Marketers and adtech firms have latched onto metadata to improve ad targeting on the web and connected television, as data quality worsens with cookie decline. Metadata is data about the environment of the ad, said Mike O’Sullivan, co-founder of data firm Sincera. “It’s data that puts the transaction in context,” he said. While metadata can refer to any signal in the bidstream, its recent applications often center around advanced contextual signals, like ads-to-content ratio and genre, which can direct marketers toward more premium inventory. The looming deadline of cookie deprecation has made looking for signals outside of audience data necessary.

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Marketers and adtech firms are increasingly utilizing metadata to enhance ad targeting, particularly as data quality deteriorates due to the decline of cookies. Mike O’Sullivan, co-founder of Sincera, explains that metadata provides context to transactions and focuses on advanced contextual signals like ads-to-content ratio and genre to direct marketers towards premium inventory.