Click Through Reads #1: Contextual Targeting and Covid-19 Ad Credits

We’ve been at it with our indelible Backlink Breaker series for awhile, and we’ve decided to officially launch the Paid Media equivalent. We’re lovingly calling it Click Through Reads. CTR? Get it?

We’ll be sharing important paid media news and announcements weekly (schedule and news cycle permitting) to make sure we’re all up to speed on the latest developments.


Without further ado: the news of the week!

Contextual Targeting: 

AdAge published an article suggesting contextual targeting is the solution to recent updates in online privacy laws. Due to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that went into effect on Jan. 1, and Google announcing that Chrome would eliminate cookies by 2022 there is a rush for advertisers to figure out how to comply while reaching new customers. Their answer is a more refined version of contextual targeting, what they are calling “contextual intelligence”. To many, contextual targeting is seen as a dated strategy, but this article argues that it has evolved over the last few years and is uniquely positioned to offer a richer portrait of customers when combined with first-person data. They also suggest that it can help brands with brand safety during the time of COVID-19 as third-party programmatic vendors may automatically blacklist things related to the coronavirus pandemic. 


COVID-19 Ad Credit:

Google released more info on the $340 million ad credit program for small and medium businesses. The details still aren’t exact on who will actually receive the credits, but some of the additional info includes:

  • Ad account must have spent in 10 out of 12 months in 2019 and in jan and/or feb this year

  • Ad credits will start to roll out in late May over the course of a few months

  • Ad credit will vary based on past spend, country, and currency

  • Credit is good through the rest of this year, expiring on 12/31/20

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