If you work in marketing, you’ll be very aware of Google and other entities phasing out the use of third-party cookies. These cookies store data on your browser that allows organizations to track your online behavior and deliver targeted ads to you.
While many may be celebrating a victory for consumer privacy, it has left businesses facing somewhat of a dilemma. How can you continue to deliver relevant ads that boost your presence and make your target audience more likely to buy from you? Step forward contextual targeting. Just what is contextual targeting and how can your marketing teams use it to make your brand more relevant while improving user experience?
Understanding contextual targeting
Image sourced from Grand View Research
In essence, contextual targeting is a strategy that involves posting and displaying your ads in places related to where the potential customer is browsing. You analyze the various components of a page, blog, or app to identify how contextually close to your offerings the destination is. That can mean analyzing the keywords, the topics discussed, or just the general context of that page.
For example, you might analyze a tech blog that discusses a SIP phone definition. As one of your product lines is handsets, you would identify that this blog is contextually right for placing ads on. It means that the ads on that page will be more relevant to the viewer and can target them without the intrusiveness of third-party cookies.
Semantic targeting
In this digital era that sees so much AI-powered assistance, it is little surprise that it can help you in the field of contextual targeting too. Semantic targeting is like the business class of contextual targeting and uses ML (machine learning) to drill down deeper into potential targets to fully understand the meaning of that page rather than just looking for relevant keywords.
With semantic targeting, a web crawler scans and categorizes pages based on both semantics and context. When someone visits that page, your ad server will match it with ads it deems relevant. The better the system you have, the better it will be at understanding the whole context of a page and the better it will be at matching relevant ads with that page.
Why contextual targeting is important
The first thing to note is that contextual targeting is not a new strategy and has been around for many years. However, with the use of third-party cookies disappearing, it has come under the spotlight as a viable and efficient alternative along with purpose-driven marketing. Technology has also played a part in its resurgence as the capabilities to analyze and identify relevant contexts have vastly improved.
This advancement in tech, coupled with the demise of the cookie strategy, means that many marketers are now seeing it as one of their primary strategies that offer solid returns in terms of performance, results, scale, and stability.
The benefits of contextual targeting
If you’ve not employed contextual targeting as part of your overall marketing strategy, you’ll want to know what switching to it will bring you in terms of benefits.
1) Reaching the right consumers
You will already have identified your demographic targets. You may even have constructed your ideal buyer persona. By using contextual targeting, you are reaching your targets based on what they are browsing now as opposed to the historical browsing that was targeted by third-party cookies. As intent plays a major role in purchasing decisions, real-time browsing shows intent and means you are connecting with potential customers while they are ready to buy.
2) Privacy protection
We generate around 402.74 million terabytes of data every single day. While that provides businesses with more information and insights than ever before, it has also led to growing consumer concerns about user privacy and the use of data. Because you are placing ads based on context rather than behavior, you are protecting privacy and mitigating consumer concerns.
3) Real-time metrics
Your metrics mean a lot to you. Everything from conversion rates to engagement rates can inform you on what you’re doing right. As contextual advertising is based in the ‘now’, it means you can access the metrics that matter as they happen. In turn, this allows you to optimize any ads and tweak content as and when needed rather than waiting to analyze historical results.
4) Helps you target niche consumers
If you’re in B2B, you may well have a robust demand generation strategy based on your main demographic targets. It’s the same in B2C, businesses tend to have main targets that make up the bulk of their customers. But what about potential customers that lie outside those groups? Think of contextual targeting as a laser sight that allows you to target more precisely. You can thus target more niche groups through precision analysis.
5) Brand reputation
The reputation of your brand is everything and if it’s damaged, it can take a lot to restore it. The use of third-party cookies, particularly when combined with automation, has led to many brands seeing their ads in questionable places that could damage their reputation. With contextual targeting and first-party data, you have far more control over ad placement as you are specifying the relevant keywords and topics.
Contextual targeting is far more observant of data privacy concerns and can thus increase consumers’ trust in your brand.
6) Brand relevance
The modern consumer is far more savvy and conscious about the brands they feel are relevant to them or that align with their values. Contextual advertising can enhance your relevance to consumers as it is related to what they are viewing. For example, a consumer is reading a blog about green energy. As you sell products in that sector, they see an ad from you, become aware of your business, and are more likely to investigate further.
How contextual targeting works
You can see the benefits and may have a rough idea of the concept, but how does it actually work? Knowing the process can help you see whether it is a strategy that will work for your business.
1) Keywords and topics
Whereas behavioral targeting is based on historical actions by consumers, contextual targeting is based on real-time actions. The first step to implementing contextual advertising is to identify the keywords and topics you’re going to use.
Keywords: You are going to choose keywords (and phrases) that are directly linked to the products or services you offer. For example, if you sold SIP handsets, you might choose keywords such as ‘phone’ or ‘VoIp’.
Google gives you a lot of help in this area. They recommend using a minimum of five and a maximum of 50 keywords but those include negative keywords. If you were a specialist store selling sports footwear, for example, you may decide that ‘shoe’ is a negative keyword. Though related, it would broaden the category too far.
Topics: Your keywords may have a narrow focus but your topics will be more general. Going back to the SIP phone example, you could choose a topic such as communication. But you could also choose a narrower sub-category such as call centers. Categories are what enables the GDN (Google Display Network) to recognize that your ads are qualified to appear on relevant websites.
2) Google analyzes
So, you’ve now chosen the factors that will define your contextual advertising and submitted those parameters to Google. Google will now search through its entire display network to identify sites that are relevant to the parameters you chose. It will evaluate sites based on the content, link structure, keywords, and language so that you can see what sites may provide the best results.
3) Placement
The final stage in the contextual targeting process is placing the ads. The amount of ads will depend on your spend but you should see your ads on multiple sites that tie in with your stated parameters. If this is your first rodeo, you’ll want to keep a close eye on performance and metrics such as your conversion rates and your cost-per-click. This can allow you to tweak the parameters if needed so that your ads appear on a different range of sites.
Essential components for contextual advertising
You know what it is and you know how it works, but what are the essential components you need to make contextual advertising work for you?
- AI (artificial intelligence). We are seeing increased usage of AI and AI-powered systems in almost every area of business. It’s the foundation of any contextual targeting strategy as it identifies relevance in real time and acts on it.
- ML (machine learning). Within the field of AI, ML algorithms are what look for patterns in massive datasets that can include everything from text to images. ML can identify patterns that give you insights into the sort of ads that people want to see.
- NLP (natural language processing). This is a branch of AI that deals with how humans and computers interact with each other in terms of language. If you use chatbots on your website, then you’re already seeing NLP in action. In contextual marketing, NLP helps you understand the sentiment and context of a site rather than just the words.
- Computer vision. As the name suggests, computer vision has to do with enabling computer programs to process the video and images it ‘sees’. Computer vision can aid your team to contextually target far more easily. This allows them to reach and engage with potential customers.
Different types of contextual advertising
Just as with other types of advertising, there are different types of contextual advertising.
Understanding the inbound marketing meaning, you’ll recognize that it involves using various types of relevant content and advertisements to attract prospective customers. It’s the same here and you should think about what message you are trying to convey, the products you are promoting, and where you are advertising.
1) Text
The bread and butter of advertising efforts, you can use text-based ads in a number of ways and scenarios.
- Paid search ads. You can create text-based ads that will appear in search engine results based on the keywords (and phrases) you have chosen.
- Google Ads. With 80% of businesses globally utilizing Google Ads for their PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns, this can be a real winner.
- Chatbots. Just as you can use chatbots to answer simple queries, you can also use them to offer contextual ads based on consumer queries.
- Native advertising. These can appear on news or entertainment websites (or other relevant sites) and can target consumers while they browse.
2) Images
In this scenario, you create banner ads that will appear on landing pages, articles, or blogs. Your ad will be related to the context of the page. For example, you could have an ad for SIP phones appear on a blog about UC (unified communications).
3) Video
Videos can be a great way of demonstrating products or services and can allow the prospective buyer to see your offering in action. The video ad displayed will relate to the video being watched and is ideal for platforms such as YouTube.
4) Games
Image sourced from Influencer Marketing Hub
With more than three billion mobile gamers, this is a lucrative market for businesses. While the context may not be as obvious as with someone reading blogs, it can still present opportunities for a business to showcase its offerings.
5) Keywords
You may choose to focus purely on contextual keywords for ad placement. So, if you’re looking to advertise running shoes, they could appear on a blog piece about running for fitness.
6) Categories
With categories, you are broadening the context for where your ads are placed. For example, if you are offering a range of SaaS (software as a service) products, the ads for them might appear on a broader tech website.
7) Semantics
This is another area where you are looking to ‘laser focus’ your adverts. Rather than just matching with keywords and phrases, you are looking to analyze the nuances of the page’s content so that you can provide ads that have a high degree of relevance.
The takeaway
As we slowly see the use of cookies being phased out, many marketers are realizing that contextual targeting can be a powerful tool. It can boost their advertising campaigns and offer more precise targeting than many other forms of marketing. Using it is fairly easy to align with your campaign objectives by focusing on real-time consumer actions rather than historical user behavior.
You can choose between the various contextual platforms and can decide whether to target broad categories or more focused audience segments. Because contextual advertising very much works in real-time, you get almost instantaneous data-driven insights that allow you to make any required adjustments. In a post-cookie world, contextual targeting could be the perfect replacement.