• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 11, 2024

Megan Gavin, VP of digital at Horizon Media, found predictive ad targeting and audiences as a way to support the agency’s clients.

“We have been leaning more into contextual targeting as cookies continue to go away,” Gavin said. “All of us know the trend predates Google Chrome and Google cookies. There are other browsers that have deprecated cookies prior.”

Horizon Media has “dabbled” in predictive audiences. Connatix, a video technology company, is one of the partners. “Contextual targeting can only get us so far,” said Gavin, to support automotive clients, as well as other market segments.

Look-a-like and behavioral targeting were the go-to strategies in the early days, Gavin explained, but it’s not time to move on. She said the agency has seen some early success, as Connatix signs on a variety of data and identity partners, such as LiveRamp to keep data at the center of campaigns.

Connatix's Data Intelligence Suite brings together fragmented identity and contextual data to increase addressability in all video environments. It uses predictive analysis based on artificial intelligence (AI) to let advertisers reach audiences while creating sustainable revenue streams for publishers.

The technology determines what consumers will do in the future based on what they have done in the past, as browser cookies disappear. It supports in app and web, and soon to release contextual connected television (CTV) “before we take it to predictive,” said Jenn Chen, president and CRO of Connatix.

The newly released suite is supported by AI and uses machine learning to detect patterns. “Words don’t always string together,” she said. “It’s like the way you would use Google keywords to target a specific set of keywords. We take the keywords and put them into the engine.”

The engine produces related topics, words, and videos in a text form, as well as audio and transfer files. AI blends the data to determine themes.

"You need tools if you want to hedge your own gardens, because data cannot leak anymore," Chen said, referring to privacy strategies. "We're trying to help companies by giving them some form of advantage."

The tools suite also eventually will support retail media, Chen said, because these companies have lots of legacy data and they are not sure how to use it.