A question we hear more often these days: What is FieldTest doing to prepare for a post-cookie world? That "post-cookie" world begins sometime in the year 2022, when Google has committed to stop utilizing them for audience targeting in their Chrome browser. While it's true that both Safari and Mozilla ditched the cookie a while back, when factoring in that Chrome accounts for over 60% of web browser market share it does seem like a sizable shift for the industry and is a topic worth discussing.

The good news is there are already several viable alternatives to help soften the blow of losing the cookie and many others that are rolling out before it fully goes away. Contextual Targeting is one of these options. This is where your ad shows up on a page with content that fits with the product you are selling and / or the customer you are looking to connect with. BuiltIn wrote up a recent article that helpfully highlights one such contextual advertising company, GumGum. It's a fun read that gives you great insight into how their Verity Engine identifies the context of what is on all of these sites on the internet.

Here are three powerful ways that make contextual targeting a powerful cookie alternative:

1: Connect with new customers while they are 'in the moment'

It's true that cookie targeting allows you to find customers who are searching for the product, service or solution that you can provide to them. But it's a little trickier. Were they thinking about buying a new car last week and ended up getting one over the weekend? Instead, think about a car company serving ads against articles that are actively preparing someone for the car buying experience. Contextual targeting in many ways allows you to confirm that your customer is still looking for you.

2: Target away from unwanted content

Sometimes knowing what you want to target away from is just as important as what content you want to be next to. At any given time there can be a handful of political, societal or cultural themes or events that it makes sense for your ads not to appear next to. This is a little more powerful than cookie targeting, where as an advertiser you can block specific site categories but you are still at the mercy of each individual site and what they choose to post articles about.

3: Contextual targeting tech continues to get smarter

The BuiltIn article we linked to above goes into some really cool detail about GumGum's Verity Engine, which is their proprietary technology that scans the web and categorizes content. Verity continues to learn the subtleties of how articles are written and starts to understand the tone and subtleties of certain words that could easily be misconstrued when taken individually. Verity and other contextual targeting options can continue to refine their understanding of the human language in a way that ensures your ads are finding both the correct content and the best possible potential customers.

Want to learn more about contextual targeting options (including GumGum!) that FieldTest offers? Reach out and schedule a call with us today. And look for more posts on this subject in the near future as we all prepare for a new and exciting era of digital advertising.