IDs and contextual tracking can deliver audiences – but you don’t know who
As digital marketers adapt to life beyond the third-party cookie, many have defaulted to ID-based and contextual targeting to fill the gap. But are these methods really delivering the depth advertisers need? Rishi Bedi, managing director APAC at Ogury, unpacks the growing identity crisis in digital advertising.
Digital advertisers are caught between the complexities of ID-based targeting and the limitations of contextual targeting.
Since the gradual decline of third-party cookies, the alternative ID space has seen a race between various providers working to establish scale dominance. However, despite all their efforts, the root cause issues remain unaddressed: mass consumer opt-outs to tracking and tightening privacy regulations that have limited scale and purpose of alternative identifiers.
Then there’s contextual targeting, which ticks the privacy box but offers only a surface-level view of consumer activities and interests. Vendors have significantly enhanced their contextual offerings with machine learning, but anonymised content consumption patterns still don’t reveal the vital “who” behind the audience.
Neither contextual nor ID-based targeting captures the behaviours, passions, and purchase intent that transform data points into real audience segments brands can connect with authentically. But that doesn’t mean advertisers are out of options.
