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Contextual advertising is an ad unit (usually in the form of a text link, sometimes in the form of a web banner) located on a web page the content of which corresponds to the content of the ad unit. In other words, contextual advertising is a kind of Internet advertising that is displayed to those users only who have shown interest in a particular good or service. Contextual advertising is a quite effective website promotion tool. For example, contextual advertising of cars should be located in an online magazine for motorists, and contextual advertising of baby food will be most useful if placed on websites for women, sites devoted to health protection, maternity and childhood.
Recently specialists have begun to distinguish between the notions of contextual advertising and search advertising. What is the difference?
Contextual advertising can be placed on well-promoted websites with high traffic that are devoted to your theme. Keep in mind, that these sites should by no means be your direct competitors (in this case they will refuse to display your ads anyway). One of the simplest examples – contextual advertising of a jeweler’s “Leprechaun Gold” on a content website “The World of Gold and Jewels”. Or contextual advertising of an athletic shoes shop on a site of a tennis club.
Search advertising appeared somewhat later and its principle is that the context of the page is determined by the user himself. It happens the following way: the user types a certain query into the search engine bar – for instance “buy fridge” or “interior apartment design”. As a result of search he gets the list of sites, and next to the search results an ad unit is displayed. This unit contains the advertising of a company which sells fridges or provides apartment design services.
Leading services for display of such advertising in the Runet are Yandex.Direct, Begun, and Google AdWords:
- Yandex.Direct displays ad units in the Yandex search engine (56% of the search traffic in the Runet);
- Begun displays ad units in the Rambler search engine (17% of the search traffic in the Runet);
- Google AdWords displays ad units in the Google search engine (14% of the search traffic in the Runet).
The main advantage of search and contextual advertising is evident – it will be seen by those users only who are already interested in this subject, goods or services.
During the development of contextual ad units you should keep in mind the rules of writing the ads, inserting the links, and selecting and using the keywords. Contextual advertising is perceived by the users not as direct “head-on” advertising (they are already sick and tired of direct ads). Contextual advertising is rather unobtrusive help, an additional navigation element. Therefore loud slogans are inappropriate here – it is better to provide the user with information that will motivate him to visit the advertised site and make a purchase (for example, the ad will inform him about the seasonal sale or new arrivals etc).
Commercial sites that in such a way advertise their company in general make a serious mistake. Contextual advertising has an absolutely concrete goal – the increase in the number of sales from the site, therefore you shouldn't advertise the company – it is the product the should be advertised.
Contextual advertising has been an integral element of promotion of commercial websites, an important factor of increase in conversion (transformation of site visitors into customers) for several years already. It is undoubtedly suitable for the representatives of small- and middle-scale business who are entering the World Wide Web en masse: contextual advertising is low-cost and efficient.
When advertisers draw up the budget of an advertising campaign, they compare figures and prospects: advertising in the traditional mass media is very expensive nowadays, and its effect reduces every year as most of the readers of magazines and newspapers just ignore the advertisements. To order advertising on TV you need at least 50 000 dollars – for recently emerged small-scale business it is an unreal sum, and everyone knows that when a movie is interrupted by obtrusive advertising, the viewer either goes to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee, or mutes sound, or switches the channel.
Contextual advertising on the Internet is cheap and democratic: you can determine yourself how much you are ready to spend for it. And even if you invest 400-500 dollars a month, you will be able so see the result very soon!
You can submit a request for creation of an advertising campaign right now!
TAGS
contextual advertising,
internet advertising,
search advertising,
yandex direct,
google adwords,
website promotion,
conversion,
cheap advertising |
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