Reaching the right audience at the right time is a leap to success in any campaign, and digital marketing has been no exception in the ever-evolving world. This has led marketers to turn towards contextual advertising, a strategy to deliver ads based on the content a user is viewing, to improve relevance and engagement.
With contextual ads, the ad and the content being consumed are more closely aligned, which in turn makes the ad feel more organic and less invasive. As such, like any other form of advertising, contextual marketing has both advantages and disadvantages.
In this article, we will explore the advantages that make contextual advertising an attractive option for brands, as well as the drawbacks it presents.
How does Contextual advertising Work?
Contextual ads work by taking the content of a page and returning adverts that match the content of that web page, with an intent to make the advert as close to matching the users’ immediate interests and context. That would aptly mean the adverts will likely appeal to the user because they are relevant to what the user is reading or watching at the time. Let’s take a closer look at how this works:
1. Content Analysis
First comes the content analysis of the page where the ad will be published. This is to break down all the content on the web page into keywords, topics, and themes to try to interpret what the page is about. This is often based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning algorithms so that the system can readily identify the main topic and its related words. For instance, on a fitness website, the headwords might be “exercise,” “workout,” and “nutrition.”.
2. Keyword and Topic Matching
Once the content has been analyzed, the system matches the keywords or topics of content with the relevant ads. Advertisers usually select specific keywords or categories that their ads should appear alongside. For example, if a fitness brand wants to target users who are probably going to be interested in health and exercise, it would bid for keywords such as “fitness,” “healthy living,” or “exercise tips.” If the ad platform finds a webpage with the same key phrases of “fitness,” “healthy living,” or “exercise tips,” then this ad will come up.
3. Ad Placement and Display
As soon as there is a match, the display platform applies the advertisement to the page. Most times, it is done at its most visible places so as not to overlook the banners, sidebars, and in-feed ads. All these are made to blend into the page and look like the content so as not to disturb the user. Therefore, the relevance of the ad augments as it does not look disruptive to the user.
4. Real-Time Bidding (RTB)
Most contextual ads today are served through RTB (real-time bidding), a digital auction in which the advertisers bid for the opportunity to display their ad on a particular page based on the matching keywords or topics. In such an auction, the highest-paid ad able to meet the criteria of that page will be selected and shown. This process happens in milliseconds, and thus allows for dynamic placement of ads throughout the broad range of content.
5. Continuous Optimization
The effectiveness of contextual ads is enhanced with machine learning to optimize targeting over time. The system keeps tracking engagement metrics: click-through rates and conversions to learn which keywords and topics drive what kind of interactions and also what ad placements are getting what kind of interactions. Over time, it enables the system to make better matches between ads and content.
Types of Contextual Ads
Sponsored links ads
Typically, they are text-based advertisements that include links to connected websites. The website owner can specify the position of contextual advertisements on his or her website. Your advertisement will appear in a box labelled “sponsored links.” To conduct contextual advertising, you will need to utilise the services of pay-per-click search engines. Google AdWords and AdSense have promoted this format.
Inline ads
The ads that you see in the middle of a web page are called inline ads. If you’re looking at a page with one such ad, there’s only one copy of the ad displayed on the page. But if you’re looking at a page with a number of such ads, each of the ads will be displayed on a separate line.
The purpose of inline ads is to get more ad impressions on a page without having to change the page that contains the ad. On a blog, for example, it’s a good idea to have an inline ad. When someone is looking at a blog post and sees that there’s an inline ad at the bottom of the page, the person is more likely to click on that ad than to just scroll down to the bottom of the page.
The advantages of contextual advertising
Contextual advertising is a very effective form of advertising, in any industry. People are more likely to buy things they are interested in if they see relevant ads, or, advertisements for that matter, in their browser or the page they are looking at.
- You get to reach only those people who are already looking for that information or related information
- You pay only if anybody clicks on your link
- Such links don’t annoy people
- If the information you provide is good, the user gets delighted.
Disadvantages of contextual advertising
While contextual advertising offers many advantages, there are also quite a number of drawbacks. Some of them include;
Limited Personalization
Contextual advertising only focuses on the content that is open on any webpage it is being served on but does not bother taking into account any data regarding the individual user’s history, preferences, or even demographics. This makes it less effective in niche targeting than behaviorally targeted advertising. Behavioural advertising bases its targeting on past data of browsing history to better present advertisements.
Less Accuracy in Complex Matters
Although the natural language processing algorithms are much improved, they do not yet truly understand complex content with the subtle nuances that are present. So, there’s a good chance that an ad ends up on a page in a way that really isn’t relevant barely tangential at best the product or service that’s being advertised. For instance, a page about “carpentry” might get picked up as a possible match for “home improvement” ads the article probably was very specific to woodworking tools.
Keyword Dependence
Keyword contextual ad targeting is highly dependent on keywords as a method to deliver advertisements to the intended contextual space. This can be their problem when keywords are ambiguous and have diverse meanings or are applicable in various contexts. “Java” is both a coffee from Indonesia and a programming language. This will allow advertisers to get irrelevant ad placements due to nonsensical content where they place their ads. The niche audiences that rely on specific niches advertisers will fail to penetrate those niches since some of their keywords have different meanings.
Limited Reach for Niche Products
Contextual Ads are great on broad topics but not on niche products or services. For instance, an ad targeted at “industrial equipment maintenance” will not have enough page content to reach to a meaningful audience. Very niche advertisers would be left with scanty chances of showing the ad and would also not be able to scale campaigns.
Conclusion
In general, contextual advertising offers marketers a very efficient means of reaching their intended audience by strategically delivering advertisements precisely at the moment when consumers are actively engaged with pertinent content. Contextual advertising enhances the user experience and augments the likelihood of ad engagement and conversion by delivering pertinent advertisements.
