ContactIn recent years, digital advertising has leaned heavily on identity-based targeting, relying on owned, authenticated data and cookies to reach audiences. However, as the industry embraces privacy-first practices and more immersive digital experiences, advertisers are shifting toward contextual strategies and media plans that prioritise timing, location, and content.
At its core, contextual targeting is a simple concept: placing ads in environments that make intuitive sense, for example:
Contextual levers aren't mutually exclusive. The most effective campaigns layer such parameters to configure placements that are dynamically shown to audiences.
What makes contextual targeting so powerful is its ability to deliver relevant campaigns without relying on first or third-party identifiers. This often results in natural campaigns that are more respectful of user privacy and better aligned with real-world attention patterns. Targeting parameters focused on time, geography, or content are table stakes and have been for some time. The Bidstack Platform enables advertisers to:
And when it comes to running advertising campaigns in virtual environments, we have the receipts. Across various industry verticals, in-game advertising campaigns that utilise contextual targeting consistently outperform industry benchmarks. Skippable and non-skippable in-game formats have surpassed engagement norms 95% and 97% of the time, respectively. In aggregate, contextually targeted campaigns in video games have been proven by Lumen Research to drive 12 times more attention than traditional digital channels.
Video games are uniquely suited to contextual targeting because they are inherently data-rich, immersive environments. Every player interaction, location, and gameplay moment generates real-time signals that can inform smarter, more relevant ad delivery. Unlike other media environments, video games are addressable in context, ranging from broad signals, such as time of day or geographic location, to specific in-game events, including the selection of a stadium or a particular athlete, or a significant gameplay moment.
Below are two client case studies from very different sectors, a food and merchandise delivery platform and a professional sports team, that demonstrate the impact of contextual targeting.
A European delivery company wanted to target millennials with an interest in savings and investments, but at a city level. Their in-house marketing team had previously been targeting cookie-based Google affinity audiences but were looking to future-proof their setup while diversifying media investment into video games. The in-house brand team collaborated with Bidstack to identify relevant target groups within the local population, based on age and postcode-level insights. Using a contextual approach, the campaign outperformed cookie-based audiences by targeting geographic areas where millennials were more likely to be interested in saving and investing. In comparison to previous campaigns utilising the same creative and call-to-action, the brand team realised a cheaper cost-per-acquisition in target cities through investment in precise, contextual audience segments.
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A major sports team wanted to serve fans within their approved home marketing area—a 75-mile radius around their home city—where, by the reckoning of their league, they can host fan development events, open brick-and-mortar shops, and ink sponsorship deals with global brands and local businesses. Concurrently, they wanted to engage fans and active brand sponsorship in sports simulation titles to which they had licensed their stadium, player roster and other intellectual property. In partnership with Bidstack, the team’s media agency successfully activated geo-based placements within licensed and unlicensed sports simulation video games using the Bidstack Platform, which enables postcode-level targeting within a defined radius.
As the industry rethinks how it understands and reaches consumers, contextual targeting offers a clear, future-ready path forward. It’s not about abandoning first-party identifiers altogether, but rather combining owned deterministic data (such as device or platform) with contextual signals to deliver smarter, more relevant, helpful campaigns.
A contextual approach to campaign planning and delivery enables advertisers to optimise their media investment. By aligning campaigns with the content that target audiences are willingly and actively interacting with, advertisers can reduce wasted impressions and maximise the return on every dollar spent. On the supply side, game developers who permit user data for campaign management, benefit from better-matched and greater demand, higher yields, and enriched inventory that positions itself and performs more like premium media.
