#125: Quo Vadis Green Shoot AdTech Interviews
With Andrey Kiska, co-founder/CEO of Kontext
Welcome back to Quo Vadis Green Shoot AdTech Interviews.
In this series, we’re stepping into the shoes of “AdTech Equalizers” — the greenshoot companies changing how the advertising job gets done. We'll delve into their worldview and unveil new strategies, tools, and perspectives that make advertisers more effective.
As they say, the two best times to start experimenting with new ad supply are yesterday and now. That’s why today we have the great pleasure of speaking with Andrej Kiska, Co-founder and CEO of Kontext, the category leader and largest ad platform to reach AI chatbot audiences.
Kontext is the largest and most well-funded GenAI ad platform, offering access to billions of impressions across various GenAI search engines, general chatbots, and AI entertainment platforms.
If you want to learn more about GenAI inventory, hit up Andrey here: andrej@kontext.so
Q1: Why should I consider advertising in chatbots?
A: Andrej
It’s always all about eyeballs. GenAI consumer companies, including chatbots, represent one of the largest platform shifts of our era. The average length of a user session already exceeds 30 minutes in some of the chatbots, and retention is as strong as YouTube’s. This is where consumer eyeballs are shifting and where the advertising dollars are following inline.
Q2: What makes advertising in chatbots special?
A: Andrej
The first important shift is the amount of user intent an advertiser can glean from a user’s chatbot prompt. For instance, user queries are typically 2x to 3x longer than traditional search queries so signal density is richer, the targeting potential sharper, and the opportunity for higher-value ad placements exponentially greater. That alone explains all the excitement in this new ad category.
The second shift is the ad unit itself. Every platform requires ad formats, which are native to its interface. In the GenAI consumer interface, requirements for an ad format that feel truly native require a significant shift in how we think about ad deployment. Since chatbots text is streamed in real time, the ideal ads also need to be created in real time. Similar to solving a complex puzzle, GenAI ads need to fit the context.
Q3: Wait… as an advertiser, you expect me to give up control over the creative?
A: Andrej
That’s exactly where the future of advertising is heading. If you listen to Mark Zuckerberg describing the future of advertising in Meta, he paints a simple future for advertising: an advertiser gives Meta a credit card, specifies what advertising outcome the advertiser desires (installs, ROAS, visitors, etc.), and Meta takes care of the rest, everything from targeting to creative production. It’s hard to argue with his thesis because media dollars continue flow his way.
Thanks to large language models, we can bring the same capabilities to the open web. An ad created in real time can be hypercontextual to the user’s current intent gleaned from the user’s chatbot prompt. Such ads can perform much better. For example, campaigns in Kontext routinely deliver 25%+ uplift in ROAS compared to concurrent campaigns in Meta and can present brands in much more creative and memorable ways.
Q4: How do you ensure brand safety with these GenAI ads?
A: Andrej
Kontext offers robust brand safety tools along the entire ad deployment journey. We think about it terms of before, during and after deploment. Before deployment, advertisers can choose hyper-specific context targeting criteria, such as selecting which context is suitable for a particular campaign or what kinds of context to avoid. During deployment, advertisers can upload their own creatives, which we use as a basis for creating our ads or we wrap pre-made creatives into our ad unit. Post-deployment, advertisers (or the advertiser’s AI agent) can review every ad we created and fine-tune future campaigns.
Q5: What do I need to do to launch a test campaign?
A: Andrej
The beauty of trying an LLM ad platform is how easy it is to get started. If you just want to launch a test campaign quickly, all we need is the name of the advertised item and a tracking link to measure performance. Our large language models will ingest all relevant information to create a campaign (product description, any potential product reviews or user commentaries, etc.), set relevant contextual targeting criteria, deploy the campaign, and let the magic happen.
If you want to learn more about GenAI inventory, hit up Andrey here: andrej@kontext.so
Disclaimer: This post, and any other post from Quo Vadis, should not be considered investment advice. This content is for informational purposes only. You should not construe this information, or any other material from Quo Vadis, as investment, financial, or any other form of advice.