Terry Kawaja published a visual overview of the convoluted US display eco-system last year. It demonstrated how crowded the middle ground between the advertiser and publisher was becoming - and indeed why the display space was ripe for mass consolidation. Not to be outdone, Improve Digital has released a similar eco-system map but for the European display market. It has all the usual suspects listed in there, such as ad exchanges, ad nets (vertical and behavioural), data exchanges, data suppliers, yield optimisers, ad servers, agencies, DEMs, and DSPs. It's a great representation of how the eco-system is evolving here. But looking at the visual you start to think: with so many vendors taking a slice of the ad pie how does a publisher make a living? And from an economic point of view, how many of these vendors can, in the long run, survive as standalone businesses. Not everyone will be lucky enough to get a tidy exit. Doubtless, there will be a few vendors not happy with their classification - and we will see some revisions over future iterations of this map. Just as Kawaja's visual became the fodder of many ad tech presentation, I expect you'll be seeing this eco-system map pop up in a lot of product overviews in the coming months. So where do you sit on the European market map?

Here's the visual in standrad ExchangeWire blog format size - click on image for a more a blown-up version. You can also download the pdf with glossaries on the Improve Digital site.