Contextual targeting vendor Peer39 is capitalizing on the craze for all things cookieless with the rollout of a contextual data marketplace that aggregates data from atypical sources to apply against programmatic buys.
The marketplace, which came out of beta on Tuesday after more than a year, includes cookie-free data sets from suppliers such as Hotspex Media, NewsGuard and Planalytics. Peer39 plans to onboard more than a dozen new data sources throughout the year.
Peer39 will make the data available through existing relationships with demand-side platforms. The data is also actionable through private marketplace deals.
Context can be a lot richer than simply understanding the words on a page, said Alex White, Peer39’s chief operating officer.
“Physical context, location, weather, sports scores, what’s going on in the stock market – all of that can be contextual data,” White said. “The only reason advertisers can’t use that type of data is because no one’s brought it online.”
Planalytics, for example, combines weather and sales data to help companies figure out proactively how weather impacts their business. NewsGuard has access to contextual data related to the reliability of online sources. Hotspex Media has an offering that develops emotional data segments based on context, such as “uplifting,” which is a data set tied to content classified as encouraging and optimistic.
Home Depot Canada has been using emotional data from Hotspex Media through Peer39’s marketplace so that it’s able to ensure “an emotional alignment between our messaging and prospective ad placements,” said Tracy Ball, a programmatic marketing manager at Home Depot Canada.
Today, contextual represents roughly 20% to 30% of Home Depot Canada’s programmatic targeting and plays an important role when it comes to prospecting. Home Depot Canada tends to see a greater lift in brand awareness and favorability from contextual placements and better engagement with its how-to videos and guides.
“We believe the mix of addressable and contextual targeting will naturally evolve based on goals and performance,” Ball said. “In some cases, we have already begun shifting towards broad-based behavior and contextual sentiment tactics.”
Now that its emotional category data is natively available across DSPs and through private marketplace deals, Hotspex Media has seen an uptick in demand, said Jonah Cait, the agency’s VP of strategy and product.
Advertisers are interested in new forms of contextual data that aren’t tied to third-party cookies, said Peer39 CEO Mario Diez, but they need an easier way to access it.
And there’s a dotted line between easier access and scale.
When third-party cookies are no longer available, contextual targeting will rise to help fill the void, said Alex Stone, SVP of agency partnerships at Horizon Media.
A number of Horizon’s clients are testing contextual targeting, including through Peer39’s new marketplace, to see how performance compares as “tried and true cookie-based targeting tactics start to go away,” Stone said.
“We’re seeing clients that have the foresight and that understand the implications of privacy regulations and other upcoming hurdles ramping up their testing in the first quarter and reconsidering how they approach audience or performance buying,” Stone said. “And it really is a matter of testing – because there’s no switch that’s going to flip and suddenly everyone will be doing contextual.”
