Sparking a Contextual Targeting Revolution With Banana Bread
In early 2019, Gourmet Ads was approached with what seemed like a simple — but highly strategic — request from a global dairy client: “Can you run our butter ads only next to banana bread recipes?”
At the time, the advertising industry was heavily reliant on third-party data and broad contextual categories like “baking” or “recipes.” However, this client’s internal research uncovered something remarkably specific: consumers who bake or buy banana bread purchase three times more butter than the average shopper. That singular insight launched one of the most transformative projects in our company’s history — and helped shape the future of contextual targeting and contextual advertising.
What is Contextual Targeting?
Contextual targeting is a form of targeted advertising that involves placing ads on web pages that are relevant to the on-page content. This approach ensures that advertisements resonate with the viewer’s current interests, creating a seamless browsing experience. Contextual targeting uses machine learning algorithms to analyze the content of a web page and match ads effectively, improving relevance and engagement. Unlike behavioral targeting, which relies on tracking user behavior across different sites, contextual targeting places ads in appropriate environments based solely on the content of the web page. This method respects user privacy while still delivering highly relevant ads.
A Challenge No Existing Platform Could Solve
When the client initially approached us, there was no off-the-shelf adtech solution capable of delivering this level of targeting. Traditional contextual targeting was too broad. Their agency’s third-party data strategy wasn’t yielding the engagement they needed. What they wanted was deep precision — ads placed only on content about banana bread. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Recognizing the potential impact of this ad campaign — and the broader opportunity it represented — we decided to take a bold approach. We wouldn’t just meet the brief. We’d build something new. Contextual ad campaigns, leveraging advanced contextual intelligence, were essential in achieving this deep precision.
Building Contextual Advertising From the Ground Up
Within a week, our team manually curated a list of 5,000 banana bread recipe URLs, scouring the internet for the most relevant pages. In parallel, our Ad Operations team partnered with Xandr’s product engineers to create a custom targeting method capable of placing contextual ads only on those pages — down to the exact URL level.
The result? A six-week test campaign that would run in direct competition with the agency’s existing third-party data strategy. And the outcome was undeniable: our campaign delivered the highest engagement and strongest performance across all media partners.
Buoyed by these results, the client came back with a bigger ask: “Can we target more than just banana bread?”
Scaling Success With Data, Automation, and Contextually Relevant Ads
From that point on, we expanded the recipe categories to include other high-butter-use loaves like carrot, blueberry, and pear. We introduced automated URL crawling, enhanced data collection methods, and even collaborated with our publisher network to create new recipe content tailored to the campaign’s needs.
The result was a dramatic scale-up — from 5,000 to 12,000 highly-targeted recipe URLs — all while maintaining the same level of precision. The client, impressed by the continued success, moved the majority of their media budget to Gourmet Ads and scaled the campaign internationally to 28 countries by year’s end. Additionally, the use of contextually relevant ads significantly boosted consumer engagement and ad recall.
What started as a simple test had become a cornerstone of their global media strategy.
The Birth of a Scalable, Industry-Leading Solution
That campaign didn’t just solve a problem—it reshaped our business.
Today, Gourmet Ads operates one of the most advanced contextual targeting engines in the industry. Known internally as The URL Project, our system has evolved from a manual process to a fully-automated platform capable of analyzing content at the deepest levels of granularity.
Here’s what that looks like:
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8 billion URLs indexed across food, health, wellness, and lifestyle categories
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45,000 new URLs collected daily, all contextually analyzed
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500+ contextual segments, available across all major DSPs
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Custom segments created in 24–48 hours, based on client needs
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AI-powered classification for better accuracy, faster scaling, and deeper insights
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100% privacy-compliant and brand-safe by design
This URL-level infrastructure allows us to guarantee true contextual relevance—not just by keyword, but by headline, body content, metadata, and even imagery.
How Contextual Targeting Works
Contextual targeting works by analyzing the content of a web page and matching ads to that content. This is done using sophisticated machine learning algorithms that can understand the context, sentiment, and semantics of a given webpage. Advertisers can choose from various contextual segments offered within demand-side platforms (DSPs), allowing them to target based on industry vertical, season, topic, and more. For instance, a travel brand may use a “Spring Break” contextual segment to ensure their ads appear in contexts that align with that specific theme. By scanning page content to display ads within suitable environments, contextual targeting increases recognition, personalization, engagement, and favorability towards a brand’s messaging.
Contextual vs. Behavioral Targeting
Contextual targeting and behavioral targeting are two different approaches to targeted advertising. Contextual targeting focuses on the content of a web page, ensuring that ads are relevant to the on-page content. In contrast, behavioral targeting focuses on the user’s web-browsing behavior, tracking their activities across the internet to serve ads based on their past behavior. Contextual targeting is a more privacy-friendly option, as it does not rely on tracking users across different sites. Behavioral targeting, on the other hand, uses third-party cookies to monitor user behavior. Contextual targeting is also more cost-effective, with ads showing a up to 50% lower cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) compared to behavioral targeting. This makes contextual targeting a compelling choice for advertisers looking to align their ads with relevant content while respecting user privacy.
Why Contextual Targeting Matters More Than Ever
As the digital marketing and digital advertising landscapes evolve, brands are seeking new ways to reach relevant audiences without compromising on privacy or performance. Contextual targeting has emerged as the clear solution. Contextual advertising spending is projected to surpass $562 billion annually by 2030, highlighting its significant growth trajectory.
But not all contextual targeting is created equal.
The difference lies in depth, accuracy, and agility. While many platforms still rely on generalized category matching, Gourmet Ads has built a data-rich, vertically specialized system that allows for hyper-targeted campaigns — customized by recipe, ingredient, health goal, or any niche requirement.
And it all started with banana bread.
Looking Ahead
What began as a campaign to boost butter sales has grown into a global, scalable, and deeply impactful strategy—one that continues to power some of the most effective programmatic campaigns in the food and health verticals today.
Whether you’re a CPG brand, an agency, or a programmatic buyer with a unique challenge, Gourmet Ads is here to help. Our contextual engine was built to be fast, flexible, and laser-focused on relevance.
Got a challenge in mind? Let’s build your next success story together.
