In this post, we’ll take a look at two contextual advertising companies in the marketplace, DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Sciences.
These are companies that are looking at the content of webpages and sites, and help advertisers understand where their ads run, target ads on specific pages, know when ads are in view, prevent fraudulent ad delivery, and measure who the ads were delivered to.
The companies that are on my radar are:
- DoubleVerify
- Integral Ad Sciences
- Moat (Oracle)
- Grapeshot (Oracle)
- comScore
- Peer39
DoubleVerify
DoubleVerify has historically been a solution for advertisers to prevent unsafe ad impression delivery, and has expanded into category and keyword contextual targeting.
Like many of their competitors they are available in top demand side platforms, and their technology is evolving into a solution for video and connected TV ads.
Their connected TV ads solution uses custom built algorithms, machine learning and proprietary detection methods to understand the context and content of Connected TV ads.
As the proliferation of hate speech become very important to advertisers, they focused on combatting this challenge.
In a recent article DoubleVerify went into some details about how it identifies and tracks hate speech online. Their Inflammatory News and Politics criteria looks at the language being used on a page, the keyword associations, and related sites with similar language to help identify inflammatory and fake news. Their algorithmic decisioning engine helps advertisers avoid this type of content on blog posts, user generated content, in article comments, and videos.
Their research July 2020 shows that in Minnesota, where George Floyd protests began, had the second highest spike of online hate speech. Nationally, hate speech has risen 38% in 2020.
Integral Ad Science
Integral Ad Sciences’s recent marketing campaign focus on the idea of not just brand safety, which is about protecting a brand from content that is unbecoming for association, but also suitability.
According to Chance Johnson, Chief Revenue Officer at IAS, Every brand has a different perspective on what’s right for them.
In making the distinction between brand safety and brand suitability, Chance says that safety is binary.
For the most part something is or isn’t safe. Hate speech and adult content are, for the most part, content that brands will want to stay away from.
What’s appropriate for an alcohol brand is different than what’s appropriate for a bank. So, IAS makes it possible for brands to determine on the keyword level or the pre-created category level, how to adjust the targeting to ensure brands are able to make the right decisions for their ad targeting needs.
