Regardless of how much money you decide to spend on online advertising for your relatively new business unless the people who should see it actually do see it, you are wasting your time. That means you won’t get the results you seek, and your ad campaign will be dead in the water, as the old saying goes.
What is Contextual Marketing and How Does it Work?
The term that matters here is “contextual targeting,” and it is essential to anyone who relies on advertising to increase revenues and to make their brand too important to pass up.
With a marketing focus on contextual targeting, you will be able to ensure that the people you want to attract to your product actually see your advertising. That means it will be more likely that the correct person sees your ad at exactly the right time.
The bottom line is, the concept of contextual advertising is based on ensuring that your audience’s behaviors are more likely to be monetized and the ad that results will be more relevant to those who see it.
Of course, that also means putting an emphasis on quality over quantity, which is actually good news for your business because no one charges you for ads based on quality, and if the ads are high in quality, you won’t have to blanket your ads everywhere, thus saving you a lot of money.
How to Attract People Who “Don’t See” Ads
Whether you choose to advertise through Facebook, Twitter, Google, or elsewhere online, running a successful campaign can be very difficult. And it can be especially so if you’re not using contextual targeting to make sure the right people see your ad.
The one thing everyone choosing to advertise online should know is that most web surfers don’t like ads. According to a recent study, 64 percent of respondents said they found all online ads annoying, and another 45 percent said they purposely ignored online advertising, even if they saw them.
Therefore, it’s possible to spend thousands of your hard-earned dollars on online advertisements and get absolutely nowhere. Hence the need to focus your efforts on contextual targeting, since it allows advertisers to place ads based on specific factors of a target audience.
The original focus of traditional marketing was more scattershot, which means you placed your advertisement where most people would see it, and you would naturally attract some of the people you want, albeit randomly. However, if half to two-thirds of your audience is actively trying to avoid your ad, that limits the effect of your scattered attack.
How Contextual Targeting Makes You a Better Marketer
By targeting a specific subset of the overall audience, you have a lot more control over the focus of your ad, which means you are more likely to sell more products and/or increase your revenues.
The easiest way to understand contextual targeting is to realize that it means your online ad or ads are displayed on the websites most relevant to your business’ context. For example, if you have, say, a blog about parenting young children, your target audience is parents of young children, so advertising on a site about local bars probably isn’t the best choice.
Considering the Reader’s POV
Think of it from the web surfer’s point of view. If you are searching the web for fishing advice, you are probably going to ignore an advertisement for baby toys or stuffed animals. Imagine picking up a magazine on news and politics, and seeing ads for crocheting tips. Are you more likely to read or ignore the ad.
This is what makes contextual targeting so effective. If you are selling a piece of software to reduce the likelihood of identity theft, do you think a lot of parents looking for advice on raising small kids are a better audience than people on a financial services website, looking for ways to build their retirement?
You might get lucky, and make a few sales, but when you place ads contextually, you will be able to ignore all those people who are not at all interested in what you have to sell, and target those most likely to be receptive to it.
By making sure only those more likely to be moved by your ad, you sell a lot more product and waste a lot less money trying to sell your product to everyone. The appeal of contextual marketing will become obvious if you try it.
Interesting Related Article: “Targeting Your Market With Sales Territory Mapping In 2019“