• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, March 8, 2017

Cross-device identify firm Drawbridge on Wednesday announced a partnership with Grapeshot to offer pre-bid keyword targeting via machine learning. By integrating Grapeshot’s technology, Drawbridge aims to improve targeting and serve relevant ads based on the keywords and content users read across their devices. 

For example, an article about Istanbul or a hotel booking site would show ads for travel-related services across consumers’ devices, not just the device where the person read the article. Drawbridge said Grapeshot's keyword technology allows marketers to choose from more than 140 categories of page keywords and more than 100 languages to improve targeting. Drawbridge hopes the tech partnership will enable it to predict where audiences are going to be up to 72 hours in advance.

The hope is that consumers will receive ads across devices that are more relevant (based on keywords) to the content they actually read and won't be annoyed with irrelevant ads. The goal is for marketers to be able to reach their audiences in real time based on highly specific keywords.

Grapeshot uses an adaptive page-crawling algorithm to determine the value of words on a given Web page and crawls all Web pages previously analyzed. The companies said that the customizable technology aims to offer Drawbridge clients control over pre-bid keyword targeting across desktop and mobile inventory within the Drawbridge Cross-Device Platform.

“We’ve seen that one of the most popular and strongest-performing media tactics is syncing messages with content that is contextually relevant to consumers’ interests,” stated Drawbridge VP of Product Management & Partnerships, Rahul Bafna. He said the tech will offer clients keyword targeting at scale and help them achieve better campaign performance both on mobile and desktop.