While most of the digital advertising world scrambles to adapt to a cookieless future, one channel has been quietly leading the way all along: Connected TV (CTV).
CTV doesn’t rely on cookies — and never has. Yet, many advertisers and agencies continue to apply legacy audience-targeting strategies that simply don’t fit the nature of this medium. It’s time to rethink the playbook.
CTV Has Never Used Cookies
Unlike browsers or mobile apps, CTV environments don’t support cookies. There’s no third-party cookie to track. No cookie syncs. No retargeting pixels.
And yet — much of the industry still attempts to retrofit audience-based strategies into CTV using proxies like:
- IP address targeting
- Device graph stitching
- Probabilistic identity models
These methods not only raise growing privacy concerns, they also dilute the very thing that makes CTV powerful: context.
Audience Targeting Falls Flat in CTV
Trying to replicate web-style audience targeting on CTV often results in:
- Inaccuracy: You’re targeting a household, not a user.
- Waste: Ads show up in irrelevant or unsuitable content.
- Regulatory risk: GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy laws make identity-based targeting increasingly fraught.
A classic example: showing a luxury car ad during a slapstick comedy show simply because the viewer matches a “car intender” profile. The context is jarring — and the message misses.
Contextual Targeting Is Built for CTV
CTV is a content-first, immersive, and non-clickable environment. That makes context — what someone is watching, how they’re feeling, what the scene looks like — far more important than who they are.
With contextual targeting, advertisers can:
- Reach viewers in the right moment with relevant creative
- Align brand messaging with tone, emotion, and genre
- Avoid privacy risks entirely — no personal data required
It’s precise, privacy-first, and perfectly suited to how people engage with TV today.
What Agencies and Brands Should Do Instead
Rather than force-fit identity-based methods, advertisers should shift to:
- Moment-based planning: Align creative with content categories (e.g. travel shows, cooking segments, sports analysis)
- Scene-level targeting: Match ads to visual and emotional cues in real time
- Cookieless measurement: Focus on contextual impact, brand recall, and outcome-based KPIs
In short: plan for presence, not personas.
How SceneContext Helps You Make the Shift
SceneContext is purpose-built for the cookieless world of CTV. We enable advertisers and agencies to run high-performance, privacy-compliant video campaigns — across global markets.
Our AI-powered platform:
- Analyzes video content at the scene level to understand mood, brand suitability, and thematic relevance
- Offers custom contextual categories tailored to your vertical (e.g., FMCG, automotive, finance, entertainment)
- Ensures brand-safe, contextually aligned ad placements — without tracking users or devices
Whether you’re activating CTV campaigns in Berlin, London, or Los Angeles, SceneContext helps you reach the right audience by reaching the right moment.
The shift away from cookies isn’t just about compliance — it’s a chance to reconnect with advertising that feels human again.
CTV gives us that opportunity.
Contextual targeting makes it effective.
SceneContext makes it possible.