In this edition of our Supply-Side Spotlight series, we spend some time with GumGum, a contextual intelligence company which makes it possible for advertisers to discover digital relevance with laser precision.
Since its launch in 2008, GumGum has carved a name for itself by leveraging deep learning technology to create a proprietary contextual intelligence platform known as Verity. In addition to managing the placement of multi-format ads exactly where consumers are most likely to see them, GumGum’s contextual platform is the only system which scans text, images, videos and audio when evaluating online content.
What makes GumGum unique among programmatic supply platforms?
GumGum combines proprietary technology, quality inventory, and eye-catching ad products to drive performance for brands by engaging users on relevant and safe content. We align with the most relevant content by honing in on page-level content that will amplify your brand message, achieve brand safety and suitability by avoiding unsafe content, without constraining campaign reach or performance, and allow you to future-proof your targeting by reaching your desired audience without relying on personal data or cookie. Since Verity gives us a unique and better understanding of, and classification of, the content on these pages, we understand these pages better than any other exchange or SSP. We know things about the page that nobody else knows and we can use that context to more effectively target within these sites. Verity makes these sites more valuable to you than another exchange or SSP would plus we specialize in unique placements across publishers that are not accessible through any other platform.
What is Verity? How is it different from other contextual solutions?
Verity is the artificial intelligence at the heart of our platform that scans digital content for offensive text and imagery and filters for eligible inventory based on your brand’s unique safety concerns. Allowing advertisers to accurately deliver their messages in brand safe, contextually relevant environments all before an ad is served. Verity effectively “sees” and analyzes the text and prominent images and in a sense allows GumGum to see and understand a page as a human would – by comprehending the holistic and subtle meaning of all text and imagery on the page. Verity is MRC accredited for this contextual analysis along with brand safety and suitability and delivers the industry’s most sophisticated contextual targeting without sacrificing brand safety or campaign reach. GumGum is the only independent ad tech provider to have this content-level contextual analysis and brand suitability MRC accreditation across desktop and mobile and Verity is the only contextual intelligence solution that considers images, text, videos and metadata when scoring relevance and determining suitability, ensuring brand safety and campaign success. As an added bonus, advertisers can also safely say goodbye to cookies with Verity since the technology relies solely on contextual data and not the behavioral data cookies being collected.
What types of advertisers are you working with, and what do you see as their typical goals when leveraging Contextual Intelligence?
GumGum offers a complete solution for advertisers of all kinds. We realize that it’s an exciting, but challenging time to be an advertiser. Whether it’s because of changes in ad formats, or changes in policy or declining ad effectiveness, buyers are faced with increasing pressure to find new ways to target their audience and generate attention to their ads. For more than a decade, GumGum has been developing targeting and advertising solutions aimed at giving buyers better alternatives to invasive targeting and interruptive ads. Since Verity runs across a network of thousands of trusted, quality publisher sites and has a unique understanding of those sites allowing advertisers to hone in on the most relevant content to them, this all adds up to better performance regardless of the advertiser. At the end of the day, consumers are more likely to see, engage and recall a GumGum ad – opening up the possibilities for brand awareness and performance driven advertisers.
How does contextual targeting stack up against Behavioral Targeting? Is it better for certain types of campaigns over others?
GumGum has been proven to outperform both other contextual targeting as well as behavioral targeting thanks to its accredited contextual intelligence engine Verity, across any type of campaign. In a recent study of contextual targeting technologies, Verity not only outperformed the competition by being 69% more accurate, but also outperformed the baseline for contextual targeting by almost 2x. When compared against behavioral targeting, Verity is proven to enable more efficient media buying as well as better ad performance with 41% lower cost per viewability impressions and 48% lower cost per click. The bottom line is that working with GumGum is a smart, viable and future-proof solution for user-based targeting.
How does Contextual work in formats and channels outside of display, like video, CTV, and audio?
Contextual targeting on the page level has powered all of our media buys for years, but we’ve now bottled up these processing capabilities and made them available across OLV, OTT and CTV channels. We combine natural language processing and computer vision to look at audio transcription, frame sampling (1 frame/ sec) for image recognition & OCR, along with metadata to actually see what’s inside of these video formats – not just the title description or metadata or page (which is what you’re getting with other platforms). Again, since we are able to understand the full context of the video we are able to ensure ads are being placed within relevant, brand-safe video content across these channels.
What capabilities does the Just Premium acquisition add to GumGum’s value proposition for publishers and advertisers?
By joining forces with Just Premium, we’ll be able to bring clients global scale, new ad products, and further our content level roadmap. GumGum, along with Verity, will now be accessible in 10 key markets globally (across Europe, Mexico, Japan, Canada, U.S.), bringing more publishers and deeper brand and agency relationships. We’ll have access to more attention-grabbing ad units and be well equipped to reach even more consumers without the use of personal data.
How is GumGum helping advertisers and publishers think about and plan for the cookieless future?
GumGum’s technology does not rely on any data that cookies collect; it solely relies on the contextual data scraped directly from the content. This unlocks the ability for advertisers to reach any audience they want without using any third-party cookies and for publishers to customize their content for niche audiences. Both advertisers and publishers can find the right placements without breaching any privacy laws or relying on any behavioral data. When partnering with GumGum, you can feel safe about letting the cookie crumble.
If you’d like to learn more about taking advantage of GumGum’s best-in-class contextual technology via BidSwitch, just reach out to your account manager today to get started.