Hi, my name is Manasa Denning and I'm the senior Director of Partner Solutions for Integral Ad Science. Today, I'm going to speak to you about the impact of contextually relevant ads for marketers.So what is context control, context control is simply about having relevant ads showing alongside relevant content. It's about precisely understanding the content surrounding the ad to accurately reach your ideal audience. And this began because companies are putting consumers like you and I at the core.

So how do marketers drive outcomes with context while future proofing the cookie less targeting technology? And so what do consumers want? And what does that mean for the industry? So what does the consumer want consumers like yourself and I are affected by behavioral targeting.

How many of you are comfortable with hyper targeting? Consumers are voicing their opinion and companies are listening as content creation continues to search. Consumers are spending more time online, more online time means more opportunities to collect data and consumers know it.

And this will impose some challenges with respect to targeting as privacy legislation increases limitations on data collection. The impact of context and content on the consumer is significant consumers want privacy and relevant information. When browsing the internet, consumers find ads more favorable and memorable when they appear alongside relevant content. Almost three quarters of consumers say it's important for ads to be personally relevant. In addition, over half of consumers hold brands accountable for content that appears next to their ads.

And half are likely to engage with ads found alongside high quality content. So what do people have to say? Don't just take this from us, take this from some of our partners in the industry too. While data privacy legislation is complex, the core belief across the industry is that it will shrink cookie based behavioral targeting and revive contextual targeting as an essential trend for the foreseeable future. And with standards like GDPR and C CPA already in play as well as Chrome's looming 2022 deadline, a decreased ability to rely on cookies will continue to take center stage globally. The ability to predict and target those wants and needs for a marketer based on personal information is becoming increasingly difficult. Advertisers will need to adjust their strategy to accommodate new regulations and changes like the loss of the third party cookies. We know that contextual targeting has been a tactic leveraged within the media buying landscape for a long time. And this topic is being raised more often as a proxy for audience for the future decline of cookies, the ability to serve the right message to the right audience at the right time and now in the right context, it's all about finding consumers in the right mindset.

But did you know that the topic of a page isn't the only thing that matters? The sentiment of a page can have a huge impact on how customers perceive your ad adjacency. Imagine if a technology can read a page like a human and understand the nuances of sentiments. Marketers are putting emotion at the core of their campaigns to connect with their consumers. Imagine if marketers can use technologies to decipher the sentiment and emotions of content, it would help marketers align campaigns with the content with similar emotions. For example, the goal of a luxury car ads such as BMW is to appeal to the reader's sense of relaxation, luxury and comfort. And so ads might be placed entirely outside of the automobile context and next to content that evokes those feelings. Now let's take a look at this BMW seven series ad, whether you're driving yourself or being driven around this BMW comes with some great features that help you relax. The ad creates a sense of warmth, luxury and comfort. Why don't we take a look at this ad? Yeah. So when I saw this ad that we just viewed, I was reading luxury content on a premium website. It got me thinking if it was not a luxury ad, would I have clicked on the ad content? Adjacency impacts consumer perception of a brand. You want to align your brand next to content that's suitable for your brand. And from an engagement perspective, 80% of consumers are likely to remember an ad if its message relates to the content around it, we remember the ad longer and feel more favorable to the ad.

If the message relates to the content, this trend is consistent across all verticals. We showed consumers articles representing multiple verticals. The answer was always consistent. Consumers preferred contextual relevance cross board and wanted their ads to be paired up with content across the same vertical.

For example, 79% of the people preferred entertainment ads appearing on entertainment articles. 78% preferred financial services ad on pages about an investing article. I'm sure some of you can relate to a full page car ad appearing in an auto magazine rather than a parenting or a childcare magazine.

Relevancy is the key. Now, let's talk a little bit about the state of the industry and some of the issues that are impacting marketers right now, let's start with cookies. We're going to talk about the loss of the third party cookie and how contextual targeting can help with these changes to our industry. Let's set the scene with the deprecation of cookies as well as the weakening of identifier for advertisers such as ID fa behavioral targeting, which is targeting based on what someone has previously purchased on their recent browsing and search history will become difficult for marketers as an example, there is no way for a marketer to know what my digital journey was and what websites I've visited.

And marketers stated that the loss of the third party cookie is a global media challenge. In 2021. This was in addition to the topic of targeting, which is shifting bio targetting preferences and buyer behaviors. The changes to regulation and changes on how targeting is achieved is both an opportunity and a challenge when it comes to the topic of identity. It's not surprising to see that online privacy is now more than ever a very important topic to consumers when it comes to browsing online. And now with the absence of cookie, what does it really mean for marketers? What are they asking for? We need the consumers to give us the permission to target them with the relevant UU ID or unique user identifier, which is one step towards that solution. As you can see, 82% of people in the industry agree that contextual targeting will gain favor as more consumers regain control over their data. Now, that's exciting news for contextual targeting. But what is contextual targeting? It's about the alignment between the ad and the content surrounding the ad targeting the right creative to match the right content personalizes the experience for consumers and helps marketers find consumers in the right mindset.

Now, let's take an example, let's take a look at this example of contextual targeting. In the first example the article speaks about the best hiking trails in New York City for a great weekend escape. The second example is another travel website highlighting some of the best road trips in America. Both of these are great examples for marketers to target ads related to airline tickets, family holidays, outdoor activities and credit cards to invoke a feeling of a mini getaway and a sense of holiday. I certainly think about my next holiday when I review these pages. This is also a great opportunity for brands to get in front of a dedicated consumer to further understand why context is critical and the power of sentiment. We surveyed consumers to get their feedback. You might ask, what is congruence effect? Congruence effect refers to the relationship between the message of the ad and the content surrounding it. We explored how sentiment influences the way consumers perceive the ads in associated brands. But how did we do this? We commission an online survey to understand how consumers feel about ads that appear alongside content with positive, negative and neutral sentiment. Our goal was to determine how aligning the ad messaging to the surrounding content impacted how consumers felt about associated brands. Let's break that down even more.

74% of consumers said they're likely to remember an ad if its message relates to the content around it. Now, if I were reading an online article about real estate, I would be more open to exploring a furnishing store ad or an ad about interior decoration. The next logical question is how does this content adjacency relate to sentiment? The results speak for themselves. Consumers were significantly more receptive and found ads more favorable when the ads aligned with content that was rich in positive and neutral sentiment. But what about negative sentiment?

It is unrealistic for brands to avoid all content with negative sentiment. We don't want brands avoiding content targeting breaking news where journalists are writing articles about current events. Then how can brands optimize consumer perception in environments with negative sentiments? Well, this is what we did.

We showed consumers two ads alongside content with negative sentiment. In this instance, the article talks about a pedestrian being struck by a car and killed on the road. The message for a one is a new model car with pedestrian detection. A message for A two is a generic ad about trunk space for all of your gear. Consumers preferred a one as the messaging aligned with the article. As you can see consumers preferred add one which aligned better with surrounding content. Consumers were more receptive, favorable and found add one to be more memorable. The percentage difference in terms of preferring add one to add to is significantly higher. Consumers don't expect brands to stop advertising but recognize when brands appear in suitable environments context matters.

As the world continues to adapt to current events, consumers are relying on prominent news sources to stay up to date with the increase in online audiences. There is an opportunity for both brands and publishers to reach consumers with suitable content and messages ultimately adds that align with surrounding content are much more preferred and memorable by consumers. Now, let's talk about some key takeaways and how they impact marketers trend.

One third party cookie deprecation as we discussed today, this was identified as the top challenge in 2021 for marketers to reach their ideal consumers. While online privacy is important when browsing content online, we need another way for marketers to reach their ideal audience.

Trend to contextual targeting, contextual targeting is the new proxy for marketers to reach their ideal audience. It gives consumers more control over their data. 72% of consumers say their perception of an online ad is impacted by the content surrounding the page trend three as a marketer align your ads with contextually relevant content contextually relevant targeting boosts attention by 107%. We hope this session was helpful to understand the current state of the industry and some of the challenges that are currently impacting marketers. It was a great pleasure presenting in front of such an amazing audience. Thank you to the organizers of the Woman Tech Global Conference for giving me an opportunity to present. Thank you very much.