Peer39 and Rise of Semantic Advertising

Today, Peer39, a technology company based in NYC, launched a new advertising product, SemanticMatch^™ that provides the ability to serve ads based on the meaning of a website page’s content. Unlike contextual targeting which matches ads to pre-selected keywords, SemanticMatch^™ uses proprietary algorithms that can glean content meaning and sentiment down to the page level. In addition, unlike behavioral targeting ad methods, SemanticMatch doesn’t need to track user behavior or place cookies, so if effective, this product may be very attractive to advertisers and publishers who want to avoid growing privacy concerns about online advertising.  Peer39 has also recently closed $8 million in financing and wooed Tacoda’s (the leader in behavioral targeting) Senior VP, Matthew S. Goldstein, as COO.

The idea of the semantic web has been steadily growing as more users begin to demand greater relevancy to the search results and advertisements they view online. In addition, advertisers and publishers are actively seeking more refined targeting methods since it stands to reason that serving a highly relevant ad to a user based on the content they are reading will significantly increase the change of a click and purchase. Companies like Peer39 join the efforts of other semantic solutions providers who are attempting to reduce some of the online noise.

Since these advertising products are still relatively new, they have yet to be widely adopted by media buyers. In the coming months, we’ll be sure to check in on the advancements in this technology and let our blog readers know if this is a tactic that should be considered in online media buying strategy.

For more information on other semantic advertising companies check out:

• Ad Pepper Media’s iSense semantic targeting product
• Aduna semantic advertising solutions

On a related note, we’ve been closely watching the development of semantic search engines. Considered by some as the first real challenge to Google dominance, semantic search companies like Kartoo (launched in 2001 as a “meta search engine”), Lexxe (founded in 2005), and Hakia (launched 11/06) have unfortunately been slow to catch on. However, the online community seems to agree that the maximalist method of Google search results pages is beginning to wear thin and there may soon be an opening for these new engines and technologies.

For information on semantic search engines ReadWriteWeb offers a good overview of the technologies involved written by Hakia’s CEO, Dr Riza C. Berkan. Other semantic search engines include: Powerset and Cognition Search. 

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