Audience vs. contextual? The real win is in the blend. Quality audience data and contextual signals together define the next era of smart, ethical targeting.
Targeted advertising based on behavioral signals is facing criticism. Recent reports indicate that data flaws are causing advertisers to miss their intended targets, while others suggest that prioritizing the audience above all else is leading to the monetization of horrific content.
There has been some reflection on why audience targeting often misses the mark, with some advocating for contextual targeting to replace audience-based targeting. The problem with these arguments is that they often pit advertisers’ choice as an either/or, when the future is more of a both/and.
A fatalistic approach that prioritizes audience data over context misses the larger issue, which is that audience is still a tactic that relies heavily on data quality. The future of targeting is not a matter of audience or contextual. Nor is it simply about audience plus contextual data. The future is a quality audience and contextual.
Much of the contextual versus audience argument relies on outdated thinking that places far too much weight on the notion that all third-party data is inherently bad. This reputation is tied to the fact that, in the late 2010s, the market indeed had bad actors putting ineffective data on the shelf. Yet today, much of the third-party audience data available is better than ever. The industry has made significant progress in validation and accreditation practices. The top vendors enhanced their products to ensure survival following Chrome’s previously planned cookie deprecation. Meanwhile, many have developed products that comply with the ever-increasing state privacy statutes.
If top-flight audience data is widely available, why are we still encountering issues with ads missing their targets? You must begin by examining the quality of the data.
The sad truth of programmatic media buying is that audience data selection remains an afterthought for most traders. Campaigns are lined up, budgets approved, and strategies are put into place, but when it’s time to select the audience provider, the trader will pick whichever segment pops up first in their search box. Or the one with the lowest CPM.
It goes without saying that none of these is the most effective screening process for gathering audience data. Lining up programmatic budgets and setting campaign run dates and goals is meaningless if the campaign isn’t effectively targeted at the right audience. It’s essentially saying, “We don’t mind if this doesn’t work.”
It can feel redundant to remind brands and agencies that assessing the available audiences is a critical step in campaign efficacy. If brands find that their demo data is missing the mark, it’s not because all audience data is ineffective. It’s because they are using poor-quality data.
Abandoning audience for contextual data undermines both strategies and renders contextual targeting less effective when used in a silo. Advertisers today have access to a wealth of audience data and contextual data. Even with Chrome abandoning its initial plans to phase out third-party cookies, it’s clear that cookies will not remain the dominant identifier forever. Advertisers seeking to understand better how to target consumers in cookie-free environments must utilize a combination of audience and contextual data to determine what their audience reads and how it responds to ads across various types of content.
The future is not about isolating different targeting approaches but having them work together. Using top-of-the-line audience data ensures that ads reach the appropriate consumers. All that campaign data can then be matched to contextual signals, creating a map that the brand can follow to target and reach customers, regardless of whether cookies or other identifiers are present.
Don’t get caught up in the either/or mudslinging that the ad industry is prone to. When it comes to contextual and audience data, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
