The ad:tech (Advertising Technology) exhibition hit London Olympia at the end of September, and what a show it was. 200+ exhibitors on two floors fought it out for the attention of the young, funky advertising types who cruised the show. There were no seats in the refreshments area as pretty young girls air-kissed, and handsome young men saluted one another with strange-looking handshakes. It was mobbed.

This show was more impressive than the Technology For Marketing show in February, which has become associated with CRM and the negative connotations that CRM invokes. As one senior marketing executive said recently of CRM " . . . many man years, millions of dollars, and end up with an expensive diary for the sales team and an even greater chasm between the sales and marketing departments!"

At the ad:tech show few of the usual CRM suspects were there. A few well known brand names stood out, notably Microsoft, Alterian, Omniture, Unica and DoubleClick, but most were relatively unknown brands.

As you might expect from the advertising crowd, there were some extravagant company brand names - such as Eyeblaster, Front Porch, Fortune Cookie, and StatsPlugger. Equally extravagant were some of the marketing claims " . . . serving over 20 billion monthly impressions and over 200 million unique worldwide users per month" and "serving 9 billion monthly impressions" and "delivers over 54 billion annual impressions globally". Blimey, we must be using the Internet more than I thought!

So what were the vendors trying to sell? Well PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and web site analytics were the clear established favourites, but new areas include affiliate marketing (payment for sales leads received from the web sites of channel partners), online comparison shopping, competitive intelligence (captured from the web), and even "white label" dating services - enabling web site owners to instantly add dating services to their web site.

In truth it was all rather confusing. The brand names were unfamiliar, the language used by vendors to describe products and benefits was mostly obscure, so many visitors headed straight for the free education seminars to try and understand what all the fuss was about.

One thing is clear though - the advertising and marketing crowd understand that the web is a vital source of market information and a potent channel of communication to potential customers. As the market matures and market leaders emerge, there will be a fast ramp up of spend. CRM might have become somewhat discredited, but broader Enterprise Marketing Management solutions powered by the web will become ubiquitous.

SAP used to say that once 30% of major companies in a given industry sector used their software, everyone had to have it - because the competitive disadvantage of not having it was too extreme. So it will be with web-based technology for marketing. Organisations will not be able to live without it because it offers such a source of advantage for competitors. First off, first movers' in the market and innovators will use this type of technology to identify and anticipate trends and optimise their marketing ROI.

One implication is that some creative people in marketing will make way for tech-savvy analytical types who can make sense of all this new web-sourced data. Technology and marketing to date has been an uneasy marriage, but will become hip and joined at the hip, as an inseparable force for real-time customer-centric marketing actions.