Contextual AI is Pontiac’s AI-based, custom targeting solution that performs deep content analysis to find the best contextual placements for your ads.

OVERVIEW:
Contextual AI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to digest the content of articles across the web and understand the text the way a human would. By processing entire websites, the AI overcomes the ambiguities in language that over-simplified tools such as keywords can overlook, accurately assigning meaning to the words in context. (For example, does the word ‘Apple’ in this article refer to a company or a fruit?).
Leverage this rich contextual analysis to build custom lookalike segments from a few sample articles or select from our list of curated contextual segments for over 300 IAB content categories.

Depicted above, the AI converts text to a list of numbers which represent semantic meaning, allowing full webpages to be indexed for contextual relevance.

SET-UP:

To use one of the curated contextual segments for an IAB content category, create a Line Item and select the audience from the ‘Contextual Audiences’ section under ‘Associate Segments’.

To leverage a custom contextual segment, follow these steps:

1. Define your target content: Find 4-5 sample articles that represent your brand’s target content.
2. Create the Audience: In the ‘Audiences’ tab, select ‘New Contextual Audience’ and enter your sample articles. Using NLP, the sample articles are analyzed to achieve a deep understanding of content and meaning. The algorithm compares your sample articles to millions of URLs across the web to find the closest contextual matches.
3. Target the Audience on a Line: Matched articles are compiled in a custom segment that can be added to your Line Item under ‘Audiences’ using the ‘Associate Segments’ button.

These audience segments contain Full URLs for precise contextual targeting. It is not recommended to layer this segment with any additional inventory or audience targeting as this may restrict campaign scale.

For recommendations on selecting sample articles and more information on how the AI works, see here: Contextual AI

Hear what Pontiac CTO, Erik Thorson, and independent data scientist, Michael Misiewicz, have to say about the future of cookies and role of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in contextual targeting solutions on the 2022 Pontiac Summit Tech Panel: