The advertising industry has been in turmoil for a while, but particularly over the past 18 months, following the announcement that Google Chrome would block third-party cookies by 2022 (now delayed to 2023). This is a strong push towards more solid privacy with few equals in the history of the Internet, and a first important step towards a privacy-first web. Soon after, Apple released an update for Safari which blocked cookies completely, and it is rumoured that Firefox (which already features ways to completely block cookies) will soon do something similar.
As Google is not planning to build alternate identifiers, it seems that the days of Behavioural Targeting and profile-building are coming to an end – at least as far as third-party cookies are concerned. iOS 14 already asks users to confirm whether they would like individual apps to track their navigation – and even I, who couldn’t really care less about my navigation history being shared or otherwise, find myself asking them not to track time and time again. I can’t imagine the vast majority of users acting differently.
With the end of cookies ahead (we’ll probably write some more about it here on Creativepool soon), the future of advertising is one where user navigation will be much harder to track and targeted ads may become increasingly difficult to pull off. However, in the realm of programmatic ads, there is one solution that is being discussed more and more: Contextual Targeting.
Boy, if I hate the idea of resorting to Contextual Targeting.
Image credit: Agnieszka Pasko
Behavioural VS Contextual
For those who may be less adept to the jargon, Behavioural Targeting is what has been possible thus far thanks to third-party cookies: ads and advertisement based on user behaviours, indeed – in other words, their navigation and browsing habits. Behavioural ads are the ones that show us a horror writing course on Instagram after we shopped for something related to H.P. Lovecraft and browsed writing books on Amazon (I’ve had that happen).
On the other hand, Contextual Advertising is as old as night and day. You’ve seen it in print magazines, newspapers and even on TV; you’ve seen it in the early days of the internet. As the term suggests, Ads are placed on a platform based on the surrounding context. In other words, a BBC recipe website will probably feature ads with cookbooks and kitchen utensils; a publication for the creative and advertising industries may show Adobe ads and training course providers, from universities to Udemy and Domestika, as well as (potentially) styluses and other tech-y gadgets for creatives. This is usually possible thanks to a series of keywords available on a website or a page, which are then put in relation with appropriate contextual ads.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of Contextual Advertising. We’ve seen that happen everywhere – you would buy a magazine about cars knowing that there would be loads of car-related ads inside. It is possibly the oldest form of advertising on this planet.
So why is it coming back now?
Well… Essentially, it appears we don’t have a choice. That is where my problems begin.
Is Contextual Targeting really the best solution we could come up with?
With cookies soon out of the way, there is virtually very little that advertisers can do to track user behaviour and still ensure top privacy across all platforms. And though I must admit that targeted behavioural ads have helped me find some useful stuff in the past, I can’t deny that they are inherently creepy. Having Instagram show you a Masterclass ad after you mentioned it on WhatsApp can be incredibly jarring – though, when you start looking into programmatic, you understand that machine learning and AI are pretty much the main players involved in the actual ad placement process.
Still, with cookie-matching being occasionally unreliable and the majority of cookies now rejected by most browsers, third-party identifiers have started becoming messy a long time ago. The process was never as smooth as some cookie fans are claiming it to be.
Image credit: Georgia Stephenson for Samsung
So all in all, Contextual Targeting makes sense to me. There have been countless technological advancements since it used to be the norm. Its comeback will usher in a new era of advertising. Machine learning and AI are now crucial assistants in the programmatic buying process, platforms are more efficient than ever, and it is not just a matter of an algorithm scanning for keywords anymore.
To me, Contextual Targeting feels like a second choice.
It used to be the case that a contextual ad would be placed next to an article that was actually blasting the product itself – perhaps a negative review for a product that was being advertised on the same page, in a skyscraper or banner. That was in the old days, when keywords were just keywords and algorithms weren’t capable of looking at semantics. Things are rather different now. Said Pete Wallace, Commercial Director at GumGum, once: “Natural Language Processing, which has been a booming part of the AI industry for some time, can be applied to understand the full sentiment of a page rather than looking for flat keywords. Image Recognition Technology can similarly be applied to scan imagery and video content, so we can have full view of a page.”
The technology is there to ensure that Contextual Targeting becomes way more efficient than it ever was. Still, I find it hard to believe that this is the industry’s best idea – to fall back on the old ways, forced by tech giants (which I don’t personally disdain, despite the tone of this sentence) to resort to a plan B rather than envision something new.
There’s people-based targeting. There are loads of automation systems out there. There are ways to get your hands on consensual first-party data that is more valuable than any third-party cookie will ever be. Brands often have more data than they think, and reaching out to willing customers or prospects offers ways to provide a meaningful experience as personalised and customised as it can be. As we ease back into a new normal, this is the industry’s opportunity to demonstrate authenticity, honesty and transparency by aiding or establishing meaningful relationships between advertisers and customers. This is something that the cold poker face of Contextual Targeting will never be able to offer – despite most of the industry claiming otherwise.
Artwork credit: Martin Reznik
So, does advertising work?
I’ve seen a lot of industry representatives acting pumped and excited about the future prospects of Contextual Advertising, and in them was the typical energy of someone who has already given up. To me, Contextual Targeting feels like a second choice. A second best, the child you will love but is clearly not as brilliant as the other one. It feels like the industry is choosing it out of lack of choices, just because there seems to be no other, better, more creative way to find a solution to the issue.
To me, if we moved away from Contextual Targeting in the past, there probably was a reason to do so. It’s true that the technological means have changed considerably since then – but will that make such a massive difference? Is it truly a viable alternative to the performance and effectiveness of Behavioural Targeting?
A part of me believes that this is just a temporary phase. We will rely on contextual advertising for a while, until we find effective and consistent ways to employ People-Based Targeting or any other alternative as our standard approach.
I am certain that the future of advertising is hybrid.
On the other hand, I am certain that the future of advertising is hybrid. There will be an element of Contextual Targeting to keep the programmatic machine running, but there may be an increasingly larger portion of People-Based Targeting being employed across the industry. There may even be another term or solution arising in the near future. I ignore what that could be, but it feels reassuring to think of the advertising industry as still, inherently, able to come up with creative solutions to such complex problems.
In the end, we’re back to the good old issue of effectiveness: if advertising really works, there isn’t even a point in discussing all this. Contextual Targeting will be effective, regardless of where or how it’s placed. Advertisers and creative teams will have learned from their past mistakes. It will be a blast, and it will establish a new standard for the industry where a privacy-first web can truly be nurtured, for the good of clients and customers.
Except we’ve already heard that story infinite times, haven’t we?
