Why Contextual Advertising is CTV’s New Frontier

In the rapidly evolving world of Connected TV (CTV), a new frontier is emerging that promises to revolutionize how advertisers connect with viewers: contextual advertising. With scarcity of first-party data and increased privacy regulations, contextual advertising is stepping into the spotlight to offer a powerful solution blending relevance, effectiveness, and privacy in ways previously unseen in the CTV space.

Contextual advertising is hardly a new concept in the digital marketing world: Google has been using it for years to power AdSense, enabling web site publishers to display highly targeted ads and earn revenue from clicks and impressions. Google's algorithms match ads with a site's audience and content, increasing ad performance and conversions.

While contextual advertising has been table stakes for digital marketing for years, similar capabilities have been conspicuously absent from the CTV space. Why? Limited metadata. Until recently, available data for video content typically covered broad categories such as “genre” and show titles, but lacked specific scene information, such as data about the setting, tone, dialogue or action. This made it difficult – if not impossible – to tailor ads effectively and deliver relevant experiences to viewers. 

Not surprisingly, this limitation has been a notable hurdle for CTV advertisers. In the face of sophisticated contextual targeting options in digital media, advertisers have seen the value of reaching audiences via CTV, but struggled with the targeting challenges that came with the territory. But that’s changing – thanks to advancements in AI and machine learning that allow advertisers to target audiences with precision and at scale.

AI: The Game-Changer for CTV Contextual Advertising

The true game-changer in bringing contextual advertising to CTV is the application of advanced AI.