Resonate Contextual Data FAQs

What are Contextual Studies?

Contextual Studies help our customers gain a quick, real-time understanding of who is reading and engaging with their business topics and keywords online. They can use this data to understand these consumers with our 14K+ Resonate Elements to develop more relevant content and messaging and activate at scale.

Resonate provides access to two classes of contextual data as follows:

• Standard Contextual Topics: Resonate observes 30,000 topics through our behavioral data stream – data comprised of online behaviors – that helps inform our predictive models. We provide 600+ Standard Contextual Topics in the Ignite Platform.  These are topics that people are consuming online, curated using our Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine.
• Custom Contextual Studies: Resonate can collect and analyze the digital behavior of consumers online using URLs and keywords – these are called Custom Contextual Studies. Our customers can request Custom Contextual Studies to complement our set of 600+Standard Contextual Studies with hyper-targeted custom topics that they define.

How did we pick the 600 Standard Contextual Studies? 

We hand-picked 600+ contextual topics from our larger list of 30,000 and leveraged the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) taxonomy to curate our Standard Contextual Studies in the platform. 

How Does It Work?

• Standard Contextual Studies span 26 categories, are refreshed weekly, and includes the past 31 days of browsing behavior. There is no set defined list of keywords for this data set because it is constantly updating based on our NLP algorithm.
• Custom Contextual Studies are provided at an additional cost and created on an ad hoc basis according to our customers' needs. They are created based upon URLs and keywords that our customers provide.  They are refreshed nightly.  The lookback window can span 30 – 90 days of browsing behavior. There are two main use cases for Custom Contextual Studies: Insights and Activation.
  • Contextuals used for insights are a one-time audience creation. Any updates to keyword/syntax or refreshes are charged as additional studies.
  • Contextuals used for activation are refreshed nightly (as is). Any changes to keyword syntax are charged as a new study.

How many keywords can I provide? Customers can provide lists of keywords to help inform the content that should be aggregated together to develop a custom contextual study.  The Customer Success Analyst Team will review the keywords and make an assessment of the best aggregation of keywords that can be incorporated into the study.  A typical study may include approximately 15 to up to 25 keyword - the final keywords incorporated into the study will be assessed and determined by Resonate.

What is the timeframe to implement this data? Once we discuss and understand the topic you're looking to study, and once we evaluate feasibility and traffic for that topic, we'll have your Custom Contextual Study in your Resonate account within 3-5 business days. 

Where do I find Custom Contextual Study data in the platform? Your custom audiences resulting from your study will be in your Resonate account under Custom Research - Custom Contextual Studies.  

Can you activate with Contextual Data? Yes, you can activate on an ongoing basis with the standard contextuals, and custom contextual studies that are set to refresh nightly.  Custom contextual studies that are developed without any refresh cadence will have cookies live for the first thirty days that they are loaded into the platform. 

Can you add Resonate Elements to contextual data? Yes, see more info here: Supported Data Combinations for Audience Building

If a contextual study isn’t refreshed, how long are the insights reliable? Insights are available in the platform for 2 years. Reliability will depend on the contextual study itself. For example, if the segment is intent specific, the data will want to be refreshed more often. If the segment is more specific to an interest in a particular topic, the data does not have to be refreshed as often.

Contextual Limitations & Things to Keep in Mind:

• Resonate’s curated reports: You cannot view the site affinity, category affinity, or trend reports with Contextual Data, see Contextual Data as insights, or include Contextual Data in a compatible audience for use in the Audience Crosstab. 
• Contextual Data is Directional - For example, looking at a group of people consuming articles about smoking does not guarantee that this group of individuals consists only of smokers. The case may be that individuals in the audience are consuming articles about how to stop smoking so they can help their loved one quit.
• Contextual Data is Not Market Size Data -Similarly, audience metrics for Contextual Data should not be used as a market sizing tool. The number of people who are reading about smoking doesn't equal the number of people that smoke. Instead, search our Resonate Elements for market size data.
• Contextual Data is Not Sentiment - There is also no way to decipher if the articles consumed are negative or positive towards smokers, so this data should not be used to infer sentiment. For example, this audience may consist of individuals who are researching the harmful effects of smoking.
• Contextual Data is Not Trending Topics - Unlike Twitter trending topics, our Standard Contextual Study topics are static. If you need data on a recent topic, consult with your Resonate Customer Success Manager and ask about our Custom Contextual Studies!  
• Contextual Data audience building limitations – Contextual data cannot be combined with limited attributes