Winning the right mobile consumers includes reaching them within an ideal context and at the right moment. Thanks to GDPR, contextual targeting is making a comeback and this time it is within our own personal smartphone apps.

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The Importance Of Context

As relevancy often depends on the setting and surrounding within an advertising moment – from reading a favorite magazine to attending the final game of the World Cup, targeting based on both online and offline behaviour has always offered a way for advertisers to reach the right audience. Whenever a consumer sees an advertisement, it is not in isolation but in a “context”. Context within advertising refers to the media space in which the advertisement is placed – a website, mobile app or a social media thread. In fact, many studies have concluded that more carefully crafted and targeted ads in the right user moment and given within the right context are much more easily accepted and engaging for users. Audience understanding combined with contextual relevance at a particular moment increases the receptiveness to a particular advertising message. This requires not only a strong creative part but also the use of the right combination and layering of multiple advanced advertising technologies.

Contextual Targeting —  Not “Just-Another-Tool”

Marketers have now access to an immense amount of various data points available to craft their audiences and reach their campaign goals more effectively. Rich audience data allows them to have a better understanding of what are the characteristics of their target consumer in terms of location, behavior and interest. The missing link here is an insight into what happens within the space of the most personal device, within apps. Being able to craft the audience based on specific app categories, and app performance can be a great indicator what is the exact environment at any given moment when an ad is delivered. Thus marketers can get a deeper level of granularity and control over selecting which type of apps are more relevant and specific for their brand and based on app language or app ratings in specific regions, they can choose which app categories best fit and represent a desired demographic profile of users they’d like to reach.

Ensure Brand Safety & Viewability

Given that only 37% of marketers use mechanisms to reduce the risk of ad fraud, which resulted in a loss of $6.5 billion for the digital advertising industry last year, having the right tools for ensuring ad fraud prevention is a must for marketers. Sophisticated semantic tools allow access to premium environments by excluding apps with offensive language or adult content, to give an example. Contextual targeting in apps has proved to be incredibly successful way for advertisers to target only specific classifications of app groups such as high performing apps offering higher levels of engagement and increased viewability.

Bringing In App-Contextual Targeting

Having insights on what type of app an individual is using gives marketers a unique opportunity for more specific and effective targeting. Introducing App-Contextual Targeting, adsquare has made another step towards better holistic consumer understanding so that advertisers can address their audiences in the right mobile moment. They can now level up their mobile campaigns by adding app-contextual understanding on top of audience and location targeting.