Three Reasons Contextual Commerce Media is Key to Your Strategy
It’s almost been half a decade and marketers have heard all there is to know about Google’s original plans to deprecate third-party cookies back in January of 2020. So what else is there left to say?
Let’s shift the focus away from wondering when the cookieless era is going to begin, and start thinking about how CPG marketers will thrive in this new digital landscape.
Here are three reasons why contextual commerce media is the key alternative for thriving in the cookieless era.
What is Contextual Commerce Media?
Contextual commerce media is an offshoot of commerce media that enables more engaging experiences by leveraging contextual relevant content to reach consumers in the right mindset thereby driving better outcomes.
Simply put: It’s about reaching the right audience, at the right time, with the right mindset.
Contextual commerce media serves as an alternative to programmatic media’s play of reaching as many people as possible (oftentimes to the detriment of the consumer), and retail media networks (RMNs) who have first-party data, but access to a pool of primarily later-stage, on-site customers.
“Contextual Commerce is the bridge that allows for a full-funnel media solution, making brand media work harder and retail media more efficient,” says Julia Miller, Group VP Commerce Media at Mars United Commerce, ahead of the Path to Purchase Retail Media Summit.
As marketing executives continue to seriously consider contextual commerce as an alternative to the third-party-cookie, the idea of tapping into the consumer mindset as the only truly scalable and future-proof strategy becomes more pertinent. Let’s dive into three key reasons why that might be.
Three Reasons Why Contextual Commerce Media Matters:
1. Cookie Deprecation and Privacy Concerns
Currently, three of the top four most used internet browsers have already deprecated or started to deprecrate third-party cookie tracking. Google - the most used platform - will be the last to adopt if they stick to their 2025 plans.
Dramatic privacy changes have been made in parallel to cookie deprecation, the CCPA and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency being some of the largest. There’s growing concern on what to do in the face of these changes: 86% of marketing professionals reported that their brands are very strongly or strongly considering the growing consumer privacy concerns in their own advertising strategies.
Budget and resource shifts have been made, retargeting and basic programmatic functionality no longer work, and consistent measurement will be difficult to stitch together. How does contextual commerce media address this?
Opportunities
Scalability: Contextual commerce media reaches existing and new shoppers in high intent, off-site environments - such as recipe sites. This takes the high exposure programmatic advertising has to offer, and introduces a more human, mindset-driven element to targeting.
New and Lapsed Users: Because contextual commerce media aims to target users at relevant, high-intent moments, ads are more likely to build brand affinity and awareness - tapping into new and lapsed users.
Proven iROAS: Contextual commerce media campaigns drive incrementality, Chicory averages 3X iROAS by leveraging contextual commerce.
2. The Rise of Retail Media
Retail media ad spending is in the hundreds of billions - and it’s only growing.
Source: eMarketer
Retail media networks are assets owned and operated by retailers themselves, which house and leverage first-party shopper data. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic transforming digital retail and shuffling consumers to the online shopping space, retail media networks for department stores, mass merchandisers, and especially grocers have seen massive growth.
Subsequently, as on-site inventory becomes more limited and retailers more prevalent, RMNs become interested in influencing the shopper in off-site environments as well. Currently, they’re tackling this by tapping into primarily programmatic channels.
Essentially, while RMNs have valuable insights into on-site shopper activity, off-site visibility is a bit more scarce. Because of these points, consider contextual commerce media as a complement to retail media. In fact, leading RMNs partner with contextual commerce media platforms to build out a more holistic view of their audience journeys.
Marketers that enable contextual commerce media can work as off-site partners to RMNs, leveraging retailer’s first-party data while simultaneously solving for limitations in scalability, targeting, and even abilities in reaching new and lapsed customers.
3. Consumer Inspiration
We’ve talked about how cookie deprecation and privacy changes have left marketers scrambling for alternatives and questioning where advertising dollars should be allocated.
Consider the consumer, though - these changes reflect an inundated advertising landscape for the day-to-day user, as a majority of programmatic and irrelevant ads continue to negatively shift attitudes towards online advertising as a whole.
Above all else, marketers who adopt contextual commerce media strive to reach a consumer in a relevant and respectful way. They aim to reach consumers who are more likely to be inspired in looking for a product because they’re already in the right mindset.
Engaging with consumers through contextually relevant, brand-safe content helps position brands and agencies as helpful instead of intrusive.
Want to learn more about how brands and agencies are driving full-funnel impact with Contextual Commerce Media? Read here about Chicory’s innovative ad suite for advertisers.
