The Potential Return to Context Targeting

It seems like ages ago, but in late February and early March, AdAge and GumGum held a series of breakfast events in three cities to discuss critical changes to the ad industry. Key among the topics was that in less than two years, Google’s Chrome browser would effectively eliminate cookies, forcing advertisers that may have been on the fence to finally create a plan on how to target audiences, track activity and measure conversions without third-party data to guide their online media buying efforts.

Featured speakers included executives from Roku, 360i, Hearts & Science, and Axios. Also participating in the panel discussions was Justin Scarborough, PMG’s programmatic media director. At the Dallas breakfast event, he raised his biggest concern, which is the lack of a national standard regarding data privacy.

“What concerns us the most is, beginning with CCPA, we’re looking at patchwork state-by-state legislation, which is a total nightmare. And I have very low confidence that, at the federal level, that’s going to get sorted out anytime soon,” said Scarborough.

The AdAge article about the events shared that “as brands, ad tech firms and publishers prepare for the next iteration of digital advertising, the intelligence offered by contextual targeting is attracting more interest specifically because it relies directly on the text, photos and videos already on the page of content being consumed.” We recommend a full read to learn more about how contextual might help advertisers overcome the lack of third-party cookies, but also to learn specific insights from the experts who spoke on the panels.