For years, marketers have relied on Google Search as a key aspect of their digital marketing strategy – reaching consumers at the exact moment of purchase intent. But new advancements in AI and changes in user behavior are rewriting the rules faster than many realize.

Today, AI-generated summaries increasingly answer queries without a single click, and brand landing pages are seeing a steady decline in both organic and paid referral traffic. Even high-ranking pages are losing visibility – and marketers are feeling the impact. In fact, a recent Paw Research Center study found that when Google’s AI summaries appear, click through rate drops by nearly 50%. 

The tried-and-true model of intent-driven traffic is becoming less reliable by the day. So where do marketers go when search traffic drops off? 

There’s a Smarter Way to Drive Keyword-Relevant Traffic

There’s a better approach –  built for today’s privacy-first, attention-scarce world. Contextual advertising delivers your message directly within trusted, relevant editorial content, matched to your keywords and audience intent. 

Just like search, these placements can be bought on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis. That means you’re only paying when someone actively chooses to engage with your content, minimizing wasted spend and keeping your budget tied directly to real reader acquisition.

But unlike search, your content appears across a distributed network of premium content, not just a single results page.

Reach Real Audiences, Not Just Searchers

Instead of competing for fleeting attention from an unpredictable mix of users on a crowded search results page, Dianomi puts your message in front of high-value, affluent audiences who are actively engaging with trusted business, financial, and lifestyle editorial content. 

These readers are seeking insight, rather than quick answers. Your content appears at the exact moment they’re deeply engaged, leading to higher-quality traffic, stronger brand association, and greater conversion potential.

Trust, Relevance, and Performance – All in One

With Dianomi’s contextual network, your brand appears alongside the world’s most trusted publishers — including CNN Business, Forbes, Reuters, and more. That guarantees your message earns attention in environments where trust, relevance, and intent converge. 

And we go further. Dianomi Audiences combines curated publisher placements, contextual keyword targeting, and first-party audience data to reach valuable audience segments with precision – all without relying on third-party cookies. With over 30 pre-built audience segments, it’s no surprise that 8 out of 10 of the world’s largest asset management firms trust Dianomi to deliver high-quality CPC traffic.

Ready to Evolve Beyond Search?

Search is evolving – your strategy should too. Marketers who embrace privacy-first, contextual advertising will be better positioned to reach real audiences and drive real results . 

Ready to reduce your reliance on crowded search results pages and shift your spend to performance advertising that’s designed for the future? Let’s talk.

Dianomi hosted “Financial Services Marketing 2025” at UTS Business School in Sydney on Thursday 5 June 2025.

We heard some very entertaining and informative sessions:

What’s happened in privacy in the last 12 months?

An update on Australia privacy rules and how they are affecting marketers

Candice Driver, Louder

To block or not to block – is there a cost of avoidance?

Serious investors read serious news, should you be there when they do?

Hal Crawford, Mumbrella

Jamie Chambers, BBC

Adele Wieser, Index Exchange

Extreme volatility – should it affect your marketing strategy?

Marketers are facing the same question as investors: when markets are turned on their head, should you hold your nerve, sit on your hands, or react?

Adam Lang, Fear & Greed

Jessica Long, Fundamental Media

Simrita Virk, Capital Outcomes

Two ways AI is changing marketing right now

Search is Behaviour, Not a Channel – impact of AI & behavioural shifts

Stelios Moudakis, Resolution Digital

AI in the age of personalised ad creatives

Joshua Lee, ArtBot

Market insights and predictions

Vanessa Lalani, Parity Consulting

Behavioural Economics update

Julian Peterson, Dianomi

Brand vs Performance

If you spent all of your budget in performance, would you build a brand? An age-old argument, but where are we now in the current digital context?

Josh Frith, The Dubs

Mary Hughes, Ptarmigan Media

Prashant Mohan, Sharesight

Thanks to all of the presenters and speaker for sharing your knowledge and to all those who attended – your time and attention was really appreciated.

Pictures from the event can be found on LinkedIn.

We’re expanding!

Dianomi is to host “Financial Services Marketing 2025” in Singapore on Thursday, 18 September 2025 with our friends at Dollars And Sense.

This year’s event in Sydney was not only informative, but also very entertaining: we kept the sessions short, the coffee flowing and Chatham House rule in effect.

The one day event is for marketers of financial services and business, particularly those of investments, wealth management, private banking, stockbroking and associated services.

Once again we will have some very interesting and entertaining speakers on stage and a room full of experts in the audience so the presentations, questions and networking should be superb.

Current Dianomi APAC clients are invited to attend, please contact your Account Manager if you have not yet heard from us.

If you would like to present or be involved in a panel discussion then please let us know.

Event details:

This is an in-person event only, there is no recording and the Chatham House Rule is in effect.

Agenda:

9 – 9.30am

Registration

9.30 – 9.50am

Welcome by Julian Peterson – Managing Director APAC, Dianomi

Behavioural Science/Economics update

Latest trends, papers and understanding of behavioural economics and science for financial services

9.50 – 10.20am

How to Build Trust in a Skeptical Market?

With consumers more cautious than ever, how can brands break through the noise and earn real trust? Hear from leaders who share their experience on how they have built credibility across multiple brands in Singapore

Moderator: Timothy Ho – Managing Editor & Co-Founder, DollarsAndSense

Speakers: Sebastian Sieber – Entrepreneur | Founder Cashew, Ex-CMO, Syfe & Lazada

Haoming Lee – CEO, Louken Group | Co-Founder, Artbox Singapore | Ex-Managing Partner, Huggs Coffee

10.20 – 10.50am

Brand Building vs Acquisition – Getting the Best of Both Worlds

In a crowded financial landscape, marketers have to constantly strike the balance between focusing on brand or customer acquisition? This panel unpacks how some of Singapore’s fastest growing brands balance both to drive long-term growth.

Moderator: Dinesh Dayani – Co-Founder, DollarsAndSense

Speakers: Jonathan Wong – Head of Brand & Product Marketing, Endowus

Anushka Yadav – Chief Creative Officer, Chocolate Finance

Harleen Kaur – APAC Client Services Director, Ptarmigan Media

10.50 – 11.10am

Coffee Break

11.10 – 11.25am

The Market for Marketers

What is the market for Marketers in SG and HK?

Sophia Holmans – Founder and Director, People Story

11.25 – 11.55am

From Online to Offline – Why Brick-and-Mortar and Events Still Matter

Even in a digital-first world, physical events remain essential – giving even the most digital-native brands a tangible way to connect, build trust, and deepen engagement. This panel explores why offline experiences are still a powerful part of the marketing mix.

Moderator: Deanna Lim – Head of Commercial, DollarsAndSense

Speakers: Yeap Ming Feng – CEO, Trading Key | Ex-Head of Seedly

Benjamin Choo – Head of Channel Marketing, Moomoo SG

11.55am – 12.25pm

Two ways AI is changing marketing right now

Turning off the tap?

AI and search – how are they affecting you? And what should you do?

Tedmond Chang & Shoib Lloya – Founders, Nuggt

Creatives generated by AI – when is this appropriate?

Mark Laudi – Managing Director, Hong Bao Media

12.25 – 12.55pm

To block or not to block – is there a cost of avoidance?

Serious investors read serious news, should you be there when they do?

Moderator: Patrick Brownlow – Commercial Director – Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, Bloomberg

Speakers: John Williams – Vice President Asia Region, BBC

Belinda Green – Chief Strategy Officer, Publicis Communications

12.55 – 1pm

Closing by Julian Peterson

1 – 2pm

Lunch and Networking


9am – 1pm

Thursday, 18 September 2025

The Fullerton House

Recap video from 2024 event:

In today’s complex media landscape, where your brand’s ads show up, matters more than ever. Brands are constantly trying to balance two big goals: staying in brand-safe environments and connecting with the right audience. It’s not always an easy line to walk, and advertisers have recently become hesitant to place their ads on news content. However, by avoiding news content altogether, they could be missing out on great opportunities.

The key to brand-safe advertising is to focus on placing ads in trustworthy, high-quality news environments that attract relevant and engaged audiences.

Why Keyword Blocking Isn’t the Whole Answer

In an effort to shield their brands from potentially harmful content, many advertisers rely on keyword blocking – filtering out ads from appearing near certain topics. While this approach might seem like a safe bet, it often goes too far. Ads end up being blocked from valuable and relevant content, reducing opportunities for both advertisers and publishers.

In reality, a study by Stagwell, called the “Future of News”, found that there is no negative impact on brand safety when ads appear next to hard-hitting news topics like the US election or even war/conflict coverage. This finding challenges the common belief that serious news topics are automatically bad for brands. Overusing restrictions like keyword blocking could actually hurt brands more by shutting them out of places where their audience is already engaged.

Building Trust with Quality Journalism

Advertising on trusted new sites is about more than just visibility – it’s about credibility. Premium publishers are known for their strong fact-checking and high standards, offering readers content they can trust.

Compare that to platforms like Instagram and Facebook, where Meta recently announced they will no longer fact-check their content. When brands choose to appear on trustworthy news sites they align themselves with reliability and credibility, which can make a big difference in how they’re seen by consumers.

The data backs this up. A study by Newsworks found that people trust brands 1.5x more when those brands advertise on news websites compared to non-news sites. Ads in trusted environments not only protect your brand but also improve how people perceive and engage with it.

A Smarter Way Forward

Brand safety is, and will always be, a fundamental pillar of advertising, but avoiding quality news content isn’t the answer. Instead, brands should explore smarter strategies like contextual advertising. This approach places ads alongside relevant, premium content where audiences are already engaged.

With Dianomi, brands can tap into contextual advertising to position their messages within high-quality articles that matter to their target audience. It’s a win-win: brands enhance their credibility, and audiences see ads that feel relevant and trustworthy.

Conclusion

Brand safety isn’t about steering clear of the news – it’s about being thoughtful about where your ads appear. Trusted news environments offer a unique chance to boost credibility and connect with audiences in meaningful ways. By leveraging tools like contextual advertising, brads can create campaigns that build trust, improve engagement, and still reach the audiences that matter most.

Did you know that, according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), 21% of ad impressions come from websites designed solely to generate ad revenue? These Made for Advertising (MFA) sites not only waste marketing budgets but also jeopardize brand reputation and contribute significantly to environmental harm.

For advertisers striving to protect their reputation and ensure effective campaigns, controlling ad placements is more crucial-and challenging-than ever. The rise of MFA websites and the complexities of modern media buying processes are creating low-value environments that undermine campaign goals.

What Are MFA Websites?

MFA websites exist solely to drive ad revenue. They’re characterized by clickbait headlines, intrusive ads, and a poor user experience. Instead of engaging audiences with meaningful content, these sites prioritize sheer ad volume, creating two significant risks for advertisers:

The consequences of supporting MFA sites go beyond wasted budgets-they harm both brand reputation and the planet.

The Complexity of Media Buying

Modern programmatic platforms have transformed advertising by automating the buying process. But this convenience can lead to unintended consequences: lack of visibility and control. Without full visibility, ads often end up on MFA sites, compromising campaign brand safety and campaign effectiveness.

This issue is further compounded by pressures within the advertising ecosystem. To meet performance targets-often narrowly defined as clicks, impressions, or other metrics that fail to account for audience quality, relevance, or genuine attention-agencies and ad tech vendors may opt for cheaper, low-quality options, even when they don’t align with the brand’s broader goals. This narrow pursuit of cost efficiency and surface-level performance can lead to ads appearing in unsuitable environments, ultimately damaging the brand’s reputation.

Imagine a high-end fashion brand’s ad appearing on a cluttered clickbait site. Not only does it fail to connect with the intended audience, but it also risks eroding the brand’s perceived value.

Many advertisers are unaware of where their ads are being placed, making it difficult to ensure that their campaigns are running in high-quality, brand-safe environments.

Prioritizing Quality and Context

In today’s landscape, advertisers must take a proactive approach to media buying. By prioritizing transparency, quality, and alignment with brand values, you can protect your reputation and drive meaningful engagement. Here are three key steps to consider:

  1. Audit Media Buys: Regularly review where your ads are appearing to ensure alignment with your brand’s values and objectives.
  2. Leverage Transparent Tools: Use platforms that offer full visibility into ad placements, empowering you to avoid low-quality inventory.
  3. Invest in Premium Publishers: Choose high-quality publishers that offer controlled, brand-safe advertising environments. Through this may come at a higher upfront cost, it leads to stronger audience connections and better ROI.

For example, an ad placed on a reputable financial news platform is more likely to resonate with its intended audience that one buried on an MFA site filled with intrusive pop-ups.

How Dianomi Helps

Platforms like Dianomi specialize in delivering ads within premium, brand-safe environments. By focusing on quality placements, Dianomi ensures your message reaches the right audience in the right context.

By partnering with a platform that prioritizes transparency and high-value inventory, advertisers can confidently avoid the pitfalls of MFA sites and instead prioritize what truly matters: delivering impactful campaigns.

Conclusion

The growing presence of MFA websites and the complexities of media buying make it more important than ever for advertisers to take control of their campaigns. By prioritizing quality, context, and transparency, you can safeguard your brand’s reputation and drive better results.

With the right strategies and tools, such as those offered by Dianomi, you can focus on what truly matters: delivering impactful advertising that connects with your audience in the right context.

The anticipated demise of third-party cookies has been one of the most talked-about topics in the advertising industry over the past several years. Google’s recent reversal of its plan to block third-party cookies on Chrome has prompted many marketers to rethink their strategies. Despite Google’s decision, here’s why it’s smart for marketers to embrace cookieless targeting anyway.

Why Now?

The threat of third-party cookies vanishing has not gone away entirely. Google may still present users with the option to decline cookie targeting, and the likelihood is that many will choose to opt-out. With the future of cookies remaining uncertain, it’s essential for marketers to be prepared. In fact, a significant portion of the market is already cookieless: Safari deprecated third-party tracking back in 2017 and Firefox followed in 2019 by blocking third-party cookies by default. Additionally, according to a May 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center, 67% of US adults turn off cookies or website tracking to protect their privacy. Fortunately, cookieless strategies already deliver performance on par with, or even better than, cookie-based approaches. Now is the time to explore and embrace these alternatives to future-proof your marketing efforts.

The Power of Cookieless Targeting

Cookieless targeting offers an effective alternative to traditional cookie-based strategies by focusing on the context of the content rather than tracking individual users. Contextual targeting delivers ads based on the relevance of the webpage’s content, making it highly aligned with user intent in real-time.

This approach often outperforms cookie-based targeting because it places ads in environments where audiences are already engaged with related topics, increasing the chances of meaningful interactions. A user reading an article about the upcoming tax season might see ads for tax or financial planning, which will likely resonate with them more than a randomly targeted ad. It will also drive better ad recall because the ad is related to the content being viewed.

Since contextual targeting serves ads relevant to the content a user is viewing, it avoids the issue of over-targeting users and creating ad fatigue. It creates a more organic user experience. Users are less likely to feel “chased” by ads, as they won’t see repetitive ads based on tracking.

Machine learning further enhances the effectiveness of contextual targeting, allowing marketers to scale these strategies, reaching new audiences across brand-safe, premium publishers.

Establishing Trust

One of the key benefits of cookieless targeting is that it fosters greater trust and transparency between advertisers and consumers, ultimately leading to more meaningful and effective marketing. When consumers are not constantly retargeted, they will naturally feel at greater ease on content sites that feel more relevant to the current environment and not to past browsing activities. By avoiding personal data collection and tracking, it also eliminates consumer’s concerns over privacy invasion, thus creating a more respectful and ethical advertising ecosystem.

How to Make the Shift

Although this shift can seem daunting, it opens the door to innovation and enhanced audience engagement. By embracing new targeting methods, like Dianomi’s Audience Cohorts, marketers can achieve greater success connecting their brand with their desired consumers without relying on cookies. Reach out to us to learn how we can assist you in transitioning to a cookieless future and unlocking the full potential of digital marketing.

Originally posted on MarTechSeries.com on June 6, 2022.

Martin Hill, Head of Programmatic at Dianomi chats about the future of marketing and martech and what B2B teams need to do to prepare better for a cookieless future:


Welcome to this MarTech Series chat, Martin, we’d love to hear more about your journey in the tech market and also, what are you most looking forward to in your new role at Dianomi?

I’ve been in the industry for a long time. Most of my career has been in engineering leadership roles and I’ve built and architected platforms right across the ecosystem, touching on all aspects of online advertising and marketing. I’ve had experience in performance and branding and lived through lots of change throughout the past 20 years. That’s the most interesting thing about the industry, no two days are ever the same and just when you think you have everything down pat, things move on and there are new challenges to address.

Over the past few years I have been focused on the future and how online advertising and marketing will change and what advertisers and publishers need to do to set themselves up for success. Which is a great segue into Dianomi. Building on a strong heritage of direct, performance based contextual and native, I am working with the team to drive the programmatic transformation of the business. We will be keeping the strong foundations whilst extending Dianomi’s existing capabilities, premium audience and trusted relationships and bringing that quality to programmatic.

What are some of the key trends in programmatic ads today that you feel advertisers/marketers need to be focusing more on?

We are seeing continued growth in programmatic and the ongoing shift from non-programmatic budgets to programmatic.

The key growth areas are video/CTV and native and the headwinds the industry is facing include:

  • EU/US data sharing (Shrems II)
  • GDPR consent management (TCF2.0 invalidation)
  • Identity (3rd Party Cookies being removed from Chrome)

“Needless to say, we are now in the midst of a shifting tide in the foundations of audience based advertising as we know it.  With that change comes opportunity and those advertisers and marketers that have a plan to navigate and weather the storm will fare the best.  There will not be a one-size fits all approach and relationships will be key to make sure advertisers and publishers are aligned in their approach to create win/win scenarios without unnecessary nasty surprises.”

With the eventual death of third-party cookies; how do you feel digital advertisers and marketers need to prepare better for a cookieless future?

Advertisers and marketers need to re-build relationships with their key publishers. Advertisers are already only talking to around 40-70% of their audience effectively, or in other words they are only talking to their audience in Chrome. Their Safari & Firefox audience is already cookieless and has been for a few years. Most of their existing budget is spent across a relatively small number of publishers. They can work with their agencies and tech partners to engage with those publishers to discuss and align their goals and objectives to forge an identity and data strategy that will work within the right context to deliver the outcomes they are looking to achieve across their key partners and lay the foundations to bring to market more broadly.

How do you feel the adtech segment will evolve in the near-future to meet all of these changing industry standards and end user needs?

AdTech has already evolved to handle the cookieless future.  In fact, this is like a back to the future moment.  Relationships and context matters.  Advertisers and publishers need to foster these key relationships again and talk to each other in order to deliver campaigns successfully in a win/win way.  From a technical perspective there has also been an increased focus on Programmatic Guaranteed, Deals/PMPs and also the resurgence of context and 1st party identity.  The key aspect here is to manage these in a way that retains the benefits and efficiency of programmatic trading without introducing too much workflow overhead.  This is exactly where a good identity and data strategy paired with strong relationships and context comes in.

It’s worth noticing that until now I have not mentioned the Privacy Sandbox, Google’s initiative for Chrome to replace the various features and functionality afforded by 3rd party cookies.  This is intentional as the total output in tangible terms to date has been zero.  Apart from perhaps raising the profile of alternate names for segments; cohorts and topics.  While the Privacy Sandbox will of course be something to keep abreast of, it will never be a holistic solution and will only ever be a Google Chrome centric way of reaching your audience.

A few quick thoughts on what it takes to drive ROI with digital ads in today’s environment?

Reaching the right audience at the right time with the right message in the right place, then optimizing towards desired outcomes.  This is still the key to maximizing ROI and driving media efficiency.  It’s not that this is changing, it’s more a case of what foundations need to be in place within a cookieless environment in order to facilitate good, privacy centric, safe trading so that user data and privacy is preserved during the process.

I’ve covered the key tenets of this in a broad sense, relationships, ID and data strategy, context and optimization.  This is essentially a mix of what we have already been doing, just enabled by 3rd party cookies and MAIDs.  The future will look similar but will be underpinned with 1st party identity signals and context instead.

Some last thoughts, takeaways on adtech and programmatic best practices before we wrap up!

The time to act is now.  If you haven’t already got a plan for cookieless environments there is no better time to make a start and add incremental value while beginning to communicate effectively to your cookieless audience.

Relationships matter and you will need a flexible contextual, identity and data strategy to work across your publishers and formats.

A Proven Engineering and Technical Leader, Martin Hill, joins from Adform to develop and lead Dianomi’s Programmatic Platform

London, New York and Sydney, 12 April 2022, Dianomi (London Stock Exchange: DNM), a leading provider of native digital advertising services to premium clients in the Financial Services and Business sectors, is delighted to announce the appointment of Martin Hill, to the newly created position of Head of Programmatic.

Martin’s appointment coincides with industry changes to Audience Based Advertising such as the phasing out of third-party cookies in Google Chrome and IDFA in Apple iOS, creating the ideal time for him to lead the development of the Company’s programmatic platform which will retain the unique characteristics of Dianomi’s Contextual Media Platform which is not dependent on these identifiers and which has driven the Company’s significant success to date.

Dianomi has built its reputation as a contextual leader serving ads for the premium segment of the Business and Finance sector with a client base that includes 7 of the world’s top 10 largest asset management companies, 7 of the top 10 largest wealth management firms in the US and half of the top 10 largest banks in the US.

With 20+ years of experience, most recently as Vice President of Solutions Consulting with Adform, Martin is a well-known industry specialist. He has significant strategic management experience and proven ability to plan, build and implement robust and scalable technical platforms.  He has led countless projects with the likes of Rubicon Project, IPONWEB, CJ Affiliate and Conversant.

“Following our successful stock market listing last year, we have been investing in tier one talent and Martin certainly falls into that category,” says CEO Ru Hodson. “The stars are aligning for our business –  with the industry looking for solutions in a post cookie environment, our contextual approach is ideally placed to expand and with Martin we intend to significantly extend our programmatic footprint whilst keeping our USP.”

Commenting on his appointment, Martin Hill, said, “I believe this a truly interesting time to join Dianomi. Our industry is having to adapt to a new order alongside the death of the cookie. So with 20+ years of delivering contextual solutions combined with truly strong relationships with leading financial brands and publishers, I think there is a natural window for Dianomi to grow in the programmatic space.”

Our CEO, Rupert Hodson, joined ECI Partners on the latest episode of their ‘Building Successful Businesses’ podcast series. Rupert gives insight into Dianomi’s journey from a start-up to a business operating across three continents, and what he’s learned along the way. Rupert also touches on how the advertising and financial services industry is evolving, and how Dianomi is supporting that change.

Listen to the full episode here:

On March 23rd, Dianomi Sr. Partnerships Director, Justin Proctor, participated in a panel during the Gramercy Financial Marketers Forum 2022: Strategic Excellence in Financial Marketing in New York. The event was sponsored by Dianomi and the panel was focused on Financial Media Strategies for Success.

(L-R) Elizabeth Coleman-Chen, Justin Proctor, Louis Cohen and Meg Sullivan at 3 West Club in New York, NY on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, discuss financial media strategies for success on a panel during the Gramercy Financial Marketers Forum 2022: Strategic Excellence in Financial Marketing.

The panel included Louis Cohen, Director, Digital Marketing & Demand Generation Leader, EY; Elizabeth Coleman-Chen, Exec. Director, Head, Strategic Content Mktg, Alt. & Sustainable Investing, Morgan Stanley Investment Management; Meg Sullivan, Managing Director, Imprint.

After discussing what media strategies the panelists thought would be prominent in the future, Proctor explained the idea that a brand’s overall media strategy is similar to a bell curve. A brand’s role is to find their place on the curve in relation to their customer’s intent and interaction with their brand to create a perfect medium of client interest, media focus and brand differentiation in that space.