million)
% Population
Iran Internet Users
Iran Internet Bandwidth Growth
1 Gigabits per second
2015
2016
2017
624 Gbps
4.000 Gbps
120.000 Gbps
11. IRANADTECHECOSYSTEM
In 2016, 365 billion impressions were generated by
publishers through Iranian AdNetworks. With the
developing AdTech ecosystem, it is anticipated that 474.5
billion impressions to be generated in 2017, which shows
30% YoY growth.
Digital advertising’s impressions in Iran shows that
desktop computers are still slightly dominant with 55%
share. But with the deployment of 3G and 4G networks
and the 1900% growth of smartphones in the past three
years and the fast pace of mobile penetration, it is
predicted that mobile advertising share will increase to
55% by next year.
Iran AdTech Overview
10
2|3 Iran AdTech Stats
0
100
200
300
400
500
2015 2016 2017
365B
294B
Total Advertising Impressions in Iran
Iran Digital Advertisings Impressions by Device
Desktop
Mobile
2016
2017
45% 55%
45%55%
474.5B
12. IRANADTECHECOSYSTEM
As AdTech industry is developing, the process of buying
and selling ads is changing from traditional to the
automated form. The programmatic method is the
algorithmic buying and selling of advertising spaces in real
time. In 2016 programmatic method has 81% and direct
buying has 19% share in Iran. Iran’s programmatic spend
share shows that most of the expenditure is on desktop
ads. While considering video ads separately, mobile
advertisement has a bigger share. It is conceived that
online video-sharing is a rising sector on mobile devices.
As a matter of fact, with the increase of streamed videos
and mobile internet speed, mobile video advertising’s
share will constantly rise.
Mobile impressions are divided into two sectors, in-app
ads and ads displayed in the mobile browser.
Another interesting fact for these kinds of networks, is the
generated revenue from either the supply or the demand
side. In other words as more users interact with the ads
over the web, more ad networks would be persuaded to
enter this market.
Iran AdTech Overview
11
Iran Digital Advertisings Impressions by Device
Iran Programatic Advertising Spend Share by Device 2016
Estimated Publisher’s Revenue Based on Iran’s Alexa Traffic Ranking
In-App
Browser2016 40% 60%
6% 8% 21% 65%
35,000
70,000
105,000
140,000
175,000
210,000
Alexa 10-30
Alexa 31-50
Alexa 51-100
Alexa 101-200
Alexa 201-300
Desktop Banner
Mobile Banner
Mobile Video
Desktop Video
13. 03
Today online advertising is growing faster than ever and each day new trends become the
source of innovation in this industry. In this part, the important factors that are changing
the AdTech scene in Iran and the world will be discussed.
ADTECH’S
LOCALAND
GLOBALTRENDS
Iran AdTech Overview
12
14. ADTECH’SLOCALANDGLOBALTRENDS
bigger than 2011. Based on statistics provided by Aparat,
Iranians consume 9.72 Petabytes of video content on
their platform per month.
Iran AdTech Overview
13
0
2
4
6
8
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
60k 199k 756k
2.2m
4.47m
7.5m
3|1 Video Platforms
In 2015 the amount of videos produced in the world was
516 petabytes per month.This number has increased
about 89.7% considering the 272 petabytes of video
content which were produced in 2014 per month.
According to Tubular Insights, In 2015, 67% of all the
world's internet traffic (39 thousand Petabytes) were
dedicated to video content per month. Cisco also predicts
that this amount will increase to 80% in 2019. Aside from
this, McKinsey predicts that online video advertising will
grow 20.1% year by year between 2015 and 2018.
We estimate that people in Iran watch around 16 Million
videos each day on Iranian video-sharing platforms.
Considering the 42 Million internet users in Iran, this is a
great ratio. In this estimation we have only considered
popular Iranian video platforms such as Aparat, Varzesh3,
Shuttle Land and Namasha. Aparat a YouTube-like
platform in Iran, had 60 thousand daily views in 2011. It
recently reached 7.5 million daily views which is 125 times
Aparat Daily Views
15. ADTECH’SLOCALANDGLOBALTRENDS
The chart below depicts the platform distribution of
Aparat’s users. As it’s shown, Aparat’s users are more
willing to use mobile devices while watching online videos.
The age distribution for video-sharing platforms shows
that the younger generation (between 25 to 34 years old)
spends more screen time watching online videos.
Iran’s Ministry of ICT has set policies to increase Persian
content in cyberspace. Improving infrastructure,
increasing internet speed, decreasing the internet prices
and specifically decreasing the price for internal internet
bandwidth will boost domestic video content on the web in
the upcoming years. Iran's Ministry of ICT has stated that it
is planning to ensure that 80% of the mobile internet
bandwidth in the country is spent on watching online
videos via mobile in the next 4 years.
Iran AdTech Overview
14
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
24-18 34-25 44-35 54-45 64-55 65+
4.5%5.5%7%
16%
40%
27%
Platform Distribution of Aparat’s Users
Iran Online Video Viewer Demographics
Desktop
Mobile & Tablet71%29%
16. ADTECH’SLOCALANDGLOBALTRENDS
According to E-marketer, $68 billion has been spent on
mobile advertising and its been predicted that in 2019 this
amount will increase to $195 billion which shows 187%
growth.
In 2015 mobile advertising had 40% of digital advertising's
share and it’s expected to grow by 70% in 2019.
Iran AdTech Overview
15
3|2 Impact of Smartphone
With the rise of smartphones and the amount of time
which people spend on their devices, mobile advertising
has become an attractive field in the digital advertising
industry. According to Statista’s 2016 report, there are
2.087 billion smartphone users in the world and people
spend 81 hours per month on their mobile devices.
Smartphones are accounted for 8% of the total IP traffic in
2015 and experts estimate that this amount will increase
by 30% by 2020.
17. ADTECH’SLOCALANDGLOBALTRENDS
The number of active smartphones in Iran in 2016 have
become 20 times more than 2013. Mobile internet is
constantly growing in Iran and operators are shifting their
network from 2G to 3G and 4G. Regarding these
developments, online mobile services and mobile
advertisement will also grow
Iran AdTech Overview
16
0
15
30
45
60
2014 2015 2016
40
20
2
0
15
30
45
60
2016 2017
28
16
Iran Mobile Internet Users (Million)
Iran Active Smartphones (Million)
18. ADTECH’SLOCALANDGLOBALTRENDS
Programatic buying and RTB are two of the subjects
shaping the future of the AdTech ecosystem. Programmat-
ic buying is the algorithmic buying and selling of
advertising spaces in real time. RTB is an algorithmic
method in which advertising inventory is bought and sold
based on impressions, via programmatic instantaneous
auction, similar to financial markets.
Initially direct advertising was the only approach, but with
the emergence of AdExchange, a new era of programatic
advertising has begun.
Iran AdTech Overview
17
3|3 Programmatic Buying & RTB
Iran Status of Buying Programmatic, RTB, Direct & PMP
Direct
Programmatic
RTB
PMP
2015
2016
2017
60% 40%
26% 19%55%
40% 20% 5%35%
19. 04
Iran AdTech industry is still at it’s early stages. Like any other emerging industry AdTech
in Iran also has it’s own challenges. Some of the challenges that Iran’s AdTech ecosystem
is facing are the following.
CHALLENGES
Iran AdTech Overview
18
20. 0
15
30
45
2015 2016
CHALLENGES
Telegram messenger has become the main source for
multimedia content in Iran. Research shows that on
average, 60% of Iranians use Telegram as an entertain-
ment source. Iranian officials have also stated that more
than 40% of Iran’s Internet bandwidth is used by
Telegram. This app has almost 20,000 Persian broadcast-
ing channels, which in total have more than 90 million
users. Advertisements on Telegram channels have
become a major revenue source for many businesses. It’s
estimated that Persian Telegram channels’ revenue by the
end of 2016 will be $28.6 million which compared to the
$53million of Iran’s AdTech industry it is considerable.
Nevertheless there’s no reference price for advertising
and no analytics, systematic implementations and
measurements for advertisement’s efficiency.
AdBlocking is one the major threats to the AdTech
industry and continues to build strong growth in recent
years. Based on a report by Pagefair, AdBlocking usage
grew by 90% during 2015. It is predicted that by the end of
2016 there will be 230 million desktop and 419 million
mobile AdBlock users. The estimated advertising revenue
loss due to AdBlocking in 2015 was $21.8 billion and is
expected to reach $41.4 billion by the end of 2016.
Currently 16% percent of U.S. online population use
AdBlocks. This amount for Iran is about 7% which means
there are almost 2.8 million AdBlock users in Iran.
Iran AdTech Overview
19
Telegram Messenger AdBlock
Revenue Losses from Adblock
$41.4B
$21.8B
21. CHALLENGES
Ad fraud is the other global threat to the AdTech industry.
It happens when bots (or automated scripts) make fake
impressions or clicks on ads. Proving that a click on an ad
is a fraud or not is a tricky and challenging process for Ad
exchangers. Based on a research by ANA (Association of
National Advertisers), in 2015 23% of video impressions
and 11% of display ads impressions were counted as fraud.
Ad fraud costs the industry $6.3 billion and is projected
that this amount increases to $7.2 billion in 2016.
Currently the fraud ratio in Iran is between 10%-15%.
Iran AdTech Overview
20
0
2.5
5
7.5
10
2015 2016
Ad Fraud
Most of the popular social networks except Instagram are
blocked in Iran. Also due to international sanctions,
AdTech service providers restricted their services to Iran.
This two way restriction has made the deal harder for
Iranian players but the lifting of the sanctions would help
ease this process.
Reliable data is hard to come by in Iran. Understanding the
local market, consumer behavior and media landscape
would be a serious challenge for foreign companies to
enter Iran.
Lack of transparency is one of AdTech ecosystem’s main
challenges. As the process is complex and there are
numerous middlemen, the payment model for both
publishers and advertisers are not clear and the most
efficient.
Revenue Losses from Fraud. Source: ANA
$7.2B$6.3B
22. 05 Each country’s situation reflects some unnoticed or untapped opportunities that open the
field for innovative startups to satisfy the customer’s specific needs.
Iran with 80 million population 42 million internet users, 52% internet penetration, more
than 41 million smartphones and 53% social media penetration has a good potential for
startups targeting the AdTech industry.
Key factors that are driving the digitalization of advertising industry are the growing
number of the internet users, expansion of smartphone penetration and boost in mobile
internet speed. These changes would also have structural impact on the advertising
industry and would redefine the business models. The development of AdTech in the
country is an example of these changes. With all the infrastructural developments,
consumer behavior has already been affected and the landscape shows that the AdTech
industry is ready to be monetized in Iran.
Due to the absence of international players, the whole AdTech ecosystem was built within
the country. Although the AdTech industry is growing, there are still many gaps that can
be filled by new local and international competitors.
OPPORTUNITIES
Iran AdTech Overview
21
23. By becoming the first Iranian AdExchange,
Adro has revolutionized Iran’s online
advertising landscape. Due to the sanctions,
Iran’s local AdTech scene only kicked off a
few years ago, and a local ad exchange could
be considered a metric of growth of this
industry. The emergence of an Ad Exchange
is considered the most revolutionary thing
that has ever distrusted Iran’s online
advertising industry. Adro Ad Exchange’s
services consist of an RTB platform, DSP and
SSP. Adro is currently the only source of
Iranian ad inventory and a gateway for
international brands to advertise to Iranians.
Iran AdTech Overview
22
ADRO
TechRasa is the leading tech & startup media
and analysis platform in Iran and the bridge
connecting regional and international
startup ecosystems together. Since its launch
in June 2015, TechRasa has become the
primary source for investors, entrepreneurs,
startups and financial firms in research and
strategy to enter Iran. We create data and
research driven reports for our readers and
clients to get the best insight on the newly
opened and highly fertile market.
TechRasa
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