Brands uncover new audiences
Ahead of cookie deprecation, brands have been prioritizing contextual advertising—targeting people with ads based on the content they are consuming. Contextual advertising can be an effective way for marketers to reach audiences, although historically, the strategy left little room for more granular customization.
GumGum’s Mindset Platform amplifies traditional contextual advertising by taking into account which channel placements and creative strategies are most likely to capture viewers’ attention—which GumGum measures in time—and eventually, how attention levels are likely to impact sales.
GumGum piloted the Mindset Platform last year with pizza brand Domino’s. It turned out that health and fitness content viewers paid relatively high attention to Domino’s pizza ads. This spurred the brand to use contextual ads to target this new audience and other high-performing audiences. As a result, click-through rates grew by 40%, and it achieved between a 135% and 398% return on its advertising spend investment, depending on the ad format used. The company wouldn’t share specifics.
Now Expedia’s in-house media agency, EG Media, is using the platform to serve ads with upper- and mid-funnel objectives, such as driving awareness or consideration. Using metrics like attention is one way of proving how effective ads are at driving upper-funnel objectives in a post-cookie era. Expedia is focused on improving its incremental return on ad spend and monitoring how incremental reach, or attention-optimized upper-funnel marketing, drives ad spend over time. Grant declined to reveal specific campaign results.
Along with the Mindset Platform, GumGum is also launching a Contextual Research Fund that will provide up to $1.5 million for brands and agencies that want to experiment with the new platform. It’s focused on assembling more case studies that show the platform’s value.
