As the cookies crumbles, it’s time for brands to brush-up on contextual advertising

Google has finally taken its hand out of the cookie jar. 

The tech titan kickstarted the year by making the first concrete step in phasing out third-party cookies on Chrome. The highly-anticipated privacy change, first announced in 2020, will initially impact 1% of Chrome users worldwide. 

Third-party cookies’ wealth of personal information derived from tracking consumers' online behaviour across the web has been a data goldmine for marketers. This practice may lose viability in today's privacy-first, heavily regulated landscape. 

Consumers have become increasingly vocal about their desire for greater data protection. Almost 70% of global consumers acknowledge they’re concerned about their privacy online. Advertisers acknowledge they must focus on being customer-centric, but meeting privacy expectations comes at a high price - with a fear that personalisation and audience targeting is set to become significantly harder. 

Part of the problem is a lack of progress by brands in exploring and developing alternative strategies. StackAdapt’s research shows that less than a third of advertisers have implemented solutions in preparation for a cookieless future. Maybe they have been hoping for some form of last minute reprieve or reversal by Google, but such dithering leaves many of them at a competitive disadvantage in the new privacy-compliant world. 

There are alternatives available that can help reach audiences when they are likely to be more receptive to messaging and will help build trust between brand and customer. Foremost are the contextual advertising solutions that have sat untouched on the shelves for too long. 

The emergence of AI to power such solutions means brands are becoming aware of how contextual advertising opens the door to hyper-targeted campaigns that deliver premium user experiences (UX). And in a time where pragmatism should be front-of-mind, contextual solutions can offer the bells and whistles required for more impactful multichannel advertising strategies in 2024 and beyond. 

Reinventing the contextual wheel

Third-party cookies have been a crutch for too long; a way for brands to reach the masses. But whilst this change has been coming for a while, it has left executives scratching their heads about how to implement equally effective campaigns.

Leveraging a contextual strategy shouldn’t be perceived as one step forwards, two steps back. Putting greater emphasis on first-party data can be the key to unlocking more meaningful, measurable actions. And provided they have the necessary data, the sky’s the limit in terms of granularity. 

Contextual used to be perceived as a time-consuming process that distracted from the creative process. Advertising content had to be tagged manually with keywords and phrases, a process that was both labour-intensive and time-consuming. But deploying AI for these tasks can optimise time management, whilst also improving the accuracy of the keyword selection. 

AI’s benefits in contextual targeting don’t stop there. Natural language processing (NLP) looks beyond the language used and examines the context in which it is used. Developing a deeper understanding of the broader context of the content, ensures we’re finding all of the relevant opportunities for ad placement. 

Marketers who are keeping an eye on their finances should be welcoming these changes with open arms. With the IPA Bellwether Report Q4 2023 forecasting that ad spend will decline by 0.7% in real terms this year, getting more from your budget is paramount. And when it comes to minimising ad waste, few techniques are better than personalisation - Adobe reports that 89% of marketers experience improved ROI when leveraging personalised advertising. 

Alternative plug-and-play solutions

Some brands were already starting their contextual journeys prior to Google’s depreciation. Sky announced in December that it would be trialling contextual targeting ads this year, whilst ITV’s upfronts revolved around AI-powered contextual. 

But that doesn’t mean that this is automatically plain sailing. The sheer abundance of content categories (704) is an obvious challenge; the same can be said for the complexities around tagging. 

Thankfully, there’s more than one way to handle the ‘cookiegeddon’ hot potato - and you don’t have to embark on this transition alone. Sourcing a programmatic partner already well-versed in integrating AI and machine learning into contextual targeting can deliver an immediate boost to results.

Collaborating with industry specialists can also solve the knowledge gap for advertisers approaching contextual for the first time, or returning on the back of the AI resurgence. Delivering high-performance programmatic solutions across the digital landscape is their bread-and-butter; it’s up to you to tap into this. 

Time to byte the bullet

It’s crunch time for advertisers. ‘Cookiegeddon’ shouldn’t be heralded as a cataclysmic event that’s breaking the advertising landscape. Rather, it’s an opportunity to move away from traditional data collection methods.

Using webpage content to inform targeting alleviates long-standing privacy concerns whilst also improving advertising relevance. The onus is on brands, agencies and advertisers to engage with high-value audiences and push them down the funnel. And with AI-powered contextual targeting replacing cookies, this should be a piece of cake. 

Andrew Rose, is the vice president of EMEA at StackAdapt,