Contextual advertising is very popular type of online marketing. It is used by 82% of European advertisers who promote themselves online, according to a Eurostat study . Read what contextual advertising is and what it is needed for. And also, what is the difference between search and thematic advertising, what determines the cost. The article will be especially useful for those who are just starting to promote themselves online and are choosing the appropriate format.
What is contextual advertising?
Contextual advertising is a type of online promotion in which an ad is displayed depending on the content of a page or a query entered in a search engine. Such advertising is seen by users whose interests intersect with the product or service being promoted. In a broad sense, contextual advertising is the placement of advertising messages in content that is relevant to them.
You probably see such ads dozens of times a day. These are the first results in search results, next to which there is the inscription “advertisement”, banners on individual pages, pop-up videos in the middle of a master class or a mobile game. Contextual advertising appears in social media feeds and it also “pretends” to be links to other articles on news sites. Let’s consider the classification using specific examples.
Types of contextual advertising with examples
Each contextual advertising provider offers its own classification of these services. We have combined their approaches by meaning to make a generalized list of types of contextual advertising.
By placement
Thematic contextual advertising is ads that are shown in designated places – on partner sites and in partner applications of advertising networks. The Google Display Network (GDN) “fits” it into the context of sites, focusing on the preferences of a specific user and keywords. The contextual advertising network can place not only banners, but also sound, animated and video screensavers, dynamic sections “more from our partners”.
Search contextual advertising is the ads that are displayed immediately below the search bar and at the end of the results. It is shown not only on the main page of the search engine, but also on maps, in catalogs and on third-party sites. Contextual advertising in search engines is mainly textual, but it can contain images, for example, in the case of Google Merchant Center .
Remarketing , also known as retargeting , is a way to remind users who have already visited a website about it . It is based not so much on the context of the placement site as on the characteristics of the audience. Such advertising is seen only by those who have previously visited the advertiser’s website. Remarketing appears both in the form of thematic advertising and in search results.
For example, a user was in an online store where he looked at Puma sneakers. After going to another site, he sees contextual ads from the same site where he recently chose shoes. But now Puma sneakers are offered to him at a discount. This increases the likelihood that a “warm” user will buy the product that he was previously interested in.
Native advertising is a “natural” way of promotion using mass media. It is usually created by media employees, not the customer. Thanks to this, the advertisement fits into the context of the publication and is indistinguishable from other materials on the site even for a regular audience. For this reason, Western experts consider “native” a type of contextual advertising, but this approach has not yet taken root in the RuNet. Although initially only publications worked on native advertising, similar services have already appeared in Google and Yahoo services.
By service provider
Contextual advertising is placed by media giants: search services and social networks. Let’s list several large contextual advertising providers:
- Google Ads;
- Bing Ads;
- Facebook and Instagram;
- Baidu;
- many others.
How much does contextual advertising cost?
Always a little more than you intended to spend on it . The cost of a click, impression or conversion is influenced by a lot of factors, right down to the time of day. But they can all be reduced to two denominators:
- competition;
- ad quality.
The contextual advertising market is based on a supply and demand relationship: the more advertisers bid for placement, the more expensive it is. In addition, it is not profitable for sites to show irrelevant ads. Therefore, Google, for example, ranks advertising content and reduces the price for ads with a high Quality score.
Payment methods for contextual advertising
Contextual advertising is also called PPC, that is, Pay Per Click – in honor of the most common way of paying for it. But in contextual advertising they sell not only clicks, let’s consider other ways of evaluating a campaign.
- CPC , Cost Per Click is the cost of a user interacting with an advertisement, clicking on a link.
- CPA , Cost Per Action — is the cost per conversion. Not just the user’s transition to the site, but also the performance of target actions: subscription, purchase, form filling, etc.
- CPV , Cost per View — is the cost of displaying an ad to a user. For example, Google Ads uses this parameter to calculate the cost of TrueView videos, and it is also used in campaigns aimed at brand awareness rather than conversion.
Contextual advertising opportunities
- Contextual advertising is relevant for users and can complement the content of the advertising platform for them. Thus, out of 8,600 participants in the ZEFR study , 71% considered advertising contextual videos relevant to themselves.
- Increased conversion. The same study showed that the desire to buy something after viewing contextual advertising is 63% higher than with other targeting methods.
- Convenient analytics from advertising providers allows you to immediately understand how much and what you are paying for. Google Ads and other advertising providers report on impressions, clicks and their cost in real time.
- Unlike offline advertising, contextual advertising is easy to edit, you can stop or start it at any time. It does not require long negotiations and approvals with anyone.
Disadvantages of PPC
- Contextual advertising requires constant attention from the advertiser. It is necessary to monitor the size of the bids, launch new ads, change messages when new players enter the market.
- Contextual advertising analytics systems collect information about users’ online actions, but cannot track offline actions without special additional settings. If the specifics of your industry involve frequent calls, analytics will not show where the calling lead came from. But this gap can be eliminated using call tracking or call analytics.
- It is difficult to regulate how many times a user sees the same advert, so there is a risk of annoying them. This task is complicated by the ban on storing cookies on users’ devices. We previously described how to set up an extension to manage cookie rights under the GDPR .
Conclusion
- Contextual advertising is a method of Internet promotion that is oriented towards the content of the placement site or the user’s request. The essence of contextual advertising is in organic presentation, which does not cause rejection.
- Contextual advertising is divided into search, thematic and remarketing. Some researchers classify native advertising as contextual, but in RuNet this is not usually the case.
- Although Google is the world leader among search engines, the situation may differ in different countries. In China, Baidu is the leader, while Yahoo and Bing are also popular in the US media market. This is important to consider when choosing a platform for advertising.
- Payment for contextual advertising may depend on your settings – the number of clicks, conversions or impressions. However, contextual advertising is called by the general term PPC, that is, Pay Per Click.
- 71% of contextual advertising audiences consider it relevant to them, according to a study by ZEFR. Moreover, the desire to purchase the promoted product or service after viewing contextual advertising is 63% higher than with other methods of digital promotion.
Contextual advertising services show detailed analytics about user interactions with the ad. But tracking offline actions requires additional tools. For example, to monitor calls from contextual advertising, marketers use call tracking.
To maximize the impact of your campaigns, consider partnering with effective PPC marketing services that specialize in contextual advertising and PPC strategies.
