contextual targeting

AI in advertising has gone from a buzzword to a full disruptor in what feels like just a few months. If CES was any indication, there is no sign of this slowing down.

E.l.f. Beauty’s “So Many Dicks” campaign targets corporate leaders via contextual advertising with the goal of increasing diversity in corporate boardrooms.

Traffic-starved publishers are hopeful that their long-undervalued audience data will fuel advertising’s automated future – if only they can finally wrest control of the industry narrative away from ad tech middlemen.

Advertisers are still having a lot of the same brand-safety problems today as he did years ago – and it’s pretty damned frustrating.

The layoffs reflect a strategic decision on People Inc.’s part to free up money to invest in growth areas, according to CEO Neil Vogel’s memo to employees.

New social media content moderation policies will enable connections with audiences that reflect a broader range of perspectives, expand inventory, and provide opportunities for contextual alignment.

People Inc. – the former Dotdash Meredith – is fighting on multiple fronts to keep its business growing as Google Search declines precipitously as a source of referral traffic.

TV audiences are rallying around CTV, and advertisers are following suit . But with this shift comes a persistent challenge: How can advertisers ensure brand safety, campaign efficiency and audience relevance in a fragmented, opaque streaming ecosystem?

On Wednesday, AI-powered audio intelligence platform Sounder launched a new version of its brand suitability and contextual targeting tool for podcasts that can understand the nuances of Spanish-language audio content.

If there’s one safe prediction heading into Cannes this year, it’s that AI will be everywhere: in panels, on yachts and splashed across every DOOH ad within a 10-kilometer radius of the Croisette. But behind the noise, something real is happening. We are witnessing a strategic shift. AI is evolving from a shiny object into a performance engine that helps marketers uncover hidden audiences and iterate faster while delivering relevance at scale.

Classify is entering a crowded space of AI-powered contextual curation offerings. But the company is already teasing some high-profile integrations thanks to its network of well-connected advisors.

DDM reported 1% Q1 revenue growth, citing traffic downturns Google’s AI search results and soft advertising demand due to tariff-induced uncertainty.

Since Connatix and JW Player first announced their merger in October, JWP Connatix – a temporary name for the newly joined companies – says things are going well at the six-month mark.

DDM is expanding its performance-focused contextual targeting solution, D/Cipher, to third-party inventory.

On Thursday, TV measurement company Samba TV announced its acquisition of audience data and contextual targeting solution Semasio.

Dotdash Meredith’s Lindsay Van Kirk says the cookie-based buying tools she helped develop in her early career at AppNexus placed too much value on unreliable third-party audiences. But contextual tools like DDM’s D/Cipher, which she now oversees, can build a better ad ecosystem for buyers and sellers.

During certain periods this year, advertisers blocked more than 40% of The Washington Post’s inventory over brand safety concerns.

The publication still makes most of its on-site digital revenue from programmatic. But it’s doubling down on direct-sold custom content, especially when it comes to video and social media.

The trajectory of digital advertising remains unchanged. There are plenty of signs that the investments advertisers have made in cookie alternatives are already paying off.

Ad revenue was helped along by 9% growth in unique visitors to the top sites in DDM’s portfolio. Programmatic ad rates were up roughly 36% in Q2, spurred by adoption of DDM’s D/Chipher contextual targeting solution.

With a multifaceted approach, companies can manage the risks while reaping the rewards of more consumer-conscious ad targeting strategies.

The end of Oracle’s ad business is a major shift in the ad landscape. Here’s how to assess the impact on your business and begin to find a new path forward, according to Alliant’s Christopher Morse.

Tech companies have developed AI solutions that shift budgets and strategies toward contextual. But the AI-driven transition to black-box optimization requires agencies to build and develop new skills, custom tools and processes.

Dotdash Meredith previewed plans for how its OpenAI partnership could provide incremental traffic and scale its contextual targeting capabilities across a wider network of sites and media types.

Business Insider released a new targeting tool called SAGA reACT that analyzes the emotional reactions its content produces to create actionable, emotion-driven audience segments.

On Tuesday, iHeartMedia-owned Triton Digital acquired AI brand safety and suitability startup Sounder in a bid to improve its programmatic chops.

New contextual targeting tools use generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) to analyze websites and and build contextual audience segments. The companies behind them believe that GPTs can address some of the problems that plague contextual targeting.

G/O Media introduced a new contextual targeting solution that combines first-party contextual signals and data on audience browsing behavior to create cross-site contextual segments that can be activated programmatically.

Fyllo will shift its focus from targeted ad compliance in highly regulated verticals – namely, legalized weed – to more general contextual targeting. The company is also rebranding as Fyllo|Semasio.

Given the deprecation of third-party cookies and the reemergence of contextual targeting, 2024 could be a big year for in-game ads – so long as game publishers position themselves as a source of premium inventory.