This week, the Silverpush team spoke with Moka Goto, Digital Marketing Strategist at Dentsu Digital, to discuss how YouTube advertising is evolving towards 2026. From shifting planning mindsets away from pure scale towards context and moments to rethinking how performance is evaluated, Moka shared how Dentsu Digital is exploring more intentional, insight-led YouTube strategies powered by contextual intelligence.
1. Tell us about your role and Dentsu Digital. What makes your approach stand out?
I joined Dentsu Digital as a new graduate and have been responsible for developing digital marketing strategies for global clients. More recently, starting in 2025, I have also been involved in driving strategic partnerships with media platforms, both within Japan and globally.
At Dentsu Digital, we focus heavily on strategic design. We think not just about how to deliver ads, but why, where, and in what moment they should appear. Rather than relying on a single method, we aim to design flexible media plans that combine proven approaches with newer perspectives, depending on the client’s objectives and KPIs. This mindset allows us to continuously expand our planning options and adapt to changes in user behaviour and platforms.
2. What led you to explore contextual targeting as part of your YouTube strategy?
In Japan, YouTube advertising is already widely adopted, and standard targeting methods and automated optimisation are well established. However, we have increasingly seen advertisers ask deeper questions, such as what kind of content environments ads are appearing in and whether those environments truly align with the brand.
I do not see contextual targeting as something that replaces existing targeting methods. Instead, it is a complementary approach that becomes particularly valuable when we want to get closer to user intent and timing. Since early 2025, I have had more opportunities to explore its potential, especially in cases where the target audience is clearly defined but still quite broad.
3. Can you share an example of a campaign where this approach made a difference?
One campaign that stands out was focused on SME business owners. While this audience is clearly defined, it can become quite abstract when handled purely through platform-based targeting. For this campaign, our KPI framework centred on whether we were reaching decision-makers at the right moment.
We broke the audience down into multiple personas based on factors like industry, company size, and decision-making process. From there, we mapped their information consumption moments and refined that into specific types of content they were likely to watch. Together with Silverpush, we translated this thinking into a concrete contextual list that could be activated at scale on YouTube.
This allowed us to move beyond broad delivery and focus on moments where users were actively consuming relevant information, such as tax-related content, making the ad experience far more intentional.
4. How did Silverpush support the execution and optimisation of this campaign?
Silverpush played a key role in translating our strategic framework into execution. They extracted a custom-built contextual list tailored to the campaign objective and handled much of the contextual delivery and optimisation.
In day-to-day operations, we still needed to manage reporting, budget adjustments, and changes such as video length. These tasks can be time-consuming, but Silverpush responded extremely quickly. Beyond just numerical reporting, they proactively advised on which variables should be adjusted and how, which gave us a strong sense of confidence throughout the campaign.
This collaborative approach made it much easier to run PDCA cycles efficiently and focus our energy on strategic actions.
5. What insights did you gain from running a context-driven YouTube campaign?
Two insights stood out clearly.
The first was placement quality and brand suitability at the individual video level. By executing contextual delivery focused on highly thematic content, we were able to ensure ads appeared in environments with strong brand fit at the exact moment users were consuming relevant information.
The second was visibility. Being able to visualise performance at the video level and organise results by persona gave us a much clearer understanding of how different audiences responded. This level of insight is extremely valuable for future planning and creative alignment.
6. How did you evaluate performance beyond standard KPIs?
During the campaign, we used standard KPIs such as reach and view-through rate. However, when reviewing results afterwards, we wanted to evaluate not just performance, but how efficiently delivery aligned with our intended context.
That is when we were introduced to QCPM, or Qualified CPM. QCPM evaluates CPM based only on impressions delivered within placements that meet the defined contextual and brand suitability criteria.
I do not see QCPM as a replacement for existing KPIs, but rather as a complementary metric. It gave us a clearer, more confident perspective when reviewing cost efficiency and helped us better understand the true value of contextual delivery.
7. How do you see YouTube advertising evolving towards 2026?
At the moment, contextual targeting on YouTube is still used by a relatively limited number of advertisers. That is precisely why starting small and testing it can be so powerful. Once advertisers experience its value, their planning perspective expands significantly.
Looking ahead, I am particularly interested in moment-based delivery design, even for broader targeting approaches. Users at different stages of consideration consume different types of content, and contextual targeting allows us to align creative, timing, and intent much more effectively.
Toward 2026, I believe designing YouTube advertising with a clear awareness of context and moments will gradually become a standard part of strategy in the Japanese market and a key way for brands to deliver more meaningful and relevant experiences.
