Cookies Crumbled, Now What?

Contextual Advertising (and Content) is the New Cookies

What’s old is new again and contextual advertising is back. “We don’t expect a decline in ad dollars or a decline in ad traffic, we expect a reallocation and shift of budgets,” said Jon Kagan, VP of search at Cogniscient Media. “The next best option to cookies based behavioral targeting is anything keyword or keyword contextual-based advertising. Years ago everyone discounted it and we moved further and further away from keyword targeting, but now we’re going to have to go straight back to it.”

Contextual advertising is basically ads that are relevant to the other content on the screen. It’s like beer ads in a bar: go where your customers are. From the average non-marketer consumers’ perspective, contextual ads are more relevant and far less creepy feeling than cookie-based behavioral retargeting. Think of it this way:

With behavioral targeting, someone like you may get ads for martech platforms, ad agencies and the like everywhere you go on the web. But as an everyday consumer, you’re actually more interested in knitting. It doesn’t make much sense for you to get ads for Marketo when you are on Knitterly sharing your latest pattern—which could happen when behavioral targeting is being employed.

With contextual targeting, the ads you see are based on the content you are looking at instead of your overall behavior profile. So when you are looking at your knitting blog, you see ads for knitting needles, and when you’re reading up on how to boost the click-through rate on your email newsletters, you see ads for relevant email automation platforms.

The move to contextual targeting will also mean a move back to focusing on producing and distributing relevant content. Content is the new cookie (says the content marketer)! This is a bit easier said than done, though, as it will take more alignment between advertisers and publishers to make it work at scale. This article in Marketing Land outlines the four key steps publishers and advertisers need to take to executing this alternative to cookie-based behavioral targeting. A great takeaway is that content-as-ads works, mainly because people hate ads, but they like to be informed and entertained—and appreciate relevant offers while that’s happening.

The tools for contextual keyword advertising are available in Google AdSense, which allows you to place image, video, and text ads on the pages of participating sites online. This enables you to put dynamic content in front of people who aren’t necessarily searching for you. This article in Disruptive Advertising shows you how to get started with contextual advertising.

From the consumer perspective, contextual ads are way less creepy because they don’t give you the feeling that you’re being followed around the web. They only see ads that are relevant to the content they are currently consuming, so they are more relevant and in turn, more likely to feel invited to the party.

Learn More by Owen Ray