Contextual can mean different things to different marketers. Whatever it means, it's a way to drive return on investment in advertising.
More specifically, for some, contextual means search advertising.
When Google unveiled its AdWords platform in the year 2000, a new opportunity in contextual advertising was born. After users entered a query, they would now be shown a relatively unobtrusive ad in the right hand column that was contextually relevant to their request. For example, if the user said "new car", contextual display ads would be shown from advertisers from automobile advertisers.
What a boon to advertising! Here was a unique opportunity to capture the consumer as they were researching and preparing to buy any particular product. In marketing speak, this was near the bottom of the purchase funnel - just before the consumer strikes. And, the simplicity of tracking purchases online made it easy to justify ad campaign budget and resulted in driving marketing to new levels of success.
Search advertising isn't the only contextual opportunity and it just so happens Google is the leading player in another online contextual advertising marketplace.
Known to webmasters as Google's AdSense platform and begun in 2003, website owners could sign up put a small snippet of Google AdSense code into the HTML of their web pages. When the web page loads in the user's browser, an ad is shown.
At first it was only text ads, and Google has since added graphical display ads. What's significant for publishers and marketers alike was that each text or graphical display ad was contextual. If the site was about sports, Google's AdSense technology would show sports display advertising. If it was about home decoration products, it would show - you guessed it - ads from home decoration marketers.
Other contextual advertising opportunities are also available online. Whereas Google's technology reads a page and determines the appropriate ad via a bot, some online ad networks have grouped similar sites together into contextual blocks, such as finance websites, and repackaged them to marketers. Specific Media, Advertising.com and Valueclick are a few of the names you may have heard of.
More specifically, for some, contextual means search advertising.
When Google unveiled its AdWords platform in the year 2000, a new opportunity in contextual advertising was born. After users entered a query, they would now be shown a relatively unobtrusive ad in the right hand column that was contextually relevant to their request. For example, if the user said "new car", contextual display ads would be shown from advertisers from automobile advertisers.
What a boon to advertising! Here was a unique opportunity to capture the consumer as they were researching and preparing to buy any particular product. In marketing speak, this was near the bottom of the purchase funnel - just before the consumer strikes. And, the simplicity of tracking purchases online made it easy to justify ad campaign budget and resulted in driving marketing to new levels of success.
Search advertising isn't the only contextual opportunity and it just so happens Google is the leading player in another online contextual advertising marketplace.
Known to webmasters as Google's AdSense platform and begun in 2003, website owners could sign up put a small snippet of Google AdSense code into the HTML of their web pages. When the web page loads in the user's browser, an ad is shown.
At first it was only text ads, and Google has since added graphical display ads. What's significant for publishers and marketers alike was that each text or graphical display ad was contextual. If the site was about sports, Google's AdSense technology would show sports display advertising. If it was about home decoration products, it would show - you guessed it - ads from home decoration marketers.
Other contextual advertising opportunities are also available online. Whereas Google's technology reads a page and determines the appropriate ad via a bot, some online ad networks have grouped similar sites together into contextual blocks, such as finance websites, and repackaged them to marketers. Specific Media, Advertising.com and Valueclick are a few of the names you may have heard of.
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