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This month’s debunked blog recaps 4D’s webinar with MediaPost & IRIS.TV, exploring the resurgence of contextual targeting.

Last month, I joined advertising media professionals, MediaPost, and video data platform, IRIS.TV, to discuss the feeling of caution that surrounds the resurgence of contextual targeting. Since Google’s original announcement of the humble cookie downfall in 2020, the (m)adtech industry has been up in arms with how best to plan for the future that relies on little to no third-party cookies. But, we’re no stranger to change, right? Lest we forget, in 2018 we sustained the introduction of GDPR, which delivered a very clear message for our industry: the need to re-imagine advertising for better, with privacy as the number one priority.

Arguably the most talked about solution to help pave the way for this future, is contextual targeting. However, there still seems to be some hesitation surrounding the new and improved world of Contextual, and many are prudent to believe the hype. It also didn’t help that Google further delayed the cookie-demise earlier this year (again), in the bid to provide the industry with ‘more time to prepare’, giving advertisers, agencies and publishers alike, a fair logic to hit pause and see what will happen.

The thing is – and yes, I say this from a very biased perspective – but, there really is no reason to wait. The advanced technology is already here, loud and proud, delivering powerful results and driving a better advertising future for the consumer, the advertiser, the publisher – and everyone in between.

So why the hesitation?

It all lies within education and knowledge sharing. To discover the benefits and opportunities surrounding contextual targeting and insights, you can watch our full Video Podcast discussion here. What’s more, we also had some live questions asked on the day, and so I thought what better arena to answer these questions and comments, than here.

• I agree that Contextual is a great way to reach relevant prospects. However, third-party data is alive and well, and can complement contextual targeting with data insights such as ages, incomes, and other relevant info on the consumers. How do you envision this changing when the cookie does eventually demise (or even, if, they will ever fade away)? You make a great point, and you are spot on – today, contextual targeting can compliment cookie-based advertising and enrich any targeting strategy. And, although third-party cookies and data are the foundations of marketing, the industry knows (and hates to admit) that there are fundamental flaws around third-party cookies & third-party data. Just a few things that spring to mind here, are:
• Third-party data was used because there was no other option to personalize marketing experiences if a user hadn’t already visited a brand’s website;
• Third-party data is tied to device IDs or cookie IDs often without explicit consent, and therefore goes against compliance laws such as GDPR and CCPA;
• Third-party data is not necessarily attributed to the right person. According to the definition, it does not have a direct relationship to the user;
• Third-party data is often collected & aggregated from a variety of websites, making it extremely difficult to accurately tie back all touch points and IDs to a single user;
• There are hundreds of third-party data providers available leaving marketers confused about who they can trust;
• Moreover, there are no industry standards for third-party data quality and verification, each provider has its own version of a standard, forcing everyone to operate in silo and leaving marketers at a loss;
• The quality of third-party data is low and since this data typically has a 90-day recency period, there is no way to accurately capture what happens during this time span;
• Millions upon millions of advertising dollars are spent on ads that are not relevant. So, whilst third-party cookies and data sets are very much alive and well today, it doesn’t mean to say they are fit for the future. The exciting future for contextual targeting and insights, is the ability to blend and enrich with first-party data. And this will be a game changer. More to come from us on this matter very soon!
• Do you think Google will deprecate the cookie in 2024, or will they continue to push it back? Your guess is as good as mine! However, at some point it is going to happen, whether it’s 2024 or not. The old “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” comes to mind here. Google can continue to delay the cookie demise to suit whatever agenda is important to them, but the point still remains; targeting that relies on third-party cookies and third-party data should no longer be the center piece.
• What are examples of targeting non-endemic categories with Contextual? Targeting a pet food campaign within a pet related context makes sense, but insights may prove that targeting other contexts, such as “Home & Garden”, or “Environment” may resonate best for a particular campaign and message. We’ve observed this very example for a recent contextual campaign and the results were impressive. Engagement rates were twice as high within the non-endemic contexts than they were within the initially targeted endemic topic.

In the same notion, targeting a travel campaign against travel related context also makes complete sense, but insights may prove that targeting “Fashion & Luxury” actually resonate best for a particular tactic- it of course is correlated with the brand, messaging, and other creative attributes of the campaign itself.

These types of endemic vs non-endemic examples will fluctuate due to both macro and micro environment factors, and therefore vary campaign by campaign, which is why the ability to contextually and deterministically analyze each campaign with a platform like 4D’s Insights is so valuable.

• If I’m buying Audience can Contextual benefit me or is it one or the other? Absolutely! Contextual can benefit when targeting in the DSP against third-party audience data, especially with the 4D tag in place, as this will allow for 4D to create a content consumption pattern of the type of topics that users within an audience typically engage with- all the while disambiguating from the cookies & devices themselves.
• Umberto, I loved your video examples! You used YouTube as your examples, – can the data analysis be applied to YT inventory and activated through DV360? Thank you! And, yes absolutely, 4D’s video technology works particularly well on YouTube. We can create bespoke inclusion lists that can be activated directly within a buyer’s seat on Google Ads or DV360 . What’s more, we can apply 4D across programmatic (OLV and DTV).

Want to find out more? Watch the full webinar recording here. Or, contact us via the website, or drop me a line via LinkedIn!

This month’s debunked blog explores the topics and trends discussed at this years’ DMEXCO.

Last month I was one of the many AdTech citizens who flew out to Cologne to spend some quality time with clients, prospects, partners and industry friends at the Digital Marketing and Expo Conference, DMEXCO. My mission? To get a better understanding on how the AdTech world is feeling when it comes to the new world of contextual targeting, and explore what trends are going on as we transition into this new marketing era.

Biased towards contextual? Yes of course, I do work for a contextual targeting and insights tool after all. Clever? Even more so, it was my chance to put my ears to the ground and get a true sense of what was going on across businesses throughout AdTech.

Bye, Bye Third-Party Cookie. It was, of course, no surprise that a large proportion of the discussions were exploring alternative solutions to the third-party cookie and third-party data narrative. This gave me hope, as with Google’s continuous push back of the eventual demise, it was great to see businesses and vendors exploring a brand new future for advertising – one that focused on the consumer and centred around privacy. No one singular solution particularly stood out, however, more so a combined approach was discussed, encouraging marketers to seriously consider: the focus on first-party data; the (re)introduction of contextual advancements; the exploration of unified IDs; and the introduction of clean rooms. There was certainly a sense that first-party data will indeed be the holy grail for marketers moving forward (we can all see why, right?). Yet, in order to reach scale in the wake of the humble cookie, advanced solutions such as contextual targeting were being scouted as the ones to watch out for. Amongst the cookie crumbling noise, was Google’s Privacy Sandbox. For those wondering “The Privacy Sandbox is a collaborative initiative to build new privacy-preserving technologies as an alternative to third-party cookies. The goal is to improve user privacy while preserving the vitality of the open web by supporting key marketing use cases for online businesses.” What was abundantly clear, however, was the building concerns from many surrounding the lack of transparency and flexibility this “initiative” allowed. In a world where privacy and transparency remain high on the agenda, it certainly provided some food for thought to those in the room – including me – on how this will actually start to look when the cookie does eventually fade.

A strange and gloomy world. Another underlying tone of the two day event was the inevitable reflection on the world we live in today, and the impact it is having not just on us as human beings, but our industry. With regular references to the ongoing war, the world coming out of a global pandemic, and the cost of living crisis, it was clear that these subjects, albeit depressing, were not to be ignored. The impact of all these external factors will have a domino effect on many facets of the AdTech world, and in particular, on marketing. Budgets will shrink, consumer habits will continue to rapidly change and resources may fall. What’s more, brands and agencies will need to look for more systematic solutions when it comes to data and tech, to help them with their overall efficiencies and ways of working. Whilst I want to move off this negative subject asap, it is worth bearing in mind the impact this will have on us all.

Giving back control. I don’t think there has been a single event that I have been to over the past decade that hasn’t included “control” as a key theme. Whether it is the control of the advertiser, the control of the publisher, or in this case, the control of the consumer. And lest we forget, one of the core reasons behind the third-party cookie demise, is down to the wide-spread consumer backlash against their privacy, and in turn the enforcement of global governmental regulations that have enforced this demand from consumers to gain more control. One striking theme that did stand out to me was that these discussions always pointed back to contextual in some form or other. Consumers want control? Contextual can help as it relies on no cookies whatsoever, focusing on the content they love. Advertisers want more scale in brand safe environments? Contextual can drive that with advanced technology and machine learning. Publishers want to increase their impression value through relevant advertising in good quality content? Guess what, contextual can do that too. You can imagine this made me a little smug, as I then proceeded to tell my next client prospect about the power of our 4D solution. More on that later. 😉

Everybody’s talking about video. Lastly, and by no means least, the world of video was once again one of the main discussion topics of the event. In particular, the incredible opportunity of CTV. While traditional TV ad spending may start to struggle for growth in the coming years, digital video and everything that encompasses it, will not. A portion of digital video spend will, of course, go to the CTV space, but traditional broadcasters are also developing their own streaming services—with broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) ad spend rising at a far faster rate than traditional TV spend. In my opinion, and an opinion I could sense I shared by many, is that overall the advertising opportunity for CTV remains small. That isn’t to say I am not hugely excited about it, quite the opposite. But, currently scale is an issue outside of the US market, and so we need to bear that in mind. Having said that, with the future of Netflix opening up to the AdTech world, things, in the words of D:Ream, can only get better.

To conclude: In short, my time in DMEXCO this year was nothing short of interesting, inspiring, and let’s be honest, bloody fantastic to be able to grab a beer with some legends throughout the industry. Events like these are so important to me – not just to learn and educate myself, but to get excited about the future, and build relationships with people I’ve only previously met over zoom or via email. My biggest takeaway? It’s time to build a new future. Old ways of working are no longer applicable, and so don’t delay the inevitable any longer:

• Explore alternative solutions now, not tomorrow.
• Consider changing marketing budgets and priorities in the wake of external factors
• Place the consumer at the heart of your strategy no matter where you sit within the AdTech ecosystem
• And, oh, why don’t you give advanced contextual solutions a try? I might just know the perfect solution for you. Drum roll please…….4D. Drop me a line today, for a free demo, and I’ll showcase why 4D is the perfect solution for you.