• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, February 18, 2022

Yahoo first launched its ID-less targeting option, Next-Gen Solutions, for mobile in-app environments in 2021, enabling audience reach and monetization independent of mobile app IDs. Now the company is bringing it to the open web.

The contextual targeting tool uses machine learning and real-time data signals to provide omnichannel targeting and buying across non-addressable inventory in the Yahoo DSP.

Now, Next-Gen Solutions is available for the open web. Publishers who adopt Next-Gen Solutions for web must also have adopted Yahoo ConnectID, which enhances audience matching and enables advertisers to deliver more relevant messaging.

Iván Markman, chief business officer at Yahoo, believes content is a crucial element to audience creation, but alone it's insufficient.

Tests show contextual signals contribute less than 50% to the inferred audiences' accuracy, which means if the advertiser only relies on content the company’s missing an opportunity to target audiences with a high level of accuracy.

Yahoo also has a cookieless identity solution, Yahoo ConnectID, which works in environments where identity is available in other forms. When identity isn't available, Yahoo's Next-Gen Solutions leverage billions of real-time signals to help advertisers deliver relevant experiences and publishers monetize better. 

Yahoo ConnectID has been adopted by more than 12,000 publisher domains, including BuzzFeed, The Arena Group, CafeMedia, Chegg, and Newsweek. Any publisher that has adopted Yahoo ConnectID now has access to Next-Gen Solutions for web.

As the ad ecosystem moves away from browser cookies and app advertising IDs, advertisers and publishers need something more. Today, 30% of ad opportunities are without advertising IDs, with more than 75% of all ad opportunities expected to be identity-less by 2024.

In early testing, the Yahoo DSP increased spend on publisher’s non-addressable supply by more than 25% when publishers adopted Next-Gen Solutions. Chegg, specifically, saw an 86% increase in Yahoo DSP spend on its non-addressable supply. For advertisers, Next-Gen Solutions rose nearly 40% in incremental reach on non-addressable web inventory.

Some 49% of nearly 100 marketers surveyed are looking to contextual advertising to replace cookies, according to a study by GumGum, a global media and tech company focused on contextual advertising.

The study -- sponsored in partnership with Brand Innovators and conducted by an independent third-party researcher -- also showed that most marketers who responded expect to increase their digital and mobile ad spends as the ad industry moves to a cookieless future. Some 56% of respondents said they were aware that “contextual advertising” is often cited as a solution to the upcoming post-cookie environment, whether or not it’s the best choice.

While only 27% of respondents stated they were “very familiar” with contextual advertising, 41% acknowledged they were somewhere in the middle -- neither overly familiar or overly unfamiliar -- highlighting the gap and need for deeper education about contextual technology.