INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Jason Boshoff
Contributor
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Jason Boshoff is Chief Operating Officer at
Bidtellect, a paid content distribution and analytics company.
We&re in a privacy panic.
It started with GDPR, and CCPA followed with
new legislation aimed at giving consumers greater control and transparency into how their data is used
Tech giants took a mighty stand to get ahead of the changes and the oncoming cookie-free movement: Apple new Intelligent Tracking Prevention
(IPT) in Safari places restrictions on cookies based on how frequently a user interacts with the website, purging cookies entirely after 30
days of disuse.
Without obtaining explicit consent from users, Google Chrome will now prevent cross-site cookies from working across domains
Microsoft announced that settings on its new Edge browser will influence how third parties will be able to track consumers across the
web.
It worked: since GDPR became enforceable, the number of third-party cookies used per webpage declined from about 80 in April to about
60 in July,and the number of third-party cookies found on news websites (major advertising publishers) in Europe declined by 22%.
In
response, there been an onslaught of articles claiming the value of real-time bidding (RTB) and all of programmatic will decline in direct
correlation with enforced privacy regulation, browser and cookie depreciation
While yes, the cookie (and associated use of cookies) has been the centerpiece of all digital advertising performance reconciliation in the
last 15 years, it is not the only reason RTB is an important component of effective digital marketing.
The question then becomes what is the
vehicle that allows advertisers and brands to determine the value of those users or inventory in a less cookie-enabled environment.
Enter
contextual targeting, which had been living in the shadow of shiny first-party data
It can stop those RTB pipes from rusting by using them to determine the value of the user and placement in the bidding process based on the
information on the page, rather than the user.Understanding that we have enough information about ad spacewithout user information means we
can face the (more private) future of the industry with far less fear.
It is the answer to the cookie-free, privacy-forward,
power-to-the-consumer movement
So how do you determine the value of a placement using contextual targeting & especially when you&ve never valued it that way before? These
are & IMHO & the key tenets of deciding the value of a user in a contextual environment:
Placement Targeting: Placement is the exact spot on
a publisher website/app where an ad unit will appear
Without the ability to target at the placement level, a contextual campaign will not be as effective as it could be
Two identically-sized placements on a page will vary in performance depending on multiple factors, including position, ad type, surrounding
