With the impending death of cookies and ongoing concerns about consumer privacy online, the advertising landscape is changing and contextual targeting has been thrust back into the limelight.
Contextual targeting started in the early days of the internet, but now with Google’s cookie deprecation and Apple’s privacy updates, the industry is innovating and updating this approach. Between 2020 and 2023, we are expected to experience more significant changes to contextual technology than in the past 25 years. The contextual revolution is here, and it’s time for the industry to better understand and embrace it.
To uncover what’s next for contextual solutions, we partnered with the Winterberry Group, a global management consultancy, to interview 50 industry experts from the US and UK as well as conduct a survey of nearly 120 senior brand marketers, agencies, and media owners.
Here are the key trends we found.
Roughly 52 percent of marketers intend to increase their spending on contextual targeting over the next 24 months. Meanwhile, 86 percent of media owners expect the practice to grow. This research only emphasizes the evolution of media targeting toolkits in this era of stricter privacy laws and cookie depreciation, and sets the stage for new innovative contextual approaches to emerge.
With major improvements to machine learning and other technologies, many types of contextual techniques have emerged, including page or video level targeting capabilities, search optimization and more. Winterberry Group’s research found that more marketers are investing in a wide range of contextual solutions, rather than one specific tool or technology. In this fluid era, these multi-solution approaches are the best way for advertisers to reach target audiences, maximize spend and achieve their brand goals.
Innovations in contextual tech from publishers, media owners and technology vendors are helping shape the future of the industry. With improvements in machine learning, natural language processing and other AI-based technologies, publishers have more access to contextual insights than ever before. And while walled gardens have long dominated the industry with their ability to share scalable audience data with advertisers, contextual innovations are giving media owners the ability to compete with solutions that package brand safety, audience insights, contextual planning and targeting and evaluation.
For a more in depth look at contextual targeting’s impact so far and to get a better sense of where it’s heading, download “The Outlook for Contextual Solutions in Data Driven Advertising & Marketing.”