Posted by: Shannon Anderson, Project Manager
With the increasing competitiveness of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, marketers are looking for complementary advertising tactics that will help them stand out from the crowd. One way to differentiate your company is through contextual advertising where paid ads can be targeted to users based on the content they are viewing. The advantages of using this platform include:
- Targeting beyond search to hook users who are looking for related content
- Telling your story in a different way via images, rich media, video and text
- Diversifying beyond search to increase your advertising reach and lower your cost per click (CPC)
- Advertising on sites your customers are likely to engage with and tailoring your messaging to apply to this content
PPC advertising places your ads in front of users at the moment they’re looking for your product or service, while contextual advertising places your ads in front of them while they’re looking at related content.
What can you expect from results? Typically, contextual advertising performs more like banner advertising with a lower click through rate (CTR); however, its CPC is often much lower giving you more bang for your marketing buck.
One way to dive into the contextual advertising platform is to run a test campaign dedicating a small portion of your PPC budget to this tactic to see how the results look and to determine if this tactic will be added into your online marketing mix.
Check out the MediaPost story, “Looking Outside The (Search) Box,” to learn more.
