CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISING: in association with in association with 02 Contextual Targeting: The New Frontier Welcome to Contextual 2.0 Contextual targeting, where ads online are targeted to people based on the context of what they’re looking at on page, is looking not just appealing but also safer. Triggered not only by the European privacy law In the beginning, there were only This was the beginning of the online And all the while technology has GDPR but also increasing privacy two types of targeting: demographic advertising industry’s obsession with been advancing, reaching the point concerns due to behavioral tracking and contextual. Reader surveys told audience, and the corresponding now where we no longer have to rely you what sort of people, on average, diminution of the importance of on tagging to convey the content globally, a soaring demand for consumed a particular media property, context. Behavioral targeting was of a page, but can ask machines to personalized marketing strategies and context did the rest. Cars were progressively automated and online categorize it according to factors such and the rise of mobile usage, advertised on the motoring pages, advertising became programmatically as sentiment, tone-of-voice, reading holidays in travel sections, and sales traded based on the attributes of each age and so on. contextual advertising is making next to the news. individual visitor to a page, rather a resurgence. And long gone are than the content of the page they So, this report looks at the current the days when contextual The internet changed all that. Being were visiting. state of contextual advertising targeting was based on a able to track where people had been to understand how it’s seen by online at a site, network or even - But now the industry finds itself at a advertisers and agencies. We look at simplistic reliance on a single briefly - ISP level created behavioural turning point. The EU’s General Data how they’re using it in the targeting keyword. With advances in computer targeting, allowing brands to advertise Protection Regulation, which came into mix and why. And we look at how vision, it’s now possible to decipher out of context by assuming that the force on 25 May, is the latest and most emerging technologies, such as the visual content of a publisher’s interest that had taken someone to a significant piece of legislation to make computer vision and semantic analysis, car page persisted when they started tracking internet users via cookies are changing how they might use it in page. Contextual targeting is the reading about travel. Publishers won more difficult, and therefore hamper the future. And let us put it out there only targeting left. because they could sell previously audience-based targeting. There are – this is no mission to Mars. It is an unpopular inventory. Advertisers won also concerns that the programmatic exciting prospect, and it is very much because that previously unpopular pursuit of audiences at the lowest for real. inventory was still cheaper than the possible cost is annoying customers prime, contextually relevant stuff. and compromising brand value and trust. in association with 04 Contextual Targeting: The New Frontier 25% 37% USA UK Respondents not using targeting in their online Methodology advertising This report is based on a survey of 116 senior executives in the UK and US with responsibility for digital advertising within their company, carried out in June 2018 by YouGov. Most Precisely targeted advertising was one However, it was clear that for most firms, Most popular of the early promises of the commercial targeting is cumulative. In both the popular The Drum would also like to thank the following targeting internet, and it’s always tempting to think US and the UK, roughly two thirds of targeting for their contribution to the report. types in that everyone is using all the advantages respondents (61% and 65% respectively) types in the US the internet has to offer. However, said that they wouldn’t consider using the UK 49% targeting is an area where businesses contextual targeting on its own in the IN THE UK: IN THE US: Contextual still seem to be lagging behind future. The research also showed that targeting the capabilities of technology. Our 28% of respondents use contextual Jean-Paul Edwards, Cheryl Huckabay, research found that 37% of UK business targeting all the time, 40% use it often 46% strategy and product principal, respondents and 25% of those from the and 25% sometimes use it. US were not using any targeting in their development director The Richards Group demographic online advertising. This was borne out by the agency experts EMEA, we spoke to. They agreed that, although OMD Terrance Nixon, 46% demographic We also found that US companies are the industry emphasis in the past few media supervisor, noticeably more likely to target their years has been on audiences, contextual Alexis Faulkner, SapientRazorfish ads, and that the popularity of different has never gone away. head of FAST UK, types of targeting varies between the Mindshare David L Smith, 44% two countries. Contextual targeting was Rather, it has been used as another layer 32% CEO and founder, the most widely used form in the US, of targeting, as Mediasmith founder and geo-location Contextual Hannah Lury, Mediasmith being carried out by almost half (49%) of CEO David L Smith explained: “This is not respondents, followed by demographic a return of contextual targeting, it’s targeting head of comms, (46%), geo-location (44%) and behavioral a reminder. The new tools enable us strategy and media, (25%). Demographic targeting is most to do that overlay, and we’re reminded Three UK popular in the UK, being used by 36% why contextual was a good idea.” of respondents, followed by contextual 25% (32%), and geo-location and behavioral 29% 29% (both 29%). behavioral geo-location behavioral in association with 06 Contextual Targeting: The New Frontier The rebirth The of quality So what does contextual add to the targeting mix? We investigated what advertisers think contextual targeting rise delivers by asking respondents to score Our agency experts identified another benefit “Measurements like click-through rate are its performance on a scale of one to ten for that contextual delivers; it’s ability to deliver actually going up when contextual targeting a number of attributes. quality outcomes. Faulkner at Fast UK is overlaid. Users feel it and they see it, and it summed it up: feels natural to them and it triggers a level of On both sides of the Atlantic the technique’s trust in relation to the brand that they actually to main virtue was seen as its ability to increase “The industry has gone down the audience know who they’re talking to versus someone the relevance of advertising. Respondents targeting route in the past few years, but casting out a wide net and hoping to capture from both the UK and the US were most while we still think audience targeting is somebody’s interest. The brand knows what impressed with contextual targeting’s ability really important, as an industry we’ve almost you’re interested in, and they’ve made the the to increase the relevance of advertising. Both forgotten about quality. At Mindshare, effort to align themselves there for you, which also gave second place to its ability to improve we believe quality outcomes are often is a better approach.” the user experience. Then views diverged, US associated with quality media, and we respondents being noticeably more impressed regularly see that curated content with with the way contextual targeting improves longer dwell-time on page drives better top campaign planning and brand perception than brand recognition and consumer positivity.” their UK counterparts. But what’s interesting is that increasing relevance was the only aspect This view is echoed by Terrance Nixon, media CONTENT LOG of contextual targeting that really stirred supervisor at digital agency SapientRazorfish FAULKNER, FAST UK the enthusiasm of our respondents, with an in Chicago. “Advertisers are limiting the average of 44% rating it 8, 9 or 10 out of 10. amounts of impressions they’re serving on _ We believe quality outcomes Only a third gave a high rating to its ability the open web, and opting for more premium are often associated with to improve the user experience. and more high-quality content. That means deeper learnings about the consumers to quality media, and we guarantee that this audience is who they’re regularly see that curated actually looking for. Then, on the flip side, content with longer dwell- 44% the audience is putting more trust in these time on page drives better high-quality publishers to make sure that the brand recognition and brands advertising on their site are actually consumer positivity relevant to them, are matching the type of of respondents rated content that they’re looking for, and the contextual targeting message of these ads resonates with the 8 or above for content on the page. increasing relevance in association with 08 Contextual Targeting: The New Frontier There is a definite upturn in investment We looked at this in another way, by asking when it comes to contextual advertising. our survey respondents whether they thought Our research suggests it’s taking off in approaches to targeting were changing and, a significant way. Our research certainly if so, why. The vast majority of our survey indicates there’s an upturn in investment respondents seem to think they were. in contextual advertising: 59% of our UK Only 8% of UK respondents and 7% of those respondents told us they’d kept spending on in the US said they didn’t think companies contextual constant last year, while 18% said were changing their advertising strategies, they’d increased it.