Thrive during the business’s busiest season and succeed with advanced contextual advertising solutions. 

Why is this Holiday Season a “Prime” Opportunity for Advertisers?

As we approach the halfway mark of the year, it presents a prime opportunity to proactively plan for your upcoming 2023 holiday campaigns.

In 2022, holiday spending reached approximately $936.3 billion. Looking ahead to 2023, the trend continues; with retail spending expected to increase by 4.5% to $1.328 trillion during this time.

Research shows that by advertising during this holiday season, ad impressions rise by 50%, click-through rates surge 100%, direct traffic increases by 150%, average order value jumps 30%, and conversation rates soar by 60%.

Now you won’t underestimate the power of holiday season advertising!

Moreover, in the U.S., sales increase dramatically as early as October. As per data, almost 40% of consumers check off items from their holiday shopping lists by the end of October.

If you have not started your holiday advertising yet, the time is now! Leverage this opportunity and position your brand as the top choice in your target audience’s mind. Here are the must-know holiday advertising ideas to kickstart your holiday advertising.

Read More: Ace Back to School Advertising with the Power of Context

Success in Every Season: 4 Simple Holiday Advertising Ideas to Get Started

1. Discover Relevant Audiences in the Cookieless World

Reaching target audiences with ethical personalization and relevant ads has become increasingly difficult due to the demise of third-party cookies and limited first-party data.

Additionally, stereotypical assumptions made by advertisers during the holiday season have led to a decline in click-through rates and overall return on investment (ROI).

A clothing store ad shows women shopping for holiday outfits, reinforcing the stereotype that all women enjoy dressing up. It overlooks the fact that women have diverse interests like outdoor activities, reading, and hiking, beyond just shopping.

To overcome stereotypes, advertisers should create inclusive and personalized messages that respect individual preferences.

By understanding their customers’ unique characteristics, they can deliver engaging ads that appeal to a diverse audience.

Advanced contextual targeting solutions like Mirrors Generative AI have proved to be a co-pilot to human intelligence by eliminating traditional audience-based stereotypes and tapping into unexplored audiences with multiple alternative interests.

This has empowered advertisers to expand their reach without sacrificing engagement, while also enabling them to tap into previously untapped or overlooked audiences.

2. Invest in Omnichannel Advertising

A multi-channel strategy enables you to reach users across different platforms and channels. This is an essential strategy in today’s digital landscape because it can enable you to achieve greater reach by capturing users wherever they are online.

Silverpush’s omnichannel advertising capabilities help advertisers reach their targeted audiences on multiple platforms including YouTube, CTV, Meta, and OpenWeb.

To let advertisers take full control of their advertising campaigns, Silverpush has recently launched Mirrors Self-Serve Chrome Extension to auto-optimize their campaigns with privacy-friendly tags and gain access to real-time data sets.

3. High-Impact CTV ads

The dramatic rise in CTV advertising has brought a major change in advertising budgets and strategies. As audiences flock to streaming platforms, advertisers are following suit, viewing CTV as an ideal space to reach an engaged, targetable audience. Recognizing the potential of CTV as an ideal space for advertisers, Silverpush has integrated with IRIS TV to leverage its rich video inventory and enhance the effectiveness of CTV ad campaigns.

4. Engage Audiences With Interactive Video Advertising

It’s time for advertisers to display ads that allow users to interact with them rather than simply watch them. This can play a very important role in increasing ad engagement and people are more likely to remember your ad. This can lead to better brand awareness and recall, as well as increased click-through rates (CTRs). For this reason, Silverpush has launched cutting-edge dynamic video optimization technology to transform traditional ads into highly advanced interactive ads.

From Festivities to Profitability: Achieve Holiday Marketing Success with Mirrors

This holiday season presents a prime opportunity for advertisers to iron out a powerful advertising strategy. Don’t miss out on this chance to elevate your holiday campaigns with Mirrors. Contact us now to learn more about how Silverpush can transform your holiday advertising strategy and drive success during this festive season.​

The FMCG industry is a vital component of the global economy, contributing significantly to a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and job creation. As a major driver of consumer spending, FMCG plays an essential role in various aspects of the economy.

The FMCG market size was evaluated to be 716.3 Billion in 2022 and the CAGR growth rate is expected to be 4.41% from 2023 to 2028.

The market size of the FMCG industry has significantly grown in the U.S., China, and other developed markets. Keeping the growth in mind, the experts are predicting 70% growth on a global scale. The World Bank predicts that in terms of consumer market the FMCG market in India will take the third place surpassing Japan and Germany by 2030.

The consumer industry is a highly competitive landscape, with brands vying for market share based on product type, production techniques, and distribution channels. However, in this fiercely contested arena, advertising is the key to success for them. But the advertisers are facing a set of challenges in the advertising landscape.

What are the Advertising Challenges Faced by the FMCG Industry?

According to a study, till 2023, FMCG firms were expected to raise their digital advertising spending by 7% yearly. FMCG expenditure decreased by 10.7% to $ 26.7 billion in 2020, a more significant decrease than the whole advertising industry.

But utilizing the ad spend is a bigger and more important factor. Since the FMCG industry is flooded with brands and products, getting brand visibility and brand recognition are the two main purposes of advertising for them. To achieve both goals choosing an appropriate advertising approach is crucial. But due to a shift in consumer behavior creating a positive and solid brand image has become difficult.

The consumer has become more empowered and they want to control everything they see, especially in the virtual space. They want to see the ads of their interest but without getting digitally stalked. 72% of people believe that virtually all of what they do online is being monitored by advertising, technology corporations, or other businesses, and 81% believe that the threats can surpass the possible rewards of data collecting.

Not only the audience but the traditional advertising ways have often led brands to face consequences of negative branding due to wrong ad placement. This not only damaged their reputation but also resulted in ad wastage.

The Rise of Contextual Advertising

Have you ever noticed that whenever you walk into a supermarket to get one item from the shelf you end up filling the cart? This is because at that moment you were interested in the items, they were relevant and you were triggered to buy them.

Contextual advertising is similar!

Through contextual targeting, advertisers reach the target audience at the right moment which triggers them to engage with the brand. According to a study, 79% of respondents agreed that they were comfortable with the ads that are relevant to them. Also, 65% said they would be more tempted to buy from relevant ads.

How can the FMCG Industry Benefit from Contextual Ads?

One approach to take advantage of the opportunity is through omnichannel contextual advertising. Silverpush’s remarkable AI-powered solution, Mirrors, ensures brand safety and suitability across various advertising channels. The high-powered AI technology ensures the message reaches the right audience.

1. YouTube

For the FMCG industry, video advertising is the most suitable ad format. YouTube offers various ad formats and advertisers can choose the most suitable format for them. According to a study, 88% of video marketers were satisfied with the ROI of their video marketing on social media.

In the past, an FMCG brand chose 1 video creative to connect and interact with the target audience. The campaign has delivered more than 9 million impressions in 28 days.

Post-campaign analysis the brand concluded that they had reached more than 5 million unique users. The campaign performed beyond the industry benchmarks as it surpassed the planned KPIs (VTR).

2. Open Web

Relevant advertising can be shown depending on the webpage content that the target audience has viewed. The mirror captures the audience’s attention, without invading the user’s privacy. This gives users a sense of safety and the advanced AI-powered technology ensures that the ad is placed in a brand-safe environment.

3. Meta

To extract contextual signals that enable the distribution of real-time, in-the-moment advertising for outstanding results, Mirrors carefully selects and examines brand-safe Facebook pages. Models for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) are used to do this.

4. CTV

On most streaming TV services, CTV represents over 80% of all viewing. The remaining 20% is accounted for the other devices connected to the internet (laptops, smartphones, and tablets).
As per studies, ad spending on linear and connected TV (CTV) combined will increase from $87.24 billion to more than $100 billion in 2026. This will be due to the surge in CTV viewing.

When marketers purchase advertising space on CTV, their commercials are played to viewers when they stream movies, TV series, and other content to their linked television. To ensure brand safety, ads are delivered in the proper context with the help of semantic analysis, content analysis, and customized ad segments.

Takeaways

The advertising arena is changing rapidly and for the FMCG industry, it is their primary source of establishing brand recall. Contextual advertising can be a game-changer for them as it will help them in capitalizing on the interest of the user. It will help drive engagement without intervening with the privacy of the user. Also, omnichannel advertising can play a significant role in strengthening brand recognition.

USA minority groups buying power is expected to rise from 4.2 trillion in 2020 to 7 trillion by 2025. With this significant growth, brands cannot afford to overlook the importance of targeting multicultural communities in their advertising strategies.

In this blog, we will explore why brands should focus on diversity, how they can effectively reach multicultural communities, and the benefits of doing so.

Why is Multicultural Advertising Important?

Brands aspire to capture the hearts of millions and establish a lasting brand recall as their primary objective. Yet they miss out on a larger portion of the audience.

Multiculturalism has played a significant role in this endeavor, showcasing its positive impact on our daily lives. This can be observed through the fusion of diverse cultures in ethnic enclaves found in metropolitan areas and the availability of various ethnic cuisines in supermarkets. One of the driving forces behind the market expansion in the past decade has been the multicultural consumer market, currently valued at over $5 trillion.

The corporate expansion serves as a pivotal factor in this growth, benefiting all brands. As markets expand, more consumers enter the fray, leading to increased consumption and fostering innovation by introducing new products. This, in turn, promotes higher usage and the potential for premium pricing. When executed effectively, this generates greater revenue and income, consequently enhancing purchasing power.

A renowned brand from the FMCG industry had a boost in sales in North America. Interestingly, a larger portion of their sales was accounted for by diverse communities of the region.

What is Multicultural Advertising?

Immigration encompasses more than mere physical mobility; it represents the dynamic exchange and interplay of diverse cultures. Each individual carries the bedrock of their identity, fostering the emergence of vibrant and multicultural communities.

Expanding Horizons: Beyond the LGBTQ+ Community

While many advertisers focus solely on the LGBTQ+ community when it comes to multicultural advertising, it’s essential to remember that diversity encompasses various ethnic groups. In the United States, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islander, Native, and Indigenous Americans makeup 40% of the population. It is crucial for brands to recognize and target the entire multicultural communities to maximize their reach and impact.

How can Brands Reach Multicultural Communities?

The advertising arena is under evolution. The phase-out of third-party cookies has inclined advertisers towards contextual advertising. Since cross-culture targeting poses a set of challenges that are hard to overcome with conventional targeting methods, contextual targeting methods can be beneficial.

Some of the challenges are:

1. Cultural Sensitivity: Multicultural communities are sensitive towards their presence. Brands must understand their diverse cultural nuances and sensitivities. They must ensure that their message resonates with the viewer.

2. Language Barrier: Brands need to ensure that their message is tailored well according to the specific group they are targeting. Understanding the intricacies of each culture is crucial for creating effective campaigns that resonate with the target audience.

3. Limited Reach and Targeting: Traditional advertising channels often need to be improved when it comes to reaching specific multicultural audiences. Targeting these communities through one or more channels can be complex as they may cause hindrances in targeting methods.

To overcome these challenges, advertisers can leverage Silverpush’s advanced AI technology, Mirrors. This offers enhanced brand safety and suitability, allowing advertisers to reach their desired audience contextually and through different platforms.

YouTube

To begin with, the best way to reach the audience is through video advertising. Did you know, 82% of the global content consumption is from videos. With contextual video advertising, brands can easily tap into the audience as the AI offers the first context detection based on the identification of key context like brands name from metadata for granular targeting.

Open Web

Conventional targeting created voids that further created challenges for brands to reach their desired audience. But by analyzing the page’s content in real-time and combining relevant information, it provides personalized advertising, filling the gaps.

Meta

Sentiment analysis and NLP tools search countless Facebook pages to find the most contextually appropriate video material. Mirrors target high-performing sites by correlating context relevance with engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments, and subscriptions).

Brands can effectively reach their audience while respecting their privacy by utilizing contextual advertising, which capitalizes on the reader’s existing interests and aligns ads with the content they consume. This contrasts with behavioral targeting methods that can leave users feeling monitored and followed.

Conclusion

According to a survey, 64% of consumers agreed that they engaged with a brand after seeing an ad that they considered diverse or inclusive.

Multicultural communities have long-awaited recognition and representation, and they can be found across the globe. One prominent example is the city of New York in the United States. Known as a melting pot of various cultures, people from all over the world call New York home. Its remarkable diversity is one of its greatest strengths and contributes to its status as a leader in creativity and innovation. Similarly, Toronto in Canada and London in Europe are home to diverse communities.

When it comes to advertising, it is crucial to recognize that multicultural communities should not be targeted as a one-time or occasional effort. Instead, brands should strive to engage with these communities consistently throughout the year. These diverse communities represent the future audience, and establishing a meaningful connection with them is essential to staying ahead of the curve in an increasingly diverse world.

By understanding and embracing the multicultural nature of society, brands can tap into new markets, foster inclusivity, and build lasting relationships with diverse audiences.

With the digital advertising industry rapidly evolving, it’s important to keep up with the latest trends and technologies. 

Contextual advertising, which has been a game-changer for brands to maximize their ROI, has helped them reach their target audience in a more relevant and personalized way. 

But, with the advent of newer technologies, even this life savior of brands after the apocalypse of third-party cookies requires an upgrade. 

Generative AI, which has taken the world by storm has revolutionized work and creativity, offering numerous benefits and opportunities. 

While many industries have already incorporated Generative AI into their business, contextual advertising is close and is also exploring how this technology can benefit them.

How will Generative AI Pave the Way for Contextual Advertising? 

Generative AI is a powerful technology that has the potential to transform the way advertisers reach their target audiences. 

Unlike traditional AI models, which rely on historical data, Generative AI can create new and unique data sets, enabling advertisers to expand their reach to audiences that were previously out of reach using traditional methods. 

This technology can identify patterns and correlations between seemingly unrelated data points, resulting in a more personalized and relevant advertising experience for users. 

With the ability to generate new data sets and identify new audience segments, Generative AI is opening up new possibilities for advertisers to reach their target audiences with greater accuracy and efficiency.

Silverpush X Generative AI: Changing the Advertising Game for Brands

In an age where privacy concerns are at an all-time high, relying on third-party cookies to reach relevant audiences has become increasingly challenging.

Silverpush, which is a hyper-contextual advertising company has incorporated Generative AI into its contextual AI platform- Mirrors to provide brands with an effective solution to target without the use of cookies.

The launch of a contextual planning tool powered by Generative AI represents a significant advancement in the capabilities of Silverpush’s flagship product, Mirrors. 

By incorporating next-generation AI capabilities, the tool further enhances Mirrors’ contextual offering, addressing the challenges of cookieless targeting and revolutionizing the digital advertising space.

How will it Benefit Advertisers?

1. This tool will enable advertisers to identify contextually relevant audiences without relying on third-party cookies.

2. The AI-powered contextual platform, Mirrors, will give access to a wide range of contextual signals that can be used to transform brands’ ad targeting strategies. 

3. Mirrors, powered by Generative AI, allow advertisers to gain insights into user behavior and preferences, leading to more precise targeting and a better user experience.

4. Generative AI can also solve the problem of users getting tired of seeing the same ad too many times (ad fatigue) and being shown too many ads (frequency capping), which can make them less likely to engage with the ads.  

5. By creating unique data sets and identifying new audience segments, advertisers can ensure that their ads are reaching the right users at the right time, without overwhelming them with too many ads.

Final Words

The integration of Generative AI into Silverpush’s contextual AI stack marks a significant advancement in the field of digital advertising. With this technology, advertisers can surpass the restrictions of traditional targeting methods and provide users with more personalized, relevant, and effective ad experiences. But, there’s more to it than you think. Stay tuned for our next blog on Gen AI, where we dive deeper into the potential of this groundbreaking technology and reveal some major possibilities for advertisers. 

Challenging. It is the correct word to describe how brands consider advertising in the automotive sector. 

This is mostly due to the long purchasing cycle by consumers involving a large chunk of money coming out of their pockets. 

Despite the challenges, automotive brands cannot afford to miss out on the immense consumer spending in this industry. In fact, the automotive industry is one of the largest spenders on advertising worldwide. According to a report by Statista, in 2020, the automotive industry in the United States alone spent a whopping 12.42 billion U.S. dollars on digital advertising.

Contextual advertising can be a highly effective strategy for automotive brands to reach their targeted audience in the right place, at the right time, and with the right message. This approach allows advertisers to target potential customers based on their interests, online behaviors, and purchase intent, without using their personal data.

What’s Unique About the Automotive Advertising Industry?

Before delving into automotive advertising strategies, it’s crucial to understand the unique nature of this industry. 

Vehicles are a significant financial investment, and consumers often spend a considerable amount of time in the consideration phase. In fact, car buyers spend an average of almost 14 hours online during their research and visit around 4.2 websites before making a purchase decision.

As the buying journey almost always starts online, reaching potential customers with a programmatic campaign is essential long before they step foot in a car dealership. 

Brands who want to reach their target audience need to first understand them. The target audience can vary depending on the type of vehicle being advertised. For instance, ads for luxury cars are targeted toward individuals with higher incomes, while family-friendly car ads are often aimed at individuals with lower to middle incomes who have families and need practical transportation options.

Also, the customer journey is an entirely complex process where customers rely on different platforms to get information about the car they are looking for. 

For instance, a person interested in buying a car may watch advertisements for cars on Connected TV (CTV) using their mobile or desktop devices. To learn more about a specific car, they may browse online through OpenWeb to gather information about the car’s engine, features, and other details. 

Additionally, they may ask for recommendations or advice from their friends on social media platforms like Meta to gain insights from other people’s experiences. By using multiple devices and platforms, the person can make a more informed decision when choosing a car that suits their needs and preferences.

This is where advertisers can leverage the situation to reach their target audiences at the right time and place when those audiences are most likely to be receptive to their ads and engage with them. 

Contextual advertising is a powerful tool in the automotive industry, as it enables brands to understand the context of a webpage and tailor their advertising message accordingly. This can capture the customer’s attention at the right moment and potentially influence their purchasing decision. By leveraging contextual data and creating relevant and engaging ads, brands can make an impact and connect with potential customers in a competitive and challenging industry.

Maximizing Advertising Relevance with Mirrors’ Hyper Contextual Advertising

Silverpush’s flagship product – Mirrors is an AI-powered hyper-contextual technology that watches and listens (word-by-word), allowing you to target audiences with both precision and scale-ultimately driving better brand outcomes.

It ensures that your messaging reaches your users, during key decision-making moments which further amplifies the message and taps into users’ current state of mind. Thus, driving higher performance and efficiency for some of the largest auto brands in the world.

One of our major auto brands benefited greatly from our next-gen hyper-granular context targeting powered by AI to leverage what auto consumers are watching on YouTube and drive trust and personal connection with a captive audience.

Plan an Omnichannel Marketing Strategy with Mirrors

Mirrors, the next-generation AI technology, offers brands a multi-platform solution to advertise across various channels, thereby extending their reach and amplifying their marketing efforts.

1. Open Web

Targeting audiences based on website content. Mirrors can also display ads based on the content of the user’s website. For example, if a user is reading an article about eco-friendly cars, contextual advertising can display ads for hybrid or electric cars.

2. YouTube

~ 90% of global shoppers surveyed say they discovered new brands or products on YouTube and 40% say they have purchased products they discovered on YouTube. Watch time of car videos on YouTube has grown by more than 65% in the past two years. When looking to buy a new car, consumers often turn to video research. Auto marketers can use this opportunity to reach potential buyers who are actively considering a purchase, even if they are not familiar with their product. Over 75% of auto shoppers say that online video has influenced their shopping habits and purchases.

3. Meta

By leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language Processing (NLP) models, Mirrors carefully selects and processes brand-safe Facebook pages to extract contextual signals that enable the delivery of real-time, in-the-moment ads with exceptional performance. This advanced technology empowers brands to serve highly relevant ads while ensuring brand safety on Facebook.

4. Connected TV (CTV)

Mirrors analyzes content, creates custom ad segments, and uses semantic analysis to display ads in premium and relevant CTV video inventory, avoiding misplacement based on user emotions and behavior.

Exploring Real-World Use Cases of Mirrors

1. How Mirrors Helped an Automotive Brand in Competitor Conquesting

An automotive car brand leveraged Mirrors’ AI technology to identify cues related to key features of its competitors’ vehicles across different segments. With this information, the brand effectively targeted YouTube content containing these cues and seamlessly insert their brand messaging. By utilizing Mirrors, the automotive car brand efficiently and strategically reach its target audience while also gaining a competitive edge over its rivals.

2. Mirrors Enabled an Automotive Brand to Achieve Complete Brand Safety in Ad Display

Our client, an automotive car brand successfully utilized Mirrors to maintain brand safety while advertising on digital platforms.

Mirrors’ pre-defined visual and audio context identification allowed us to exclude videos that did not align with our core values. By conducting analysis, our AI became even more selective about when and where to block content, thus ensuring the perfect balance between brand protection and suitability.

Our brand safety standards, fully aligned with industry standards such as GARM, COPPA, CCPA, GDPR, and LDA compliance, were enhanced without over-blocking. Thanks to Mirrors, the automotive car brand effectively maintained brand safety while simultaneously maximizing our reach and engagement with our target audience on YouTube. 

3. Automotive Brand Utilizes Analysis for Contextual Ad Placement

Mirrors helped an automotive brand reach and engage with its target audience interested in automobiles. By leveraging their competitors’ brands through trigger identification based on brands (of Hyundai, Chevrolet, Nissan, etc.), brand ambassadors, influencers, car-tech reviews, automobile showrooms, test drive videos, and more, Mirrors maximized the brand’s exposure in the market.

Through Mirrors’ advanced AI technology, the visual triggers were analyzed and ads were at the right place and moment, effectively targeting the relevant audience.

How Can Brands Benefit from Mirrors’ Hyper Contextual Advertising Technology?

Get Started With An Omni-Channel Marketing Strategy for Your Automotive Advertising

The greatest challenge for marketers in the auto industry is driving users through the often lengthy path to purchase. Since people today are online on a variety of devices, and using a variety of channels, it’s crucial to have coverage across multiple digital environments. 

Multi-channel targeting enables advertisers to reach users across different platforms and channels. This helps a campaign achieve greater reach by capturing users wherever they are online. 

Ready to drive auto advertising performance? Fill out the form on your right and your Silverpush representative will contact you soon with more information on how to get started.

As third-party cookies crumble, AI advertising is gearing up for its time in the spotlight – get ready for the rise of the machines in the ad tech industry!

The importance of third-party cookies can be well understood by digital marketers who rely on these small pieces of information to serve personalized ads to their audiences. 

The usage of user data without their consent or knowledge has sparked significant debates surrounding consumer privacy, with users, legislators, and companies all expressing concerns about the potential impact on individual confidentiality.

Although cookies have been valuable for advertisers and marketers, their usage is now being closely examined as users demand more control over their online data, and companies face increasing pressure to prioritize consumer privacy. Major web browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Safari have already banned third-party cookies, and Google Chrome will soon follow suit.

To navigate the post-cookie world, advertisers will need to explore alternative options like Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is likely to replace cookies. AI-powered contextual advertising has emerged as a powerful tool for innovation, with companies using it for management, robotics, and marketing.

What Challenges are Faced by Marketers Due to Third-Party Cookies?

Ad tech companies often use a technique called fingerprinting to track users and deliver personalized ads. Fingerprinting relies on third-party cookies to generate user-specific browser ID tags.

When a user accesses a website with a cookie-based ad, a tracking pixel embedded in the ad collects the user’s browser tag and sends it to the advertiser’s server. Ad tech companies then use this information to develop user profiles and track browsing history, purchases, and other personal information.

However, users often have little knowledge of what personal information is collected and have limited control over preventing unwanted data collection unless they manually disable cookies on their browsers.

Eliminating the Use of 3rd Party Cookies

As privacy concerns grow, more companies are opting out of using third-party cookies. Major web browsers like Safari and Firefox have already blocked cross-tracking third-party cookies, and Google plans to phase them out on Chrome by 2024 to address user demands for greater privacy, transparency, choice, and control over their data.

Advertisers, who rely heavily on third-party cookies for data collection, will be significantly impacted by this change and must find new ways to access similar sets of data.

The most comprehensive data regulation to date is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect in 2018 within the European Union. It has set a high bar for data protection standards globally, as it emphasizes the importance of user consent and data transparency, putting greater control over personal data in the hands of users.

The Future of AI Advertising: Moving Beyond Third-Party Cookies

With the phasing out of third-party tracking cookies, advertising agencies are turning to contextual advertising as a strategy for targeting users based on their online experience categories, rather than behavioral advertising. Contextual targeting is being seen as a brand-safe, future-proof, and successful cookieless targeting option.

According to market data, the global contextual advertising market is predicted to reach $376.2 Billion by 2027, indicating the increasing popularity of this strategy. 

Companies worldwide are redirecting their marketing resources toward developing a strong contextual strategy to adapt to the changing landscape of digital advertising.

Statistics that highlight the importance of contextual advertising:

1. Context is so powerful that 49% of brand marketers are looking to contextual advertising to replace cookies.

2. 79% of consumers are more comfortable seeing Contextual than behavioral ads.

3. Between 2020 and 2027, contextual advertising spending is expected to grow 13.3 percent annually.

4. 49% of US marketers surveyed are using contextual marketing today.

5. In the UK, 32% of marketers use contextual marketing, while 36% use demographic targeting.

Silverpush Leads the Way in AI-Powered Contextual Advertising for a Cookieless Future

As the digital advertising industry transitions to a cookieless future, contextual targeting is emerging as a powerful solution for advertisers looking to engage with their target audience. 

Silverpush, one of the leading ad tech companies in the world recognized the limitations of third-party cookies years ago and developed their AI-Powered solution, Mirrors, which has been providing contextual advertising solutions on platforms like YouTube, OpenWeb, Meta, and CTV since 2012.

Mirrors use privacy-safe and contextual targeting solutions to deliver personalized ads to the target audience without relying on their data. 

What Makes Mirrors Unique?

Mirrors’ AI-powered technology identifies key contexts and other factors for more precise targeting. Its unique custom identifying capabilities ensure that reach is not duplicated, and a unified approach is used for content-aligned ad placement, brand safety, and custom brand suitability.

The ads are placed in a brand-safe environment and are relevant to the brand, ensuring a positive and effective advertising experience for both the advertiser and the audience.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Silverpush can help you prepare for the cookieless future and advertise successfully, fill out the available form on the right and our team will reach out to you.

Want to get straight A’s in your back-to-school campaigns? Contextual advertising can help!

It’s not just students who are excited about the back-to-school season; the outlook for marketers is positive too.

Ad spending during the back-to-school season in 2022 was approximately $110.7 billion, and it’s expected to increase this year, presenting a massive opportunity for advertisers to connect with their target audiences.

However, the question remains: how can marketers effectively reach their target audiences during this busy season?

With the ban on third-party cookies, contextual advertising has become one of the most preferred targeting methods. This presents a huge opportunity for brands during the back-to-school season to reach their relevant audience at the right moment and place, leading to successful campaigns.

In this post, we’ll share how brands can leverage contextual targeting methods to deliver more effective campaigns that reach the right people in high-impact environments.

What is the Back-To-School Season?

The back-to-school season marks the time just before the start of the new academic year when students and teachers return to school after the summer break.

This season usually begins in August or September in many countries, including the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe, and signifies the start of the academic year for numerous schools and universities.

During this time, students and parents typically purchase new school supplies, clothing, and backpacks in preparation for the upcoming school year. As such, the back-to-school season is a crucial time for advertisers as it signifies a significant period of spending for parents, students, and educators alike.

How can Brands Leverage the Back-to-School Opportunity to Reach their Relevant Audience?

The back-to-school season is a significant opportunity for brands to connect with consumers who are preparing to return to school, college, or university.

Research indicates that contextual ad targeting influences purchase decisions, with 93% of back-to-school consumers finding it important that ads they see are relevant to the content they are viewing.
Additionally, 72% of back-to-school consumers typically consume back-to-school content on social media, and 60% find online advertising helpful in making their purchasing decisions.

To effectively leverage this season, advertisers should focus on certain categories of products, such as school supplies, technology, and clothing, and target specific demographics, such as college students, high school students, or parents with school-aged children.

Advertisers may utilize a variety of channels to reach their target audience, including video advertising, social media advertising, display advertising, and more.

However, it’s even more critical to be available on the platforms where the majority of your audience is. By creating relevant and impactful campaigns that reach the right people in high-impact environments, brands can successfully tap into the back-to-school market and connect with their target audiences during this critical period.

Be Present Where your Audience Spend Time Online

In today’s digital age, understanding consumer habits is crucial for brands looking to capture the attention of their target audience during the back-to-school season.

To be successful, it’s essential to know where parents and students are spending their time and be present on those channels. In recent years, there has been significant growth in the adoption and use of different platforms and channels like CTV and OTT advertising. Streaming, for example, has increased 266% globally in the last three years.

Popular social media channels like Meta, Instagram, and YouTube, with 1.7 billion unique monthly visitors, are also highly effective platforms for reaching out to consumers during the back-to-school season.

It’s important to stay up-to-date with emerging channels and their usage patterns to leverage them effectively when running marketing campaigns. Creating a multi-channel strategy that encompasses native, display, video, and connected TV (CTV) advertising can help brands reach parents, teachers, and students throughout the entire funnel, creating a cohesive story across channels.

In summary, brands that understand consumer behavior and adopt a multi-channel approach can effectively leverage the back-to-school season to reach their target audience and promote their products and services.

How Can Silverpush’s AI-Powered Contextual Targeting Technology Help?

Silverpush’s flagship product, Mirrors is an AI-powered contextual targeting technology that helps brands connect with their target audience during the back-to-school season.

This season is a time when parents, students, and teachers are actively searching for products such as shoes, makeup, books, stationery, clothing, footwear, electronics, furnishings, and cleaning supplies.

Mirrors uses advanced contextual technology that can identify celebrities, brands, objects, and actions to deliver ads to a brand-safe environment.

By using contextual targeting, Mirrors ensures that ads are delivered to the right audience at the right time and place, without the need to rely on personal data.

This technology provides a nuanced level of targeting, enabling brands to place back-to-school ads on pages that align with the content their target audience is engaging with.

Additionally, Mirrors’ custom contexts identification capabilities ensure that reach is not duplicated, and a unified approach is followed for content-aligned ad placement, brand safety, and custom brand suitability.

By leveraging Silverpush’s Mirrors technology, brands can maximize the impact and effectiveness of their back-to-school campaigns and connect with their target audience in a meaningful way.

Want to know where programmatic advertising is headed? Check out the blog which talks about the top 5 programmatic advertising trends to keep an eye on, including the rise of connected TV, the importance of privacy and transparency, and more.

Programmatic advertising has revolutionized the world of digital marketing by utilizing automation to buy and sell digital ad space. This approach has replaced the traditional manual process that relied on human interaction and negotiation between publishers and marketers. 

The use of data-driven strategies has enabled programmatic advertising to streamline and accelerate ad buying processes, resulting in increased campaign efficiency.

Recent estimates indicate that programmatic advertising generated 418 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 and is projected to reach 725 billion by 2026. Given these impressive figures, it’s natural to wonder if programmatic advertising is the future of advertising.

To answer this question and stay up-to-date with the latest trends, let’s take a closer look at the new trends in programmatic advertising.

5 Recent Programmatic Advertising Trends 

1. Contextual Advertising Stands Strong

Contextual targeting is a straightforward yet powerful method of advertising that continues to be a key programmatic trend to watch, particularly in light of the decline of cookies. In digital advertising, contextual targeting is becoming increasingly important as ads are placed based on the context of the website, rather than relying on a user’s online behavioral data.

With contextual targeting, advertisers can reasonably assume that those who see their ads are more likely to be interested in them due to the web page’s context. As users have grown weary of seeing irrelevant ad creatives in inappropriate locations, banner blindness has become more prevalent. To address this, advertisers must enhance the ad experience by using personalized and relevant ads in the right context, thereby improving engagement and driving better results.

Also read: https://www.silverpush.co/blogs/what-is-programmatic-advertising/

2. Connected TV Advertising Continues to Grow

Connected TV usage among millennials is expected to grow from 60.5 million monthly users in 2022 to 62.6 million by 2025.

Prior to Covid, 76% of U.S. households had at least one connected device, with a total of 12.5 billion use hours per month. Following the pandemic, this figure increased by 81%, resulting in 4 billion hours of CTV use every week.

As a result, buyers are planning to allocate more of their advertising budget to CTV in 2023, with IAB reporting that ad spend is being reallocated from broadcast (53%) and cable TV (52%) advertising to CTV. 

This makes CTV one of the most intriguing programmatic advertising trends to watch in 2023. Advertisers must pay close attention to the procurement process, methods, and measurements that need to be reevaluated in response to this trend. Although CTV advertising is still in its early stages, those who adapt and stay ahead of the curve will benefit from the rewards.

3. Video Ads

The popularity of video content continues to soar, with video consumption expected to account for 82% of consumer internet traffic this year. As a result, video ad spending is projected to increase year after year. In 2021, programmatic video advertising spending in the United States reached an estimated 52.17 billion U.S. dollars, and this figure is expected to grow even further to reach 74.88 billion dollars by the end of 2023.

Notably, video advertising is considered to be the most impactful format for high-impact display ads, contributing to the growth in programmatic video spend. Given that programmatic video spending is expected to represent the majority of total programmatic digital display spending in the US this year, it’s clear that automated video ad buying has become the standard approach for distributing digital video commercials.

4. Growing Need for Privacy and Transparency

As privacy and transparency become top priorities, marketers must adapt to a world without third-party data. With the rise of new privacy laws like GDPR and the California Privacy Act, traditional tracking methods are no longer viable. While advertisers can still obtain user data with their consent, relying solely on tracking cookies to target and personalize ads is no longer an option. The recent moves by Apple, Firefox, and Google to end third-party cookie support further emphasize the need for innovative and reliable workarounds in programmatic advertising. At this critical juncture, it’s time for marketers to prioritize transparency and build trust with their audiences by adopting new, privacy-first strategies.

5. Use of AI/ML Rapidly Expands 

The rise of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) is revolutionizing programmatic advertising by enhancing targeting, optimization, and prediction capabilities. By leveraging AI algorithms, brands can now automate and optimize their ad-buying process to ensure that their messages reach the right people at the right time.

As AI and ML technologies continue to advance, programmatic advertising platforms are incorporating these tools to improve ad targeting, creative optimization, and budget allocation in real time. With AI/ML-driven automation, brands can create personalized experiences for each customer, as seen in Overstock’s successful implementation of AI for individualized customer experiences. The increasing use of AI/ML in programmatic advertising is paving the way for more efficient and effective ad campaigns, providing brands with a competitive edge in the digital marketing landscape.

Conclusion 

Programmatic advertising is an ever-evolving field that requires constant attention and adaptation to stay ahead of the curve. From the growing need for privacy and transparency to the increasing use of AI and Machine Learning technologies, these five programmatic advertising trends are transforming the digital advertising landscape. As programmatic advertising continues to evolve, it’s crucial for brands to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and developments. By doing so, they can ensure that their advertising campaigns remain relevant, engaging, and effective in today’s rapidly changing digital marketing landscape. 

Mediaocean, a major multi-channel advertising platform, has recently published its 2022 Market Report and 2023 Forecast report, which highlights the ongoing worries about the safety and appropriateness of media environments. 

According to the report, more than half of those surveyed anticipate their brand safety concerns to remain the same in the coming year, while almost 40% expect these worries to rise in 2023. Only a small percentage of respondents expect these concerns to diminish.

Brands have become increasingly worried about brand safety, with 75% of them experiencing a brand safety incident within the last year. 

As the concerns about brand safety continue to rise, it raises the question of how brands can address these concerns and ensure brand safety and suitability on platforms such as YouTube, social media, and the Open Web. Let’s find out! 

What are the Key Considerations to Ensure Brand Safety?

It is a fundamental aspect of human behavior to make judgments about people based on their company, and the same applies to brands and products. Whether intentionally or subconsciously, consumers evaluate brands based on the content that they associate with. Therefore, brands must safeguard their online image by utilizing sophisticated hyper-contextual targeting solutions.

Here are four essential factors that brands should consider to safeguard their image:

1. Develop a Clear Definition of “Brand Safety”

To implement brand-safe advertising, it is crucial to establish a set of guidelines and parameters that everyone within the organization can agree on. It is important to craft a clear definition of what constitutes brand-safe content and what is considered risky or unsafe. Examining industry-standard definitions of brand safety can serve as a good starting point.

2. Create a Comprehensive Blocklist of Sites

A blocklist is a list of websites or content that you do not want your ads to be displayed alongside. It is also referred to as a negative targeting, exclusion list, or blacklist. Maintaining an updated document of blocklisted sites is essential to exclude any undesirable topic, content, or website that may be detrimental to your brand’s image. By doing so, you can ensure that your ads are only displayed on sites that align with your brand’s values and messaging.

3. Choose a Programmatic Partner that Prioritizes Brand Safety

Selecting the right programmatic partner is crucial to ensuring that your brand remains safe online. At Silverpush, our AI-powered contextual solutions are specifically designed to address brands’ concerns about online advertising without sacrificing reach.

How does our brand safety strategy work? 

Mirrors’ deeply trained proprietary AI models identifies custom-defined unsafe contexts in content to contextually filter content. These placements are classified into many levels of content, including smoking, adult, violence, wrecks, arms, terrorism, and others.

4. Monitor your Campaigns Closely

Digital advertising allows you to track your results in real time, enabling you to identify and address any brand safety concerns promptly. Keep a close eye on your campaigns to identify any potential bot traffic or fraudulent activity. If you spot any issues, make necessary adjustments to your campaign settings to safeguard your brand’s reputation. Monitoring your campaigns is crucial to ensuring that your ads are appearing in safe and suitable environments, which is essential to maintaining a positive brand image.

Why is Brand Safety Important in Advertising?

Brand safety in advertising is critical to maintaining a positive brand image and protecting brand equity. In a recent survey, 90% of consumers stated that they believe brands are responsible for ensuring that their ads appear alongside safe content.

Consumers view the content their favorite brands appear alongside as an implied endorsement of that content. Negative associations can damage a brand’s reputation and have long-term effects on its equity. Therefore, brands need to prioritize brand safety in advertising to ensure that their ads are only displayed in suitable environments that align with their values and messaging.

Here are a few pointers on why brand safety is important in advertising:

1. Establishing a Positive Brand Reputation

Maintaining a good brand reputation is essential for the success and long-term viability of a business. Consumers are more likely to interact with a brand when its ads appear next to legitimate and appropriate content. A study found that 61% of users believe that both the brand and the hosting platform share equal responsibility for keeping content safe. Failure to prioritize brand safety can result in consumers losing trust in the brand and stopping its use.

2. Making a Strong First Impression

For new or smaller brands, a single incident of their ads appearing next to fake news or offensive content can significantly damage their reputation and credibility. Even established brands may suffer losses in ad revenue and potential negative associations when their ads appear next to inappropriate content. Therefore, brands must prioritize brand safety in their advertising efforts and take proactive measures to ensure that their ads only appear next to suitable and reputable content.

Safeguard your Brand Image with Silverpush’s Hyper Contextual Solutions 

In today’s digital landscape, brand safety is crucial for maintaining a positive brand image and avoiding potential reputational damage. Silverpush, one of the leading tech companies understands the importance of safeguarding your brand and has developed advanced contextual advertising solutions to help ensure brand safety and drive maximum ROI.

Our AI-powered Mirrors identifies key contexts and filter custom-defined unsafe contexts in streaming video, allowing us to classify videos into different levels of content safety. We also use text and sentiment analysis, engagement metrics, and organic influence to ensure brand suitability.

Partnering with a programmatic partner like Silverpush that prioritizes brand safety can help you maintain your brand’s reputation and build trust with your audience. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you protect your brand image and achieve your business goals.

With 60% of global web traffic going cookieless by 2023. Advertisers are still not clear on how to navigate the landscape in the cookieless future. Silverpush’s AI solutions will help fill this gap by providing alternative targeting methods to advertisers & publishers. 

Going back to 1992, the year when Netscape made a significant impact in digital history by inventing cookies, allowing websites to save user information and preferences.

This marked a turning point for the digital advertising industry which experienced a revolution as cookies soon became the lifeblood of the online ecosystem. The digital advertising market is currently worth $681.39 billion, and cookies play a major role in its rapid expansion.

As we move forward to 2023, third-party cookies have become a menace for advertisers and publishers who are now looking for alternatives to reach their audience with cookieless advertising solutions.

What Does the Removal of Third-Party Cookies Mean for Advertisers and Publishers?

Today, 86% of US marketers rely on third-party cookies to gain information about user behavior. The impending elimination of third-party cookies presents a major challenge for advertisers to effectively track user behavior and deliver personalized ads. 

This change has the potential to negatively impact the digital advertising industry, reducing its efficacy. Publishers will also face difficulties in monetizing their websites, potentially leading to a reduction in the quality of online content as they explore alternative revenue streams like subscriptions or paywalls. 

Despite the growing privacy concerns of consumers, personalization remains a priority for them.  Marketers must find new solutions to provide personalized experiences without relying solely on third-party cookies to avoid a decrease in ad revenue. 

As a marketer, it’s crucial to stay informed and explore new solutions to navigate this shift successfully. This blog will provide answers to your questions on how to adapt to this change.

What Does Cookieless Future Mean?

The cookieless future or cookieless world refers to the ban on third-party cookies. The decision to ban third-party cookies was initiated by Safari and Firefox and later adopted by Google. 

The phase-out of third-party cookies by Google, originally scheduled for 2022, was postponed to 2023 and has now been further delayed to the second half of 2024. Take a look at the timeline of third-party cookie depreciation and how Google has again pushed back its deadline, this time to 2024.  

This shift in the digital landscape is driven by privacy concerns and will have a significant impact on advertisers and marketers who rely on cookies to gather information about their target audience.

In the cookieless future, advertisers will need to find third-party cookie alternatives for personalization and targeting, such as through first-party data and the use of privacy-focused advertising methods like contextual advertising. 

They should also consider investing in the development of new data sources and technologies and prioritize transparency and user privacy. 

To prepare for this change, advertisers and marketers should stay informed about industry developments and new regulations in privacy and data usage.

What Will Happen in a Cookieless World?

An immediate impact of a future without cookies will be seen in the size of third-party audiences, causing a decrease in their viability for media buying. 

As a result, marketers will face lower conversion rates and ineffective targeting. 

To counteract this impact, marketers must devise innovative audience analysis techniques and utilize alternative marketing methods such as email marketing.

In the wake of phasing out third-party cookies, businesses and marketers need to shift to advertising industry’s next big step – contextual targeting as much as possible. 

Contextual targeting strategies could prove crucial to successfully personalize experiences throughout the customer journey while ensuring data security and relevant, targeted advertising opportunities.

Also read: https://www.silverpush.co/news/what-does-life-after-third-party-cookies-look-like/

How Can Marketers Prepare for a Cookieless Future?

As the use of third-party cookies faces imminent extinction, the advertising industry has been actively searching for alternative solutions. Despite the availability of various options, each comes with its own limitations. Here are some of the top substitutes for third-party data to drive your digital marketing efforts:

1. First-Party Data

This targeting method also uses cookies, enabling similar targeting capabilities. However, first-party data strategies only track a consumer’s activity within the website that has implemented them. 

For instance, if a consumer returns to Pepperfry.com, the site will recall the furniture they previously viewed, but that furniture won’t follow that person to other sites.

This approach allows marketers to target ads to consumers effectively on their own websites without tracking them beyond their platforms. While some customers may appreciate the personalization, collecting first-party data may still feel intrusive to those who are simply browsing and don’t want to feel followed.

‍2. PII-Based Identifiers

Using personal identification information such as email addresses or phone numbers, marketers can track users across different devices. This is in contrast to cookies, which do not typically transfer between desktop and mobile. With PII-based identifiers, a site can recognize when a previous user has returned by recognizing an ID generated from a login or other site action. This ID does not link to any personally identifiable information, but instead to the user’s online behavior.

‍3. Browser Fingerprinting

This technique identifies a device and user by assessing various attributes of a device through the browser. This includes browser type, operating system, active plugins, timezone, language, screen resolution, and settings. While browser fingerprinting can accurately identify the same user across interactions, it is not 100% certain.

4. Google Privacy Sandbox

Google Privacy Sandbox, which is still in its early development stages, aims to provide advertisers with anonymized information through the use of five application programming interfaces (API) in Chrome’s browser instead of cookies. This will limit the amount of information available to marketers while allowing individual users to remain anonymous.

‍5. Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising is the only option that does not involve any surveillance. Instead of focusing on consumer identity, contextual advertising displays advertisements next to content that is relevant to the ads. 

Which one would you like better? Viewing an ad for sports shoes while reading an article about Jeff Bezos (because a few days back you were scrolling through the internet searching for gym shoes) or, coming across an ad for sports shoes while reading an article on fitness.

Definitely, the latter! Because it is relevant to the content they are currently engaged with.

By targeting interests rather than individuals, contextual advertising is a smart option for advertisers to target consumers in the imminent cookieless future.

Ad tech companies like Silverpush are at the forefront of the shift towards a more privacy-focused and cookie-free future, thanks to advancements in contextual technologies.

Silverpush Will Help You Thrive in Cookieless World

Silverpush saw the flaws of third-party cookies years ago. Since, they’re not people-based, not transparent, and can’t identify people over time they never needed it to help their clients reach their relevant audience. 

Silverpush, a contextual advertising company has always known that the key to reaching the relevant audience is through contextual targeting.  

That’s why we built our AI-powered solution – Mirrors in 2012. Initially, we offered our contextual advertising solutions only on YouTube. Now we have expanded our technology to OpenWeb, Meta, and CTV. 

Mirrors privacy-safe and contextual targeting solutions are a rescuer in the cookieless world. Personalized ads are delivered to the audience with zero dependencies on their data. Most importantly, the placement of ads is done in a completely brand-safe environment with relevance to a particular brand.