How Hearst Magazines is using first-party data and AI for post-cookie ad targeting

Hearst Magazines has developed a new first-party ad targeting product, with the help of AI, that could improve click through rates by double-digits, even in a post-cookie publishing landscape, according to the publisher. Hearst said that its new AI-powered ad tech tool, named Aura, would be more effective than relying on third-party cookies, which are being phased out across the industry in the name of privacy. “We’re utilizing behavioral, contextual and proprietary AI technology,” Jen Dorre, senior VP of ad product at Hearst Magazines, told Ad Age in an interview, adding that “we are really incorporating commerce signals.” See Ad Age’s Tech Power List honoring marketing leaders Hearst Magazines has 50 brands in its portfolio, including Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar. The publisher counts 300 million users online, and said it tested Aura on 25 of its magazine websites with 145 million U.S. monthly users. “It doesn’t require cookied users or even logged-in users,” said Mike Nuzzo, Hearst Magazines senior VP of data and insights. The ad product ingests billions of signals, including hundreds of millions of commerce signals. “We do over a billion dollars’ worth of commerce on our sites every year, which actually translates into tens of billions of content, or purchase intent, signals.” Hearst said it was able to develop more advanced ad targeting by applying sophisticated AI models that analyze the activity across its publications, making better predictions about the intent of readers. The ad tech upgrade is a sign of how publishers are trying to make better use of their first-party data to get value out of audiences at a time when digital advertising has less access to data online. Apple already shut down cookies on Safari web browsers, and Google plans to do the same on Chrome by the middle of next year. Mobile devices also are hiding data from publishers, making it harder to connect with consumers that don’t log into their sites. It’s also harder for publishers with multiple websites to coordinate ad campaigns across their domains. “We have done a lot of testing,” Dorre said, “we have looked at click through rates, brand lift studies. We are looking at attention [metrics], and across all three we are seeing an increase.” “We applied Aura targeting to over 20 million impressions across our network of sites,” a Hearst spokesperson said in an email statement, “and saw 15 to 20% increases of [click through rates] and attention quality among the eight luxury campaigns that were analyzed.” Hearst announced its new platform ahead of its attendance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where there will be a heavy focus on post-cookie ad tech. Google’s planned changes to Chrome, especially, will be a topic of discussion among advertisers, publishers and ad tech providers. Cannes Lions coverage See all of the Grand Prix winners here Top 5 Grand Prix campaigns Hearst applies Aura’s targeting capabilities to ad campaigns that it sells directly, and not yet through programmatic pipes, Nuzzo said. However, it is considering applying the technology through private programmatic deals. “The content itself is kind of at the core of this and I think that’s what makes this cookieless,” Nuzzo said. In an announcement, Nuzzo used an example of how the contextual signals help identify shoppers more accurately. “We can derive that a pet food shopper visiting one of our sites also happens to be a trail runner and family vacation planner,” Nuzzo said.

How Hearst Magazines is using first-party data and AI for post-cookie ad targeting

Featured Stories