Bye Bye Cookies! Hello Contextual Targeting!

From 2024, the advertising industry is on a diet. No more cookies! Over and out. But how should we proceed with targeting then? Up to now, online advertising has been particularly profitable because tracking users has made it possible to avoid wastage. What will that look like in the future? One solution is contextual targeting. We explain how it works.

More than keyword matching

Contextual targeting, as the name suggests, is about context and not about the behavior of the user. The focus of this targeting process is on analyzing the meaning of the respective advertising environment: advertising is thus played out that is adapted to the respective context and relevant for this environment. This may not sound very precise at first, but contextual targeting can do more than you might think at first. It is absolutely GDPR-compliant, for example, since it works completely independently of user:inside data. They are neither collected nor analyzed. However, if you think that contextual targeting is just an extended keyword targeting, you are far from it. Instead, it makes use of complex analysis using state-of-the-art AI-powered technology that is able to understand content relationships and play out ads that match them. So this is also about the connection and meaning of the different words of display and environment. This analysis of contextual interplay goes far beyond classic keyword targeting.

Precisely tailored advertising

The great advantage of contextual targeting is that the respective advertisement always appears at the right place at the right time. This is because instead of relying on user data from the past, contextual targeting is based on when the advertiser is interested in a particular topic and appears in the place where the advertising topic has relevance. For example, an article about a current Bundesliga match in the context can be accompanied by an advertisement for a betting game app. At the same time, this also significantly increases the advertising impact.

No fear of wastage

Marketers don’t have to fear major wastage. This is because contextual targeting can also be used to create very accurate, context-based target group profiles that enable advertising to be played out to the right addressees. In this way, the right users can be reached without cookies and without compromising data protection.