The current digital user is increasingly aware of the importance of their privacy, which is why they have begun to demand greater security during their browsing. This has caused digital advertising to enter a process of change, driven by progressive advertising, a fundamental factor for programmatic advertising. In this way, companies, agencies and large platforms such as Facebook or Google have taken on the task of creating new ways to carry out this advertising model without infringing on user privacy.
In the same way, other advertising models, such as contextual advertising, have seen in this situation an opportunity to regain ground in the market. Now Seedtag, the Spanish specialized in this field. This new round of 250 million euros, It comes less than a year after another closed in September 2021 for €35M.
As the company explained in a statement, “A massive example of the rise of contextual can be seen with Seedtag, with our recent securing of over €250 million in funding, from private equity investor Advent International. A partnership that allows us to continue to advance as the leading player in the industry, revolutionizing the contextual game and setting the bar even higher.”
In that post, Seedtag explains that with this injection of resources, they will be looking to scale their contextual AI technology, Liz, as well as advance its expansion in the US In addition, the startup hopes that this operation will arm it with a view to achieving future merger and acquisition activities and recalls that “Our goal is to continue advancing our mission to become the global contextual advertising partner for brands and publishers.”
Jorge Poyatos and Albert Nieto, Co-CEOs and Founders of Seedtag explain that “we are very excited about this partnership with Advent. This investment will greatly accelerate our expansion in the US, fuel our growth, and strengthen our team and technology development. This move further supports our mission to build the world’s leading platform for contextual advertising, offering an effective solution for cookieless advertising on the open web.”
A startup with a remarkable evolution
Seedtag was born in 2014, and in its early years it started as a solution for bridge the worlds of eCommerce and bloggingoffering its managers the possibility of label the products that appear in the photographs of your articles, linking them to the online store in which such items may be purchased. As you can see in the following image, the tag was displayed when the mouse was swiped over the photograph, also showing the name of the eCommerce to which it is linked, enriching the user experience of the visitors of the blog in question.
As he explained to us at that time Jorge Poyatosco-founder of Seedtag together with Albert Nieto: «One day, reading Marca on the Internet, I saw that Federer had changed his racket and I wanted to buy it. To do so, I had to Google the new model, find out the price, and find a retailer that carried it. The process was totally inefficient and on the Internet we know that one click too many is the difference between selling or not selling. On the Internet, simplicity triumphs.
After an initial investment of 400,000 euros, in 2017 they raised a series A for 5.2 million dollars, about 4.4 million euroswith which they managed to establish themselves as one of the main contextual advertising companies in the market.
An investment to boost contextual advertising
Seedtag has changed a lot since then, and not just in terms of financial power. Currently Seedtag has become a company that uses artificial intelligence to optimize the delivery of contextual advertising on all types of websites, with a cookieless orientation that allows you to be in a good position for the next future post cookies.
What is contextual advertising
Although it can be considered as an old type of advertising, it is quite possible that contextual advertising will gradually become one of the most effective methods when it comes to targeting online ads to the right users. Contextual advertising is one that cPlace online ads on web pages based on the theme and keywords of each of these sites. That is, it assigns the ads to web pages that have some kind of direct relevance to the products or services that the advertiser is promoting. What comes to be “content-oriented advertising”.
The interesting thing here is that, unlike what happens with third-party cookies, Contextual advertising simultaneously manages to respect people’s privacy and makes the advertising investment of brands profitable.
As they explained in a statement last year, after closing their series B round:
“Companies around the world take advantage of advertising, showcasing their products and services to expand their customer base. What gives the majority the power to ensure their ads get to you? That little “Accept Cookies” button you mindlessly click on your browsing trips.
As word spread about the impact of this click, people began to express concerns regarding the privacy of their data. Today, a large volume of consumers are against cookie policies and their voices have been heard. In early 2020, Google announced the phasing out of third-party cookies.
Cookies are only one aspect of the problem. Intrusive ads that make navigation difficult is the other big problem among consumers. Well, one of those experiences about 7 years ago gave birth to Seedtag, today’s leading contextual advertising company in EMEA and LATAM.
(…) Seedtag is accelerating its path to making contextual advertising the core strategy for brands in a world without cookies. The team is excited about this funding as it reflects all their efforts and will help them make further progress and better contributions to the industry.”
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