If many users no longer consent to cookies on various pages, this will naturally have a negative impact on your cookie targeting. The target groups of cookies are no longer as representative as they were a few years ago. This presents you with a difficult dilemma: how can you offer users relevant ads without using personal data? The key to this could be contextual targeting, which uses a wide variety of triggers to display relevant advertising.
One of these triggers for digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising for mobile devices, for example, is the location. This is known as contextual geotargeting. In this guide, we reveal why this is not only relevant for local heroes, but also has what it takes to modernize your mobile advertising. 
Contextual geotargeting vs. cookie targeting
Cookies have long been considered the panacea for personalized advertising in online marketing. The cookies were able to track the behavior of users across several pages and use certain thresholds to estimate what impetus they still needed in the form of targeted ads. The behavior is evaluated anonymously and the advertising is placed via retargeting.
The advantage for users is that they always see the ads that actually interest them - across browsers, different platforms and devices. However, trust in Facebook and the like has been shaken, and not just since the Cambridge Analytica scandal. More and more people are asking themselves what data is being collected from them and websites have long had to ask for consent if they still rely on traditional cookie targeting. Even if you still work primarily with cookies, precise analytical statements can only be made about visitors who have not deactivated cookies. This naturally frustrates marketers, because with lack of analysis, the relevance, quality and ROI of the ads also dwindle.
Contextual geotargeting does things a little differently and manages completely without the data of individual users. Contextual targeting in itself is also nothing new; it places certain ads in certain environments. An advertisement for breakfast cereal has less wastage in the morning than in the evening, so this form of contextual work is actually tried and tested.
However, what the Berlin-based company Adsquare has done and wants to do with this is anything but old hat.
This is how Adsquare envisions the future of advertising
Regular geotargeting works with comparatively imprecise data sets and is therefore no substitute for digital cookie targeting. As a rule, geotargeting is even quite simple: if potential customers are sitting in a car on the highway, they should see advertising boards for rest stops.
It gets more interesting when we include digital screens in this form of geotargeting. Inner-city businesses can then set up a fence of moving billboards with current offers around their own business. This mix of geotargeting and digital signage allows more flexibility and works together with various players. Screens at fixed locations and mobile screens (for example in cabs) can be controlled based on their GPS data and show contextually relevant advertising.
Now, however, Adsquare combines this and other separately collected data to create an overview that is intended to send targeted advertising to mobile devices. Contextual geotargeting as used by Adsquare uses movement and location data together with target group data and can therefore be used like cookie targeting, except that users collect their cookies in real life, so to speak. And personal data does not even have to be collected.
Contextual geotargeting can use demographic targeting to predict the presence of a target group in location X, allowing advertisers to send demographic targeting to mobile devices without collecting cookies from users. Unlike tracking at zip code level alone, this allows targeted campaigns to be run, for example.
For example, the block between a gym and a secondary school could be frequented mainly by young people in the morning hours, but their radius is reduced when classes start. Afterwards, it is senior citizens who work out at the gym in the morning and are replaced at lunchtime by mostly female exercisers with higher incomes, before the working men and women exercise after work.
The whole thing works in the same way as target groups in social networks or classic cookie targeting. Tests were primarily carried out with outdoor advertising, but the integration of mobile devices is still to come and offers interesting prospects for both stationary retail and digital companies.
What contextual geotargeting will look like in practice
In order to ensure the best possible use with the lowest possible scatter loss, contextual geotargeting relies on different technologies:
Proximity targeting - this uses location-based data such as places of interest or stores. This can be combined with other data, for example. Weather data, for example, provides the basis for the assumption that sunny weather sends users to the beer garden, on Saturday at noon soccer fans are more likely to be on the train to the stadium, etc.
Audience targeting - contextual geotargeting also continues to rely on digital target group definitions, for example based on their app usage behavior.
Real Time Footfall Management - this analysis can show the behaviour of groups of people in real time, allowing advertisers to optimize their campaigns in real time.
Post Campaign Footfall Management - this analysis, on the other hand, is used after a campaign and shows flows and behaviour after the campaign has ended in order to optimize the effectiveness of advertising for future campaigns.
Advertise when and where your customers are
With the dwindling importance of cookies, an era is coming to an end. However, that doesn't mean you have to do without personalized advertising, you just need to find more elegant ways to reach your target audience.
For the latest information on online marketing, you can also subscribe to our newsletter or contact us directly if your company needs support. Because whether it's contextual targeting, classic cookies or automated ads on Google or Facebook - we are happy to provide you with our expertise.
Finally, you should no longer think of digital campaigns exclusively in terms of cookie targeting, but explore new possibilities. Marketing is not only becoming increasingly digital, but also increasingly mobile. Approaches such as DOOH and contextual geotargeting have future prospects precisely where advertisers can no longer rely exclusively on cookies.
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