Commentary

Back To The Future: Bringing Context To Behavioral Targeting


Every morning when I get to work, I browse the trade headlines online before diving into my inbox. I’ll be reading about Mark Zuckerberg's latest speech when, all of a sudden, I’ll see an ad for underwear featuring a scantily clad model -- delivered to me because once, two weeks ago, I bought boxer-briefs on Amazon.

Now, I’m as likely to buy underwear as much as the next guy, but I don’t want borderline NSFW ads blasting on my 27-inch monitor as my colleagues walk by.

This is a major problem that programmatic ads are facing today: Targeting has become too focused on past behavior like search and purchasing history, while ignoring what’s going on in the present. The result is out-of-context ads that disrupt, annoy, or simply don’t perform.

It wasn’t always this way. Back when print reigned supreme, the ads readers were exposed to complemented the content. Even today, print publications generally provide a contextual advertising experience: GQ readers, for example, see premium ads for underwear, cologne, cars, and other men’s lifestyle products in line with the magazine’s editorial slant.

But context hasn’t been a priority in the programmatic advertising realm, leading to mounting pushback from consumers (case in point: the rise of ad blocking).

The good news is that context is back, and it’s easier to implement into programmatic advertising than you might think, especially if you keep the following insights in mind.

Real-time targeting is essential. It’s time to target customers based on what they’re doing in the present (and not just past behavior). This means taking into account not only the general profile of the online publication, but also of the specific content being consumed in real time. If I’m reading a Men’s Journal profile of Bear Grylls, then I’d likely be receptive to seeing ads for camping gear because they’re a natural extension of the content and bring something genuinely useful to the table.

The future of contextual advertising is mobile. Everyone uses smartphones now, so simply running resized ads for mobile won’t cut it in an era of responsive design. And there are other factors to consider when working in the context of mobile: SnapChat-style vertical video is here to stay, but it needs a dedicated type of execution. Meanwhile, the smartphone’s built-in location awareness capability offers an entirely new level of contextual accuracy.

Variety is the spice of life (and advertising). Responsible retargeting is crucial. There’s nothing more mind-numbing for consumers than seeing the same ad pop up over and over. Marketers need to take the time to analyze such factors as intent, channel performance, and segmentation -- not to mention varied creative executions -- to make sure that retargeted ads make perfect sense to the user, even if it means fewer ads.

Creative counts. Legendary ads of the pre-digital past are still remembered because they were groundbreaking creative productions that tugged at both human heartstrings and funny bones. Not so with many of today’s generic programmatic ads, which all too often resemble newspaper classifieds.

Which brings us back to context. Programmatic ads can be much more in line with the content that surrounds them. Robust, varied, and smart creative implementations are the way to achieve this.

Targeting in a contextual way may not be as seamless as it was in print and television’s heyday, but it cannot be thrown by the wayside, especially as threats to online advertising grow. Sometimes, looking to strategies of the past is just the ticket for succeeding in the future.

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