As publishers scramble to survive collapsing referral traffic, disappearing cookies and the growing reality that AI search engines increasingly answer questions without sending readers anywhere, Tina Ianacchino of Seedtag says the industry may still be underestimating one of digital advertising’s oldest tools: contextual targeting.
“In my opinion, what publishers are still underestimating about the value of contextual today is,” Ianacchino said, pausing briefly before delivering the part that probably made several adtech decks immediately obsolete, “modern contextual is still being viewed as a safety net for cookie loss.”
That framing, she argued, badly undersells what contextual targeting has become.
“It’s really moved beyond that to a lot more intelligent approaches, like neurocontextual,” she said at the Beet.TV AI Media Summit with Horizon Media in New York.
Which means, apparently, we have now entered the era where your article about grilling techniques may emotionally resemble luxury travel content on a neurological level. Advertising has become therapy-adjacent.
Ianacchino, who is vice president of publisher partnerships for North America at Seedtag, said the company is pushing publishers to think beyond keyword matching and basic page categorization.
“By moving beyond basic keyword search and functionality, publishers can actually drive a lot more value from their inventory than they could historically,” she said.
NeuroX enters the chat, wearing a lab coat
Seedtag recently launched NeuroX, which the company describes as a Neuro-Contextual Exchange built on its proprietary AI technology called Liz. The platform is designed to make impressions across Seedtag’s network of more than 30,000 publishers and broadcasters addressable through emotional and intent-based contextual analysis.
In simpler terms, the company wants advertisers to target not just content categories but the emotional tone and mindset surrounding them.
The launch represents Seedtag’s latest attempt to position contextual advertising as something more sophisticated than “sports article equals beer ad.”
Ianacchino said NeuroX applies neuroscience principles to contextual targeting in real time.
“What that means is we’re actually marrying neuroscience principles to traditional contextual targeting to actually decode human interest, emotion and intent in real time,” she said.
Naturally, this sounds slightly like something a supercomputer would say moments before asking humanity to remain calm.
Still, Ianacchino tied the pitch directly to publisher economics.
“We’re gonna help publishers really invest in the quality of their inventory,” she said, adding that Seedtag hopes to reward premium journalism while giving brands greater confidence that media spending is effective. “We hope to empower brands to feel more comfortable and secure that every dollar they spend is not going to waste.”
In adtech, this may qualify as emotional support contextual targeting.
Publishers face the AI traffic apocalypse
The conversation then turned toward the increasingly uncomfortable reality facing publishers: AI-powered search engines and large language models are answering users’ questions directly, often without sending traffic back to the original source.
Or, as publishers call it, “the thing keeping everyone awake at 2 a.m.”
David Kaplan of Beet.TV noted that referral traffic declines are becoming a growing concern as search behavior changes. Ianacchino didn’t exactly disagree.
“That’s part of daily conversations, especially where I sit at Seedtag,” she said. “It’s something that’s unavoidable, unfortunately, at this point.”
Her assessment of the publishing business was refreshingly blunt. “Publishers, in my opinion, have to do a lot more with a lot less,” she said.
Seedtag’s response is to help publishers create more monetization opportunities around the audiences and environments they still control. Ianacchino said neurocontextual targeting can help publishers identify valuable moments and improve monetization efficiency even as traffic patterns shift beneath them.
“By working with someone like a Seedtag, we can actually help empower them to have more moments of monetization,” she said. “Ideally, neurocontextual can help ’em empower this moment.”
Which, in fairness, sounds much more hopeful than “good luck surviving the AI search apocalypse.”
You’re watching coverage from The AI Media Summit, A Beet.TV & Horizon Media Collaboration, presented by Seedtag & The Trade Desk. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
