Insightful Contextual Expansion – part one

In the first of this two-part blog post, we explore the concept of mindset targeting and the relationship between context and engagement online.

The emergence of real-time advertising made the marketing mantra “right person, right time, right place” more relevant and achievable than ever before. However, advances in technology mean that this approach may not be relevant anymore.

The problem is right person, right time, right place is too static and implies that there are set times at which brands should target people. Real-time bidding (RTB) gives advertisers the power to be much more flexible when it comes to deciding when and where to place every impression. Our research has proven that a) no two people are the same and b) consumers’ media consumption habits constantly change. In order for brands to engage successfully with their target audience(s) they need to be able to track and match these changes in media consumption and have the power to engage in the most appropriate moments – which are more often than not fleeting.

Consumers’ media consumption has increased by 17% since 2005, according to an IPA Touchpoints study. On the other hand, sleep patterns have remained relatively stable (the average person gets 8 hours and 47 minutes sleep a night) – ergo, today, we are consuming media faster and more often.

One of the biggest drivers of this step-change is the ability for consumers to engage with more than one screen at the same time (dual screening). Across all channels – the proportion of people accessing two more channels for 30 mins has increased from 79% in 2005 to 94% in 2018. Put all of this together and it’s clear that it is getting harder and harder to capture consumer attention with competitive brands all vying for the attention of similar audiences.

This increased competition has had a knock-on effect on digital ad spend: UK digital display budgets rose by 13% between 2017 and 2018 totalling £13.4 billion, according to the iab. Furthermore, the study predicts that ad spend and media consumption will continue to grow.

What does this mean for digital advertisers?

Advertising at the right moment is important, however, new artificial intelligence-driven technology allows marketers to understand the mindset of individual consumers within their audience segments and target them at the most appropriate moment for each individual. Our research demonstrates that including context, mood, and mindset into audience targeting has a positive effect on digital marketing campaign performance.

The questions we sought the answers to were:

·        How do you find new customers online?

·        How do you do that cost-effectively?

·        How can you optimise targeting without compromising scale?

·        How does context affect engagement?


We found that the relationship between context and engagement is key so we incorporated context into our targeting to further understand the relationship between audience, context, and engagement. What this boils down to is: why does a given consumer respond to one brand’s ad at a certain moment, when they are in a certain mindset, but they don’t at other times.

We believe that finding those moments, and identifying the audience mindset, is key in being able to understand what drives your audience to respond.

 The trend is not your friend

The graph below shows that the audience segment “yoga” delivers the most effective context for three out of 20 days for this campaign but on 17 out of 20 days “yoga” is not the best performing content.


Source: illuma

When we look at the whole picture, the findings are a lot more complex.


Source: iluma

Initially, the graph looks random across the same 20 days, the best performing content changes every day, and the best performers include health, news, gardening, spa holidays, and recipes. With such seemingly random content performance, across different themes, does this mean that there is no correlation between context and ad engagement?

Certainly not, there is a relationship – but there is another factor which is a combination of context and moment – mindset.

What we can conclude from this data is that the best performing digital ad campaigns are those that target the right person, in the right place, at the right time, and when they are in the right mindset. This requires a fully flexible and adaptable approach which takes into consideration the changing nature of audience behaviour. 

The new world

In today’s new real-time digital world the original right person, right place, right time tactic is too stringent. Instead of targeting audience segments and hoping current trends will continue, savvy brands are investing in ways to target individuals, in fleeting moments, when they are in the right mindset. This tactic delivers better campaign performance and provides a better user experience.

illuma has the technology for marketers and consumers to reap the benefits that some mindset targeting.

Contact us today to find out more.

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