In Context: How contextual advertising drives measurable engagement

Contextual targeting has become a powerful strategy in driving down-funnel performance on CTV – but often, advertisers still think of streaming primarily as a brand awareness channel. In the latest installment of our In Context video series, we spoke with Laura Grover, SVP, Head of Client Solutions at EDO, about how contextual signals can drive measurable engagement throughout the funnel, and help brands better understand campaign performance.

EDO focuses on connecting TV ad exposures to consumer behavior, giving brands insight into how viewers respond after seeing an ad. Measurement like this helps advertisers move beyond simple reach metrics to understand what actually motivates viewers to engage with a brand.

For marketers exploring contextual strategies, experimentation paired with clear measurement is essential. Brands should define what success looks like, test contextual targeting alongside other campaign approaches, and use real-time insights to refine their strategy. As Grover explains: “Getting started, I think, is understanding what you want to achieve, being willing to try and experiment, and having that plan in place to measure and to continue on the course if it’s doing well – but also change when needed.”

In work EDO has done measuring contextual campaigns with Wurl leveraging scene-level emotions targeting, the results highlighted just how impactful this approach can be. When ads appear in moments that align with the surrounding content, they can feel more relevant to viewers and drive stronger responses.

When there were exposures or impressions activated against emotions, we saw a lift of 200% engagement for that part of the buy versus the rest of the campaign – so a really powerful story around the effectiveness of contextual advertising.”

Laura Grover

SVP, Head of Client Solutions
EDO

In Context is a Wurl original video series featuring short-form conversations with industry leaders exploring the impact of contextual targeting in CTV. Each episode dives into how emerging technologies are helping advertisers unlock smarter creative strategies, improve performance, and drive better outcomes on the biggest screen in the home.

Transcript:

Tori: Well, hi Laura, thank you so much for being here with us today. 

Laura: Thank you for having me. 

Tori: To start, we’d love to hear a little bit about your role and if you can tell us in a few words what EDO does. 

Laura: Yes, so I’ve been with EDO for four years. I’m the SVP, head of client solutions there. So I oversee our analytics, clients, data quality and decision sciences.

EDO, for those of you who don’t know, we are the TV Outcomes Company. So we are linking exposures to TV ads across both linear and streaming with consumer behaviors. And we’re capturing engagement or middle of the funnel, which could be either someone going to a brand’s website or a branded search for that brand.

And with that, we’re able to link those together and run attribution across those to understand what is the impact of TV buy on consumer behaviors.

Tori: There’s often been a perception that contextual is more about brand awareness than performance. So I’m curious to hear what role do you see contextual signals playing in down funnel measurement?

Laura: When you think of TV, it’s traditionally been around or thought of as an awareness channel. And then most digital channels are measured on purchase and lower funnel. Where EDO really focuses is on the middle of the funnel, where we do think it brings those together and helps advertisers understand their TV campaigns and not just who that campaign was delivered to, but what consumers were actually motivated by the ad they saw to then go and learn more about the brand. And that goes for whether it is a contextual campaign or any other type of buy that you’re doing.

I think it all comes together to then understand across your TV buy what is driving an impact with your consumers. Is your contextual buy behaving differently than other parts of your buy? And then how do you optimize around that?

Tori: It’d be great to put that into practice and hear a little bit about some of the contextual campaigns that you’ve measured. Can you give us an example?

Laura:  Yeah, we’ve done some really interesting work with Wurl in the past, where we’ve ingested the targeting that Wurl has done across different emotions and then been able to compare the performance of that part of a TV buy versus the rest of the TV buy, we saw that when there were exposures or impressions activated against emotions, we saw a lift of 200% engagement for that part of the buy versus the rest of the campaign. So a really powerful story around the effectiveness of contextual advertising and how, that right moment can really impact how a viewer is going to respond to an ad.

Tori:  What are the most compelling data points beyond the great example that you just shared that you’ve seen around contextual or CTV campaigns outperforming standard buys?

Laura:  Yes, so we’ve seen the strength of contextual advertising both on linear and streaming. One great example is State Farm Caitlin Clark has been one of their sponsors for the past few years. The State Farm ads with Caitlin Clark outperform other State Farm ads. But then we see even stronger performance of those creatives when it’s a game that she’s playing in. So we thought that was a really interesting example of, it’s not just even airing an athlete in a sports game, but when you air a sponsor in the game in which that person is actually playing, you get an additional lift in performance from that. So that’s been a really interesting example of contextual advertising.

Tori:  How do you recommend brands test and validate their contextual targeting strategy? In other words, where can they get started? 

Laura:  Yeah, I think you just have to get started and have a plan in place to measure and to measure quickly.

EDO has always been focused on bringing speed into what we do and bringing speed into measurement in an area where speed has not always been what people think of when they think of TV measurement.

So getting started, I think, is understanding what you want to achieve, being willing to try and experiment and have that plan in place to measure and to continue on the course of its doing well, but also change when needed.

Tori:  Awesome, thank you so much, Laura. We appreciate your time. Thank you.