The advertising landscape has completely evolved in the last decade. From advertisers heavily depending upon third-party cookies to planning alternative approaches as they phase out, the advertising landscape has been on the run. However, “Safety” has been the priority even in these evolving times.
Advertisers have opted for contextual advertising as an alternative approach to traditional cookie-based advertising.
This form of advertising isn’t new to the industry. If we go back to the early 90s we could find the imprints of contextual targeting in print form. The most suitable example would be, an ad for a clothing store next to an article with the heading “5 ways to wear a saree”.
Well, now this form of advertising has taken the digital form. Advertisers now target ads based on contextual triggers and relevant keywords. With the help of semantic analysis, advertisers can comprehend the content of a webpage similar to a human mind. It analyzes images, text, video content, and overall page quality of a webpage determining whether the page is brand-safe and aligns with brand suitability.
What is the difference between Brand safety and suitability?
Brand safety and brand suitability are often used interchangeably, it’s important to know that there similar but not the same.
Band safety sets a clear line about the brand-safe content. It is the practice of protecting a brand’s reputation by preventing ad placement next to harmful or explicit content as it could result in damaging the brand image.
Whereas, brand suitability is a much broader concept. The scope of brand suitability goes beyond avoiding ad placement in an unsafe environment. It is about ensuring that ads are placed next to the content that aligns with brand value.
Brand suitability is subjective in nature. What could be safe for one brand could be unsuitable for another. It acts as a bridge between risk and opportunity, offering context-based safeguards for advertisers as well as publishers.
Well, analysis of both aspects is necessary as it significantly improves the ad placement possibilities while reducing the risk of misplacement of ads resulting in damaged brand image.
Brand Safety and Suitability in Contextual Advertising
The traditional advertising approach posed brand safety challenges that resulted in:
- 1. Low ROI
- 2. Low Engagement rates
- 3. Low campaign performance.
However, ad targeted contextually outreach their performance as they harness the power of brand safety and suitability.
But to further enhance the campaign performance here are 3 best practices advertisers can follow:
1. Go beyond the keyword-based targeting
To avoid ad placement next to harmful or explicit content, advertisers divide the keyword into whitelist ( safe keywords) and blacklist (unsafe keywords). This process limits the reach as traditional keyword-based targeting would reject an entire webpage if it contains keywords from the blacklist.
Instead, brands and advertisers can opt for a more powerful approach, they must go beyond the keyword-based targeting. With the help of AI, they can extract triggers that can help them tap into the unexplored segment of the audience.
By tapping into the alternative interests of the users advertisers can significantly widen the scope of their ad placement possibilities.
2. Focus on the Context than Content
Context does play a supreme role in contextual advertising. Ad placement in contextually aligned content increases the chances of user engagement because the user is already intrigued to know more.
Technologies have been developed by ad-tech companies that amplify the power of contextual advertising by understanding the context of each webpage on a deeper level.
For example, an ad for an FMCG brand placed next to an article that talks about foods rich in nutrients would resonate on a deeper level with the user much more than an advertisement for electronic gadgets.
3. Work with only trusted partners
With programmatic advertising, everything has been automated leaving no control over the ad placement. This automation has embarked on the need for brands and advertisers to carefully select the publisher.
To mitigate this uncertainty advertisers must work with reputable and trustworthy publishers who hold premium quality inventory.
Conclusion
The advertising world is evolving rapidly and ensuring brand safety amidst troves is difficult. However, these safety measures would give some control over the ad placement.
To survive in the cookie-less world, advertisers need to opt for strategies that are strong and effective yielding the desired results.
