State of Contextual Targeting: Understanding the Tactics and Technology Driving Revenue

While 2020 was a tough year for advertising, it seems like the industry is finally on the upswing, with technological innovations and new ad targeting solutions offering a light at the end of the tunnel. And at the heart of this renaissance is one of the most promising new advertising offerings: contextual targeting. What started as a solution to the impending cookieless future has become a tool for smarter targeting, better campaign performance and technological innovation. And despite Google delaying the cookiepocolypse, contextual adoption has continued as publishers, brands and agencies realize the value of context.

To better understand the current state of contextual targeting, Connatix partnered with Digiday to survey 100 global publishers, brands and agencies. We uncovered the contextual tactics and technologies driving publisher revenue and advertiser returns this year and beyond. Here are some of the main takeaways!

Contextual targeting works

Publishers and advertisers are optimistic about the future of contextual targeting, and those who have already invested in context are seeing real returns. This year, 96% of advertisers are increasing contextual spend or keeping it locked in at current levels and 78% of publishers said their contextual initiatives are proving somewhat to highly effective -- even with cookie-based targeting still available. Moving forward, we expect to see this interest in context continue to grow as more publishers and advertisers test contextual campaigns and see the benefits.

Contextual opportunities lie with video

While nearly 40% of brands and agencies said video is the most effective channel for their contextual campaigns, only 15% of publishers said the same. This reveals a major opportunity for publishers to develop stronger contextual video offerings and capitalize on an untapped market of demand. At Connatix, we see the value of contextual video and have launched innovative solutions like our Deep Contextual targeting product, which uses machine learning and natural language processing to automatically and accurately identify contextual video data in real time to use for targeting.

AI-driven contextual tech is the future

Gathering contextual data manually is a time consuming process that not only leaves room for human error, but makes these solutions difficult to scale. To combat this issue, around a quarter (23%) of publishers surveyed are already integrating with AI solutions to create unique audience segmentation and automate operational tasks like sourcing and indexing contextual data. We’re expecting this number to continue growing as companies develop smarter AI systems to boost efficiency.

For more insights about where contextual targeting is headed, download “The State of Contextual Targeting” report.