Google’s Privacy Move Will Make Contextual Targeting Key

Since Google’s privacy announcement last week, the advertising industry has been discussing what it means for the future of advertising, targeting and measurement. One thing that is certain with Google ads, contextual targeting will become a more important targeting tool. Although the latest announcement sent ripples through the digital advertising industry, brands have already begun to focus on contextual targeting strategies either in lieu of or in addition to their audience targeting.  The trend is clear: we’re headed towards a privacy-first, cookieless future where contextual will again be a major contextual targeting tool in the marketing toolkit.

What You Need to Know

It’s important to know that brands’ YouTube, Google Search and Gmail advertising strategies will remain the same. Logged in users on these platforms will still be individually tracked by Google and brands will still be able to target them. The changes are focussed on the open web, on media inventory that Google doesn’t own but which can be targeted using Google’s AdX ad exchange or the Google Display Network. 

Google’s March 2021 update shed more light on its plans for a cookieless future, having already committed to ending support for 3rd party cookies on its Chrome browser by 2022.  That move followed a growing tide of privacy-first moves by Apple, Safari and Firefox. They all have the goal of stopping users from being tracked across the web and targeted with ads based on the content they’d viewed.

Brands buying ads on non-Google properties using contextual targeting on Google’s ad systems will have to target using audience clusters. Otherwise known as the Federated League of Cohorts (or FLoC) method, this approach aggregates audiences rather than allowing individual people to be tracked and targeted.

On certain publisher sites, such as the New York Times, brands will be able to use their first-party data to target people, as well as the new FLoC options.

The changes will cause brands to re-evaluate their media strategies, and they’ll be looking to contextual targeting ads on Google for some of the answers. 

What Is Contextual Targeting?

Contextual targeting is all about respecting consumer privacy while augmenting the consumer experience. Brands use contextual targeting to run their ads on content that is relevant to their brand, service or product, and consumers receive a more relevant ad experience. 

Behavioral audience targeting finds consumers based on the consumers previous activity online. Focusing exclusively on that type of targeting has downsides. Primarily, it ignores the context people are in when online. Imagine you’re being retargeted for office supplies when you’re looking at restaurant reviews or recipes online. You’re less likely to click on ads relating to printers. However, you’re more likely to engage with a brand like Hello Fresh or McDonalds whose services coincide with the content you’re consuming (and most likely the kind of buying mood you’re in).

In a survey we ran among 1000 U.S. consumers, almost one-third of consumers are all about advertising supporting free content. They just want the ads to be relevant to the content they’re consuming.¹ That’s what contextual targeting is all about.

Why Brands Should Prioritize Contextual

Our research shows that when brands align their ads with the context of the content people consume, it makes their ads up to 93% more memorable.² 

Contextual also makes campaigns more effective. We ran a head-to-head test of audience vs. contextual targeting for a major US pizza chain to drive customers to order online. Our custom contextual inclusion list (a list of YouTube videos and channels) drove up to 8.6x more conversions than the audience targeting strategy. Not only that, it drove a 50% decrease in the cost-per-conversion.³ 

When brands use contextual targeting, and optimize towards the best performing contexts during their campaign, we’ve seen on average 30% cost efficiencies over time. 

The latest privacy shift is part of a much larger trend towards more consumer friendly experiences. By focusing on content that is contextually relevant to what consumers are consuming online, brands waste far fewer impressions and make their campaigns more efficient and effective. And they give consumers what they’re asking for.

Sources

1: Content Consumption and Consumer Sentiment Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2020

2: Contextual Alignment in Video Advertising, 2020

3: Channel Factory Internal Data

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How to Drive Online Conversions with Trueview for Action

YouTube’s TrueView for Action (now evolving into “Video Action”) campaigns are known for helping to drive down funnel action. YouTube audiences are uniquely engaged and attentive. According to Google, consumers are 2X more likely to pay attention to ads on YouTube vs. on other social media platforms,¹ and users are 3X more likely to pay attention to online ads vs. ads on TV.²

What’s even more interesting, YouTube can drives purchase decisions for consumers. Over 40% of global shoppers say they’ve purchased products they discovered on YouTube or from YouTube creators.³ And it all happens at scale, with over 2 billion monthly logged-in users on YouTube.

What does Youtube Trueview for Action do?

YouTube released its  TrueView for Action tool to help brands reach customers in the lower segment of the marketing funnel. It includes audiences, extensions, measurements, and smart bidding machine learning which helps drive ad conversions. 

86% of consumers use Google to search for ideas about what product to buy. YouTube’s TrueView for Action tool helps you grow your business by allowing you to reach audiences who have been searching Google for what you offer.⁴  Viewers see ads that promote your business with a way for them to take immediate action, and when compared with standard TrueView the results are significant. In some case studies, we’ve seen a 200% increase in conversions and reduced CPA cost vs standard TrueView.⁵

86% of people use Google to search for ideas about what product to buy. YouTube’s TrueView for Action helps you grow your business by allowing you to reach audiences who have been searching Google for what you offer.⁴ Viewers see ads which promote your business with a way for them to take immediate action, and when compared with standard TrueView the results are significant. In some case studies, we’ve seen a 200% increase in conversions and reduced CPA cost vs standard TrueView.⁵

How Does True View for ActionIt Work?

Advertisers can use a variety of different Google property audience types to reach customers based on action, intent, and interest. This is made possible by tracking and consulting the digital marketing ecosystem as well as the goals for brand perception. 

High Intent Audiences

• Custom Intent: audiences created from your already-existing Google Search Keywords]
• Remarketing: go after audiences who have already interacted with your brand ads across Google properties
• Customer Match: audiences similar to customer contact information imported from your brand CRM.

Mid-Funnel Audiences

• Similar Audience: reach new audiences who are similar to your users in your remarketing list and showcase similar buying behavior.
• Life Events: audiences on the cusp of major life events like getting married, graduating college, or moving
• In-Market: reach people who are actively researching and intending to buy products or services you offer – including those thinking of buying from your competitors
• Affinities: reach people based on a holistic picture of their lifestyles, interests, and needs.
• It’s smart because even the strongest search campaigns miss undecided shoppers

It’s smart because even the strongest search campaigns miss undecided shoppers

Pairing these audience approaches can drive effective lower funnel results. Google’s own research shows that TrueView for action campaigns using Custom intent generates 30% higher conversion rates.

How to Use Trueview?

A few top tips on how to use trueview for a for creative approaches that workworks best for TrueView for Action ad campaigns:

1. Introduce the brand/product early and as a solution to a problem
2. Show & tell how the brand works and what makes it great
3. Include a clear call to actioncall-to-action or offer
4. Use both sight and sound because YouTube ads are 95% viewable & 95% audible.
5. Build for small screens by using close framing, big text, and bright footage to stand out

Company Examples 

Airbnb wanted to get people thinking about and booking their 5 million listings in 81,000 cities around the world, especially in markets where they face stiff competition. 

They used YouTube for action to drive a 14% increase in bookings, proving a brand campaign can impact sales, as well as a 142% increase in branded search terms.

• Their creative approach: Airbnb developed highly tailored creative using Affinity Audiences to align with video content people were likely to watch. For example, if someone was about to watch a video related to water sports, they would see the ad featuring a host with a passion for surfing.
• Their Targeting approach: Airbnb used TrueView for Action’s Smart Bidding and Google’s Consumer Patterns targeting to under-stand where to find audiences most likely to consider their hosts’ properties. They also tested different consumer engagements along the way to understand and optimize their customer’s journey.

What this really means

TrueView for Action enables brands to convert intent into action. In conjunction with a strong brand image and plan it can help you meet your goals for reach and conversion. To learn more about YouTube, check out our Ultimate Guide to YouTube and schedule a consultation to learn more about the services from Channel Factory to get your brand in front of the right people. .

Sources

1: Google/Ipsos, Video Mobile Diary, US, 2017, n of 4,381 (saw ads occasions). Online video includes video platforms such as YouTube & Hulu, social platforms such as Facebook & Snapchat and TV Full Episode Players like NBC.com.

2: Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience, Video Ad Cross-Platform Biometrics Research commissioned by Google. Conducted in the US using 8 advertisements, 4 platforms and 400 participants, 18-35 year olds, Nielsen CNS Lab, Boston, US 2016

3: Google/Ipsos, Global (U.S., CA, BR, U.K., DE, FR, JP, IN, KR, AU), “How People Shop with YouTube” Study, 18–64-year-olds who go online at least monthly and have purchased something in the last year, n=24,017, July 2018.   

4: Google Internal Data, 2020

5: Google Internal Data, 2020   

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Channel Factory Grows Team

Channel Factory’s global growth has fueled the need to ensure the company has an executive team in place to deliver against strategic goals. Adding to our leadership team is a part of our growth strategy to ensure we are creating the right leadership structure to continue to drive significant growth in EMEA, APAC, and the Americas.

In the US, we are promoting and hiring key members to the sales, strategy and client solutions teams to deliver the right strategies to our key advertisers. Channel Factory’s global growth has prompted new hires and promotions necessary to bolster the executive team in order to deliver against strategic goals and forward-looking visions. The key moves are outlined below:

Jed Hartman has been promoted to the role of President, Americas. He will be overseeing sales, marketing, and client solutions to create an end to end team capable of delivering  comprehensive solutions for brands and agencies. Hartman joined Channel Factory in 2019 as Chief Commercial Officer, bringing experience leading commercial and revenue teams at Washington Post, Time Inc., and Dennis Publishing. He will now expand his remit to further drive growth in the Americas.  Jed’s cutting edge experience across advertising, publishing and corporate brand strategy drive awareness, adoption, and customer satisfaction with global brands and agencies for Channel Factory. Jed lives in Connecticut with his wife, daughter, and dogs Archie and Allie.

Mattias Spetz now expands his management role and is President of EMEA and APAC. Mattias is a veteran of digital video innovation, building mobile-first digital video advertising products at Smartclip before YouTube even launched its first ad formats. Drawing on experience across the digital, OTT and broadcast TV ecosystem, Mattias joined Channel Factory to nurture what had been missing in his previous roles: using awesome technology and a strong team to improve the overall health and values of the digital video advertising ecosystem. When he’s not raising digital tides, he’s spending time with wife, two kids and friends watching ice hockey.

Jeremy Haft, Channel Factory’s Chief Revenue Officer, is responsible for accelerating the North American growth and revenue plans for Channel Factory and advancing the company’s sales approach, strategy, and new revenue streams. He joins Channel Factory in February 2021, moving from Amobee, where he served as SVP of Sales working across North American brands and agencies to consolidate cross channel media activation through programmatic solutions. Prior to Amobee, Haft helped build and scale businesses, transform sales strategies and amplify revenue growth for Viant, Visible Measures, Lotame, and MediaPost. Jeremy lives in New Jersey and in his spare time he enjoys traveling to tropical locations, cooking feasts with friends, and any new fitness trend he can get his hands on

Robin Zieme has been promoted to Chief Strategy Officer. The role will see Robin develop and execute strategic initiatives to drive further financial growth and client acquisition in line with the company’s overall vision. Robin is a true innovator, with roots across both the buy and sell side of the digital ad ecosystem. Robin’s deep experience includes running agency trading deals at Amobee and leading Adconion’s video efforts internationally and across North America. He now drives leading-edge advertising technology solutions, always creating new ideas and solving problems for Channel Factory. Robin helps build and create multinational opportunities and strike deals that help drive Channel Factory’s vision of creating a better digital video ecosystem for advertisers, users, and creators. Robin lives in the southern forests of Sweden with his wife and three children.

Jenny Chau has been promoted to Chief Solutions Officer. Jenny was previously SVP of Strategy and Client Operations. She joined Channel Factory in 2015. A digital technology industry veteran, Jenny oversees Channel Factory’s Client Solutions team. She is a media strategy guru that achieves client satisfaction across a wide variety of verticals and regions. Prior to joining Channel Factory, Jenny was busy refining her skills at major, award-winning agencies such as OMD, GroupM, and Horizon Media. Jenny lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two kids Mia and Teddy, as well as their dogs Shortie and Peanut. When she’s not ensuring Channel Factory’s clients are receiving superior outcomes, she’s cooking and doing arts & crafts with Teddy, building forts and playing peekaboo with Mia.

Eren Pamir has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer. Eren previously held the role of Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development, joining the team in 2019. Eren has over 15 years of experience working in the financial sector, beginning in mergers & acquisitions at Lazard Freres, and moving on to hedge funds and fintech startup Seek Capital before joining Channel Factory where he focuses on building out the company’s investments and financial strategy. Eren lives with his wife in Los Angeles, with their dog Bruno. Eren is an avid hiker, gourmet food and wine enthusiast, and also volunteers with the Anti-Defamation League.