With the first stages of Google’s ‘Cookiegeddon’ less than two months away, digital advertisers are still scrambling to find solutions that will enable them to continue to deliver effective campaigns. Indeed, despite the threat of the deprecation of third-party cookies hanging over the industry for several years, more than 40% of advertisers remain unprepared.

This is quite a damning reflection on the industry. Especially, before the news that Google Chrome would be removing third-party cookies, there was a conspicuous shift toward consumer privacy, with other browsers having waved goodbye to user tracking. Not to mention that GDPR is now over half a decade old.

Nonetheless, it’s not too late for digital advertisers to get all their ducks in a row, and overcome the challenges presented by a privacy-first online experience. Indeed, the end of third-party cookies doesn’t mean the end of effective digital advertising. Instead, it poses an opening for innovative solutions to make the ecosystem a better place for consumers and advertisers alike.

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New age contextual

The new era of digital advertising will see the end of the repetitive, frustrating, low-quality ads that have plagued the lives of consumers for many years. Instead, the conversation has shifted back to the role of creativity and context in driving truly successful advertising. This is thanks to the increasing recognition within the industry of attention and engagement metrics as being the best way to measure the effectiveness of digital advertising. This has helped bring creativity back to the forefront of the industry’s arsenal, having previously been neglected in favor of an approach that favored hyper-targeting over the look and feel of an ad.

Greater penetration of artificial intelligence (AI) into contextual advertising has not only made it far more sophisticated than it once was but much more accessible to all. Technologies now can serve the most relevant creatives to precisely targeted audiences, based on their interests and behaviors, without ever putting the personal data of consumers at risk.

AI technology can analyze millions of web pages in seconds, identifying the brands, products, semantics, and intent associated with those pages and using that information to serve the right ad at the right time. Moreover, AI can harness data in real-time around anything from product lists to sports scores, from weather to train times, within the creative, meaning true relevance can be delivered at the moment.

The combination of this in-depth contextual analysis and heightened creative prowess helps advertisers align their targeting and creativity in real time at an impression level. These ads, with their AI-powered personalization, seamlessly integrate into the user’s browsing and create an experience that drives attention and engagement. No longer will consumers be negatively impacted by low-quality ads lacking relevance.

Advertisers should be experimenting with AI-based solutions now, to help them to not only produce the most visually engaging ads but also to ascertain which creatives would be most relevant to specific audiences and via which channels – all the while maintaining customer privacy.

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Putting Creativity Back On Top

Furthermore, the introduction of automation to the creative process means that brands can navigate the laborious work required to create multiple ads that cater to the different needs of each consumer. Having the technology in place to carry out this essential work means ads can be more easily delivered across the marketing funnel – whether the goal is to raise brand awareness or edge the consumer toward conversion – and return on investment (ROI) can be maximized.

In a world where advertisers are having to adjust to significant changes, the best way to overcome the challenges they are facing is by focusing on contextual relevance and engaging creative that adds to the user’s browsing experience, rather than lowering the quality.

AI-powered technologies exist to ensure that consumers are served the most relevant and appealing ads and help the industry get back to what made people enjoy advertising in the first place. Creativity has always been what truly made advertising special, and now it’s time for it to once again be the number one priority for brands, with AI here to ensure that target audiences truly engage with the ads served to them.

[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]

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