Tag: Contextual advertising

More than ever, brands seek performance solutions to drive efficiency and maximise outcomes on their ad spend. Fueled by the rise of digital platforms, automation tools, and sophisticated analytics, marketing performance has empowered businesses to optimise campaigns in real-time, ensuring that every dollar spent contributes to tangible results. Higher quality media leads to higher return on ad spends for customers. 

The performance landscape is evolving rapidly, presenting businesses with opportunities and challenges. As competition intensifies, brand equity becomes a crucial differentiator, influencing consumer trust, loyalty, and long-term growth. Marketers are shifting their focus from short-term conversions to building stronger, recognisable brands that drive sustained engagement and customer lifetime value. 

In our latest What’s NEXT in Marketing interview, we sat down with Laura Quigley, senior vice president for Asia-Pacific at Integral Ad Science (IAS) to discuss how to navigate the changing landscape in marketing performance, the role of attention, and how marketers can strategically build brand equity through context-driven campaigns that foster consumer trust, enhance brand recognition, and drive long-term engagement while maintaining precise audience targeting. 

Future-proofing campaigns for impactful results

For Laura, driving performance equates to driving efficiency and outcomes, helping advertisers reduce media waste and safeguard brand equity in the evolving media landscape. Building and protecting brand equity, strategic brand positioning, and multi-channel strategies will drive brand performance in 2025, which has become essential.

“Brands are adopting more context-driven, personalised approaches while leveraging diverse channels like the open web, social platforms, connected TV (CTV), and digital video to engage consumers effectively, strengthening brand recall and fostering consumer trust”, she stated.

She also noted how marketers should be able to navigate these new changes, stating, “Marketers can future-proof campaigns by optimising placements, reallocating budgets based on attention outcomes, and ensuring brand-suitable environments. This ensures measurable, impactful results while enhancing ROI in a dynamic, consumer-first environment.”

In response to these new trends, IAS aims to help its clients protect and strengthen brand equity while driving performance by combining cutting-edge technology with actionable insights to safeguard brand reputation. 

“Through advanced tools like Context Control and Quality Impression™, IAS helps advertisers place their ads adjacent to brand-suitable and high-quality environments,” Laura added

How can thoughtful measurement improve campaign efficiency?

One of the things that Laura highlighted is that when ads are placed in contextually relevant environments, they not only protect brand equity but also drive stronger engagement and outcomes.

An instance of this in action is IAS’s partnership with Mastercard in Southeast Asia to support their global brand safety benchmark of 98% while reducing fail rates and invalid traffic in programmatic campaigns.

For context, Mastercard desired to receive real-time performance signals to help them efficiently optimise their campaigns before bids are placed on possible unsuitable environments. Moreover, the global financial brand needed a trusted global pre- and post-bid verification partner who could help execute an increased brand safety pass rate, reduce block rate/fail rates and reduce invalid traffic.

By implementing IAS’s pre- and post-bid solutions—including Contextual Avoidance and Fraud Detection—Mastercard achieved around 82% improvement in invalid traffic and 72% improvement in cost of quality impression.

For Laura, the partnership highlights how thoughtful measurement and optimisation can improve campaign efficiency while supporting broader brand goals.

“Marketers can benefit from setting clear safety and suitability guidelines, using pre-bid solutions to prioritise high-quality environments, and analysing campaign insights to refine their approaches. By embedding these practices, brands can drive performance while building long-term consumer trust,” she explained.

How to maintain brand equity while balancing results

Laura admits that looking ahead, driving performance will continue to operate in a complex and dynamic environment shaped by a fragmented media landscape and evolving consumer behaviours. 

For her, these shifts will likely present challenges in maintaining strong brand equity while delivering measurable results. To foster performance, Laura shares his three-pronged approach to how brands should navigate these challenges:

  • Attention and media quality metrics: Metrics that measure attention, engagement and media quality ensure that campaigns drive meaningful interactions and relationships between brands and consumers that strengthen brand equity.
  • Personalisation at scale: Effective personalisation goes beyond audience targeting and into contextual relevance. By aligning ads with the right content, brands can enhance engagement while maintaining efficiency. Contextual strategies ensure that messaging resonates at the right moments, strengthening consumer connections. 
  • Consistency across multi-channel strategies: As advertisers leverage various platforms, seamless integration and cohesive messaging are critical. This consistency strengthens brand identity and drives performance for long-term growth.

“Performance must shift to strategies that not only drive measurable results but also strengthen brand equity. Brands are increasingly leveraging contextual targeting, first-party data, and privacy-safe solutions to build trust with consumers and maintain compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA,” she said.

Laura also added, “Through transparent, granular reporting, IAS ensures brands have visibility into campaign performance and ad placement. IAS helps brands achieve measurable outcomes while fostering trust with consumers and advertisers.”

Flexibility and commitment to innovation

When asked about her advice for marketers to future-proof their brand equity and performance strategies, Laura mentioned that Marketers need to be agile and adaptable in their strategies. Moreover, prioritising trust and transparency through strategies like contextual targeting to engage audiences is fundamental. 

“Although third-party cookies continue to play a role, adopting new technologies and solutions is essential to ensure accurate optimisation and measurement. This is where attention-based measurements would provide deeper insight into engagement and allow marketers to optimise campaigns effectively,” she explained.

“By maintaining flexibility and committing to innovation, marketers can navigate these changes while building meaningful connections with their audience, ensuring long-term success in a privacy-first world,” she concluded.

***

The future of performance and brand equity lies in balancing data-driven precision and consumer engagement. Leveraging contextual targeting and privacy-compliant measurement tools will allow marketers to optimise performance while ensuring contextual and high-quality engagements. Ultimately, brands prioritising marketing effectiveness and data responsibility will drive sustainable growth and strengthen long-term brand equity in an increasingly privacy-centric digital landscape.

Australia – Nearly two-thirds of Australians or around 62% have said they would pay more attention to contextually relevant ads compared to other alternatives, signaling a clear message to marketers: contextually relevant ads, delivered alongside the content viewers are consuming, are preferred. This is according to the latest data from contextual-first advertising company GumGum.

The report also highlights that trust in contextually relevant ads was considerably higher, with 70% of non-neutrals saying they put more faith in the former than the latter.

It further outlines that consumers have a negative impression of traditional tracking-based ads, with 69% describing it as either “invasive” or “unsettling.”

Matt Coote, country manager for Australia at GumGum, said, “This discomfort reflects consumers’ heightened awareness of privacy issues, as people now expect brands to prioritise data protection and respect people’s boundaries. Advertisers need to meet consumers where they are, using advanced contextual advertising that aligns with the content people are viewing rather than relying on personal data. It’s about creating a respectful and relevant experience that builds trust.”

Moreover, the data also demonstrated the need for advertisers to avoid awkward situations with their target audiences, as doing so can risk losing customers entirely. When asked how they felt about ads that seem overly personal — such as those reflecting recent shopping habits or browsing history — more than three-quarters (78%) of respondents viewed these ads negatively. 

Additionally, 61% found ads targeting personal relationships or health topics to be off-putting, with 41% considering the ads a violation of privacy.

“The repercussions for brands are substantial. If an ad feels too intrusive, nearly two-thirds of Australians say they’d be likely to reduce or even stop using that brand’s services. This shows just how important it is for advertisers to strike the right balance—effective targeting must go hand-in-hand with a strong respect for consumers’ privacy,” added Coote. 

Meanwhile, Niall Hogan, general manager for JAPAC at GumGum, commented, “Overall, these findings clearly reveal that contextual advertising resonates more effectively with Aussie consumers. Marketers absolutely have to build trust by delivering ads that are relevant and impactful without compromising privacy. By prioritising trust and creativity, brands can forge stronger, more meaningful connections with their audiences without crossing the line into invasiveness.”

California, USA – Samba TV has announced its acquisition of Semasio, a global provider of contextual targeting and audience data solutions. This strategic acquisition enhances Samba TV’s capabilities in delivering privacy-first targeting across digital and connected TV (CTV) platforms, further solidifying its position as a leader in AI-powered omniscreen advertising.

By acquiring Semasio, Samba TV will expand its global footprint as well as its capabilities for advertisers to define and reach granular audience segments through a unified approach that combines contextual, behavioral, and demographic data. 

Semasio, with over 100 customers in 50 countries across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, maintains over 1 billion stable user profiles globally and analyzes over 2.5 billion web pages each month, enabling advertisers to optimise campaigns in both ID-based and ID-less environments.

The acquisition enables Samba TV to expand the availability of its AI-powered solutions by integrating its video data into Semasio’s platform, enhancing advertisers’ ability to reach consumers with contextual relevance across digital, mobile, and CTV platforms. 

The Semasio platform is already widely deployed among programmatic trading desks enabling brands, agencies, and data owners to expand and activate first-party and third-party data at scale in dozens of countries worldwide. This combined offering addresses the increasing need for brands to operate in a cookie-less, privacy-conscious world, where first-party data and contextual intelligence are crucial for success.

Lastly, combining Samba TV’s data and identity solutions with Semasio’s global audience and capabilities enables audience and contextual strategies to coexist seamlessly. By integrating Semasio’s robust data platform with Samba TV’s proprietary omniscreen measurement tools, advertisers will now have access to more precise and comprehensive solutions for campaign optimisation and audience engagement across all digital and TV environments.

Aden Zaman, CCO at Samba TV, said, “Before this acquisition, we were partners with Semasio and saw huge potential in the platform and for the team behind it. As a first-party data owner, we recognize and appreciate the importance of identity resolution, data distribution, and onboarding. The acquisition of Semasio expands our value proposition to data companies with global reach into the world’s most important media platforms.”

As part of the acquisition, ​​Semasio CEO Jeff Ragovin will be transitioning leadership of the company to general manager Zac Pinkham.

“Joining forces with Samba TV empowers us to fully realize Semasio’s vision by expanding investment into our next-generation platform, which seamlessly integrates audience-based and contextual targeting with greater reach across more channels. I’m excited to see how Samba TV’s expertise and resources will propel Semasio to new heights,” Ragovin said.

Creating a strong connection with consumers by aligning content with their preferences might appear to be a straightforward approach for engagement. However, it’s surprising how often advertisers fail to hit the mark, resulting in missed chances to elevate brand perception, boost engagement rates, and cultivate a more authentic image. Crafting a personalized advertising experience for consumers isn’t just an option—it’s a strategic opportunity for brands to enhance relevance and strengthen their relationship with their audience.

Contextual relevance isn’t new, one could argue it was the original form of “targeting” within print. It was also our first foray into targeting digitally but along the way audience-based buying became more favorable.

As we transition into a new era of data, where audience-based buying is facing challenges, we must adopt a more thoughtful and holistic approach to connect with consumers. A pivotal aspect of this holistic approach involves aligning your brand with contexts important to your target audience.

According to eMarketer, 54% of marketers intend to increase the utilization of contextual data, many still grapple with: “What context is best suited for my ad?”

At the core of contextual discovery lies relevance, yet we often find advertisers struggling to define what truly holds relevance for their consumers. At Teads, we’ve spent years analyzing billions of data points sourced from our publisher partners, affording us a unique perspective on the contexts that resonate most effectively with audiences, as well as the contextual links that extend beyond the obvious, endemic contexts.

We firmly believe that a few straightforward steps can facilitate advertisers in making a seamless transition from contextual discovery to a fully effective contextual strategy.

Understand Your Audience

Let’s not overlook significance of audiences. Before focusing on the relevance of your ad, you have to understand your target audience. What sparks their interests? What challenges do they encounter? What motivates them? Knowing your audience inside-out enables you to identify contexts that will truly resonate with them.

Contextual Analysis

Within your contextual analysis, focus on two pivotal factors: Endemic Association and Audience Interest.

Endemic Association: This often serves as our initial touchpoint. For instance, placing an ad for a gaming console within gaming-related content. While this approach is the low-hanging fruit and necessary in your contextual strategy, are there untapped opportunities? Using Teads’ contextual suggestions tool we can dive a layer deeper, our AI analyzes content consumption to understand what contexts are most often consumed by people reading about your core topic expanding reach without sacrificing relevancy.

Audience Interest: Armed with audience insights, precisely target your consumers where they’re most captivated. Leverage audience insights tools to identify the contexts in which consumers are most engaged. This approach rounds out a cohesive contextual strategy.

Define Your Message

Clarity in your message is essential. What is the key takeaway you want users to gather from your ad? Having a well-defined message will further drive the relevancy of your brand for a consumer. For a more personalized experience consider DCO based on the contexts you’re targeting

Test and Learn

Let’s acknowledge that there’s a lot we still don’t know. Embrace the potential of testing new contexts, as this allows us to tap into users in unexpected environments. A/B testing across different contexts yields valuable insights into which environments fuel outcomes and efficiencies.

The power of relevance is not only in understanding your audience but also in seamlessly weaving your brand within contexts that matter to them. By analyzing, adapting, and refining your approach, you’ll unlock the true potential of contextual alignment, enabling your brand to resonate in a more powerful way with your target consumers. Teads, with its expertise in contextual advertising and innovative publisher partnerships, is uniquely positioned to support a robust contextual strategy. Our partnerships provide exclusive access to content and contextual signals, further enhancing your brand’s ability to authentically connect with your audience.

This article is made possible by Teads.

Sydney, Australia – Global brand suitability platform Channel Factory has announced that it will be expanding its operations in Australia, and has hired Kevin Wong, former head of product marketing at TikTok, to be Channel Factory’s new vice president for Asia-Pacific. This new development will help Australian brands have greater control over contextual targeting and conscious advertising on user-generated content platforms.

Wong will be working alongside Alex Littlejohn, managing director for APAC at Channel Factory, to spearhead the growth of Channel Factory in Asia-Pacific. Wong will also be responsible for leading operations, product strategy, development, and driving sales growth.

Channel Factory’s technology allows brands to contextually target audiences on user-generated content platforms, brands have greater control over ad placements in a way that aligns with their brand values and eliminates reputational risks.

In addition, with the company being a YouTube measurement program partner, Channel Factory focuses on maximizing brand suitability, turning YouTube’s five billion videos and 500 hours per minute of new content into efficient advertising opportunities.

Speaking about his appointment, Wong said that he is thrilled at joining the company, adding that they want to achieve their mission of building a better digital advertising ecosystem by connecting brands with the right consumers in the right context; content that incorporates a brand’s definition of what is and is not suitable for that brand to be running adjacent to.

“Currently, there is a disconnect between the level of investments brands are making in user-generated content platforms, and the level of contextual targeting of audiences. Our goal for Channel Factory is to eliminate this reputational risk [while] maintaining the ROI of their campaigns across YouTube today and all platforms in the future,” Wong said.

Meanwhile, Littlejohn commented that their expansion to Australia is a step further in their mission to enable CMOs to consciously connect with consumers. He also added that Wong has a wealth of international experience and they are delighted to have him spearhead their operations in Australia and the wider APAC region.

“Channel Factory’s brand suitability solution goes far beyond traditional brand safety technologies and brings the contextual alignment of traditional TV and broadcast environments to user-generated content, while embedding its own brand values into the media planning strategy. Brand suitability is the metric that marketers need to work towards, in making sure they maximize their return on ad spend,” Littlejohn said.

Along with Wong, Channel Factory has made a number of diverse experienced hires, including Zenith’s Rhys Bennett as sales solution director.

Singapore – Amid consumers’ online content consumption, in-feed advertisements show up to monetize the traffic it gets from online readers. And with that traffic, online consumers now expect that there should be an evident correlation between the article they are reading versus the in-feed ads they are served, new data from technology company Integral Ad Science and Neuro-Insight, a neuromarketing and neuroanalytics company.

Said data was collected not through traditional survey data methods but rather through examining brain activity in response to contextually matched ads, showing context can significantly impact ad memorability.

According to the report, matching informational ads with an article’s message creates a very strong detail memory response, and drove a 36% lift in detail memory compared to when there was no match. This can be especially relevant for campaigns that focus on a clear call to action that brands want consumers to respond to.

Part of what consumers also get a closer affinity to as well is that endemically matched ads drive higher memorability: Endemically matched ads, or those that align with and match the surrounding content based on vertical, such as auto ads near auto content, drove a 23% lift in activation within the part of the brain responsible for the memory of practical details, which includes key messages, calls to action, and branding elements. These ads also boosted global memory by 27%, or the memorability of broad themes, overarching narratives, or audio and visual elements.

‘Detail memory’ pertains to the type of memory based on specific themes the consumer observes among the advertising being served, whereas ‘global memory’ pertains to the type of memory based on broader topics.

Meanwhile, ads focused on an emotional response are best paired with content themes. Ads that aim to leave an emotional memory, a particular feeling, or overarching brand perception among consumers performed best when placed alongside articles with a matching theme, such as an ad with a seasonal summer theme adjacent to summer season content. The study found that emotive ads drove 40% higher global memory within thematically matched articles compared to when there was no match.

Lastly, consumers recognize ads as part of their online experience, as the vast majority of consumers (63%) viewed ads as part of their online reading, not disruptive or a distraction. Only 36% of participants said they scrolled past an ad without reading it.

“Using the latest neuroscience and neurometrics, this groundbreaking study demonstrates the specific ways that a webpage’s context can dramatically alter how audiences recall and respond to ads. As our industry prepares for a cookieless future and increasingly moves away from audience targeting, advertisers have a significant opportunity to be intentional with contextual targeting tools, such as IAS Context Control, to drive greater campaign outcomes,” said Tony Marlow, CMO at IAS.