How contextual advertising influences brand marketing in the cookie-less future

The Silverpush conference saw industry leaders speaking about maximizing the outcomes in a cookie-less landscape and navigating the future of online advertising.

Continuing the conference, the panellists expressed their views around contextual advertising, alternatives to third-party cookies, the Impact of AI on digital marketing, privacy implications of advertising in a cookie-less world, and bringing publishers and advertisers to one table to discuss relevant ad placements in the cookie-less world.

The list of the panellists includes Anil Kumar Suryavamshi, Associate Vice President- Planning, Carat; Anil Pandit, Senior Vice President, Lead-Precision (Programmatic), India, Publicis Media; Ankit Banga, Chief Business Officer, Kinnect Online; Chinmay Chandratre, General Manager, Madison World; Jinit Shah, Director-Media, PivotRoots; Mihir Karkare, Co-Founder & EVP, Mirum; Rohan Chincholi, Head-Digital Services, India, Havas Media Group; Sairam Ranganathan, National Head-Digital Services, Wavemaker; Simran Chugh, Associate Director, Media-Dentsu India; Sham Srinivas, Vice President, Marketing, Research, and Ranking; Shrikant Shenoy, Associate Vice President, Lodestar UM; Shwet Nigam, Director-Media and Marketing, Experience Commerce, a Cheil Company; Chaitanya Sinha, Business Head-India, Silverpush. The session was chaired by Harshil Karia, Founder of Schbang.

While opening the session, Karia questioned the panelists to differentiate between contextual advertising and third-party cookies. Answering the question, Anil Pandit said, “Third Party cookies are the mechanism to track the user data whereas contextual advertising is more about comprehending and strategising the content preferred and consumed by the audiences.”

Describing the repercussions faced by brands in the cookie-less world, Chincholi said, “Eradication of third-party cookies results in more investments by brands on the customers to understand their behavioral patterns.”

Taking the discussion forward, Ranganathan shared some alternatives for third-party cookie advertising. He said, “Utilizing the first-party data more efficiently and effectively, will stand out the brand in the clutter of the advertising market.”

Adding on other alternatives other than first-party data, Nigam, shared “Contextual advertising is the way forward. Moreover, understanding and embracing the audience after delving into their interests and demands, sets a brand apart in the cookie-less future.” Apart from this, “Associating with brands to share and reshare data is another alternative in the same series.” said Anil Kumar.

On challenges the brands are facing while measuring the data, Chandratre believes that the web data collection methodology is different from that of the app methodology. Moreover, apps will continue using remarketing strategies in the future. Nonetheless, brands will face challenges while adopting the whole set of ecosystems. 

As for Banga, the programmatic will be the sufferer as the cost goes up. He further mentioned that the first-party data is more efficient in enhancing reach and targeting, however, contextual works well in making conversions and profits. Elaborating on the various ways to use first-party data, Karkare shared “Apart from using first-party data in making conversions, the brands must use this data in remarketing their audiences.”

Describing how the creative industry looks forward to first-party data, Chugh said, “We as a creator never bifurcate people as targeting and non-targeting because that is more technical. We focus more on human emotions while fabricating campaigns for people to build an in-depth connection with them. Moreover, we believe that contextual advertising helps us understand the nuances of what customers are looking out for in the market.”

Continuing the discussion on making first-party data more authentic and creating more brand personalisation, Shah mentioned that leveraging contextual advertising and creating personalized experiences using AI can work collaboratively to scale and to make conversions. Focusing more on digital brands and their ad spends, Srinivas shared that the digital-first brands have to invest more in first-party data strategically as compared to other offline brands. 

Shenoy shared, “We as a business focus more on attention planning and how to measure the customer attention span on digital and other media platforms in the cookie-less future. Apart from working on metrics like reach and research, we introduced a new concept of tracking the attention span to plan our advertising spending more strategically. As a result, personalisation helps understanding consumer wants and converts that into conversion.” Sharing more about contextual advertising, Sinha talked about how contextual advertising is more about than just a buzzing word. At a broader level, it includes customer retargeting, transparency, relevancy, and synchronization of content to generate more engagement, traffic and conversion.

Moving towards the conclusion and slightly shifting from first-party data to Media measurement; Generative AI; customisation and personalisation, the experts shared the key pointers on how all three have collaborated to create better user experiences. The pointers include: Enhancing customer retargeting using predictive analytics: maintaining a balance between consumer privacy and personalisation: Using contextual advertising in supplementing first-party data: Reaching relevant customers: Measurement of media spend and Investing more in market research.