All the intricacies of contextual advertising. What is contextual advertising, how it works

It is customary to distinguish three types of contextual advertising:
1. search advertising- shown on search results pages after the user has entered a query relevant to the topic of your ad,
2. thematic advertising- is shown on the pages of those resources whose topics are similar to the topic of your ad,
3. behavioral advertising- is shown on the pages of those users who were interested in this topic, for example, they entered queries similar to your topic into a search engine.

A little terminology:

• CPC model - payment for conversions
• CPM model - payment per 1000 impressions

Keywords and Matching

• Broad matchMen's Shorts" will be shown for queries containing all variants of words, synonyms and individual words. That is, they will be shown even for the query "polka dot shorts".
• Modified broad match. Ad with keyword " Shorts +men's" will be shown for queries containing all variants of the word men's, i.e. will not be shown for the query "polka dot shorts".
• Phrase matching. Ad with keyword " "Men's Shorts"" will be shown for queries containing both of these words and in that order, it will be shown if there are additional words before or after this phrase. It will not be shown for the query "shorts for men" or "men's shorts".
• Exact match. Ad with keyword " [Men's Shorts]" will be shown for queries containing both of these words and in that order, and there are no additional words before or after the phrase.
• Minus matching. Ad with keyword " Men's shorts - pattern - photo"Queries like "shorts pattern" will be excluded.
• Indirect Match. Ad with keyword " Men's shorts -[shorts] -[shorts]" Exclusion of some word forms from the query. "Men in shorts" will be excluded"

How it works?

You contact a contextual advertising operator, for example, Yandex.Direct, Google.AdWords, Begun, Tak and others "marketgid.com", "adriver.ru", "thisclick.network", "hghit.com", "onedmp.com", "acint.net", "yadro.ru", "tovarro.com", "marketgid .com", "rtb.com", "adx1.com", "directadvert.ru", "rambler.ru". Fill in special form, where you indicate the title of the ad, its content, the cost of one click and a number of additional parameters: where to show, when, to whom. Then you deposit a certain amount into your account in this service through payment systems or a bank card.

Next, your ads begin to appear on pages that are relevant to the keywords in your ad. And for each click (transition) on your ad, the amount that you indicated during registration is debited from your account. The higher the amount you specify, the more more sites your advertisement will be displayed. The more attractive your advertisement is and the more often it is clicked on, the less money your advertisement will be shown.

Website icon - how to make it?

Some ads have a small icon before the text. It would seem like a trifle, but! Ads containing a small icon in front of the text have a CTR (click-through rate) 2-3 times higher than those without. In order for a small icon to appear in front of your ad, you need to create a favicon.ico - a miniature of your site.

“Special accommodation” and “guarantee” - which is which?

Guarantee- this is the placement of an ad to the right of the main text. The guarantee is always much cheaper, but the click-through rate on these ads is much lower. The click-through rate (CTR) for ads in special placement can reach up to 100%

Advantages and disadvantages of contextual advertising

Advantages:
• Speed. Once you have registered your ad and deposited money, your ad begins to appear. You get instant results.
• Recoil. Contextual advertising attracts targeted visitors, i.e. those who are looking for your product or service.

Flaws:
• High price. You have to pay for each person who clicks on your link. Moreover, the declared cost per click determines how your ad will rank among others. The more competition, the more you have to pay for each visitor.
• The fragility of the result. As soon as you stop paying for contextual advertising, targeted visitors immediately stop coming to you. The same cannot be said about investing in search engine optimization.

How to choose the price of a contextual ad?

Type your ad's keyword into a search engine and see how many ads there are already for that keyword. If there are few ads, then the price should be set to a minimum. The more ads, the higher the cost per click.

The position of the ad (whether it is first or last) depends not only on the price, but also on the CTR (click-through rate). This metric is calculated as the ratio of how many people saw your ad to how many people clicked on it. So, if out of 100 people who saw it, 20 clicked, then the CTR is 20%. The higher the CTR, the higher the ad is placed. In order to save money, you need to correctly compose your ad. I recommend creating several ads and seeing their click-through rates over the course of a few days, then keeping the most effective ones.

5 most common contextual advertising mistakes

1. Very few keywords used. Ads are shown based on the most obvious, and at the same time, the most competitive words. Moreover, the most common words, unnecessary words are not “minus” (it’s good if autofocus is enabled in Direct).

   What is the result? The client overpays, fights for general words with low returns, while at the same time, the “tasty” words that attract the most “hot” clients remain out of his sight. The frequent result is low returns from advertising, disappointment and abandonment of the most effective tool.

2. The second common mistake is one ad for all campaign keywords. And for “order a bus”, and for “bus for delivering people to the office”, and for “bus with air conditioning” an ad is displayed:

   Order a bus from 750 rub./hour
   from 4 hours without delay. From 8 hours discount!
   Address and telephone

   But it is absolutely clear that those who are looking for a bus with air conditioning are primarily concerned about air conditioning. Compare:

   Bus with air conditioning from 750 RUR/hour
   Cool and comfortable. Call!
   Address and telephone

   Which ad will attract more attention?

3. Third mistake - done and forgotten. There are no perfect campaigns. When composing each campaign, individual options and moves are used. For a campaign to be as effective as possible, its results must be evaluated and refined: vary ads, keywords. Even if a campaign was designed by a genius, the search landscape changes over time. The actions of competitors change, customer priorities change. Therefore, a campaign cannot simply be launched and forgotten.

   Analysis of queries, search for transactional and non-competitive target queries, sharpening ads for each keyword, further analysis and adjustment of the campaign, reaction to the actions of competitors take time; but it’s worth it, because the efficiency increases many times over.

   If you do not have this time, our specialists will come to the rescue. And even if you have time, use it for what only you can do - and entrust the development and management of campaigns to specialists.

4. The following error does not relate directly to the campaign on Yandex or Begun, but it greatly affects the advertising results: the web page your advertisement leads to(the so-called “landing” page).

   Typically, the main page of the site is used as such a page. Sometimes this is justified, but most often it is not.

   On the landing page, a visitor who came from an advertisement should immediately find what he was looking for and why he clicked on the ad. Looking for HTC Desire? Should find this phone number, not a link to a directory. Looking for dry cleaning? You must immediately find the address, directions and telephone number.

   Look right now at the page where your ads lead:

   • Is it easy to do to the visitor what you want from him - call, write, order?
   • does it stick? We in Russia are sensitive to aesthetics, and even a poorly designed website can ruin all the results of an advertising campaign;
   • Is there a rational justification for why a purchase should be made from you?

   Don't be discouraged if you find problems that are killing the results of your campaign. From experience we can say that a rare site, even a beautiful one, has pages that are capable of performing well the task of receiving visitors through advertising.

   That is why the “Advertising Page” service appeared: development of a landing web page with a well-structured design and selling text; This page allows you to increase the results of your advertising campaign several times. Try adapting the page to accept advertising yourself, and if it doesn’t work, contact us.

5. And the last, simply fatal and most offensive mistake. No matter how brilliant the advertising campaign is, no matter how polished the advertising page is, everything can be killed by the “last mile.”

   Who takes a call from a client? How fast? How exactly? How polite? The experience of our calls shows: 70% of offices answer imperfectly, 30-35% so much so that, let alone order, you don’t want to call anymore.

   We make such calls regularly; this is included in the package of support for advertising campaigns. And you? When last time Did you trust the manager?

When contextual advertising is not beneficial

• the product is fundamentally new, they do not know about it and are not looking for it; Moreover, they do not look for other goods/services that satisfy the same need;
• the markup (profitability) is less than 30 rubles and re-sale is unlikely;
• sales are made in a region that is not geotargeted (is there geotargeting for your region? Check this list);
• the sale of goods is illegal or is not provided with appropriate licenses and certificates;
• You sell goods remotely and there is no registered individual entrepreneur or legal entity(according to the Law on Advertising on the website, it is required to indicate the OGRN; But you can always negotiate with someone;-)).

How to increase CTR in Yandex Direct and Google Adwords

In this article we will not talk about the conversion of an advertising channel, which depends not only on the advertising campaign and the quality of traffic, but also on the site itself, but we will talk about the important indicator advertising campaign - CTR.

If the CTR is high, it means the offer is interesting and leads target audience. Otherwise, the advertisement is seen by the wrong audience, or the bids are too low and the ad does not fall into the user's field of view, choosing an offer with a higher position.

In addition, the higher the CTR, the lower the cost of a click (transfer) from the search engine for you. A high CTR also increases the quality score of your ads. It allows you to receive clicks for the same queries as your competitors, but at a better price.

1. Select only most relevant keywords, which will bring the most interested audience. For example, the request " Stretch ceiling"does not indicate that the user is interested in purchasing. In addition, this request is high-frequency and will help you get rid of the lion's share of your advertising budget.
   You should not rely on high-frequency queries. It is better to leave them as a snack when the advertising campaign begins to pay for itself. Add “buy”, “price”, “order” to this request and get the highest quality traffic.
2. When selecting key phrases, you need more specifics, right away cut off requests indirectly related to your business. For example, if you are engaged in car evacuation, then using the “Evacuation” key, your ad may appear for the queries “Public evacuation”, “Evacuation rules”. Don't make such gross mistakes.
3. Use multi-word phrases! Three, four or five words in a keyword phrase is great; the more words in the keyword, the more relevant the ad text and title will be.
   Let these phrases be low frequency, but there will be a lot of them and the cost per click will be low.
4. Add as many negative words as possible.
   If you do not do this, then any of your keys with additional words in the request (photo, download, free, reviews, characteristics) will cause the ad to be displayed. I think you don't want to pay for such users.
5. Don't forget about word forms and synonyms, they can be in different parts speech and there will be completely different quantitative and qualitative indicators: cheap - cheap, installation - installation, price - cost.
6. Using specialized programs to search for keywords is not prohibited, but always manually check semantic core , because it may contain queries with typos and transliterations.
7. When creating ads use keyword in title and text.
   Search engines highlight in bold the exact match between the search query and the ad text. The ad becomes more visible and attractive.
8. Include information about promotions in the ad text, special offers and discounts, but a discount below 20% does not work well for search ads.
   Add a price in the text or title of the ad. It will help the user instantly decide whether he is interested in such an offer or not, in as a last resort you will save budget if the price for the user is too high.
9. Do not include your company name in the title or text of your ad unless it is famous brand, which has proven itself in this region. It's better to spend symbols on a call to action.
10. Try use advanced settings, at least additional links, only they can increase CTR by 20% - 30%
    Google provides a wide range of settings. For example, phone numbers, reviews, addresses.
11. Don't be afraid to experiment! Test different texts, try non-standard approaches to write them, this will help you find best option and better understand what motivates users.

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Contextual advertising is a special type of advertising on the Internet that appears in accordance with a search query or depends on the meaning of the page. For example, you score in Yandex or any other search engine request “how to choose a TV.” Text ads dedicated to your business appear above, below, or to the right of the main links. search query. In these places there is contextual advertising of sites about TVs or their purchase.

Context Feature

The main feature is the unobtrusive display of advertising. That is why such advertising is not annoying.

How contextual advertising works

A special program automatically selects advertisements using a special algorithm. They usually correspond to the topic of the page and that the site visitor entered.

The main leaders of contextual advertising

Contextual advertising is managed through specialized interfaces for creating specific ads or keywords. This ensures clear management of various advertising campaigns. In Russia to the most known systems Contextual advertising regulations include:

Contextual advertising from yandex, google, begun

• Yandex.Direct- a system with the help of which advertisements are placed in Yandex search and on partner sites, where the subject of the site pages is determined automatically.
• Google AdWords- a system with which advertisements are placed in Google search and on partner sites. The subject of advertising is determined automatically.
• Runner- a system with the help of which advertisements are placed in Rambler search, and displays advertisements in global network personal sites.
• MediaTarget- a system for displaying advertisements on LiveInternet projects.

Principles of contextual advertising

• The customer's advertising is shown only to those users who are interested in it.
• Advertising is placed on well-known search engines or thematic sites.
• The customer pays for transitions to the site by clicking on an advertisement.
• The customer himself determines the price for going to his website.
• The distribution of places is carried out according to the auction principle (the leading place in the search engine is occupied by the one who paid the maximum price).

It's easy to calculate. CRT (click-through rate is the product of the number of clicks and the number of impressions) multiplied by the cost per click. We get a number. If you have it more than others, your advertisement will be shown. If it’s less, then most likely it won’t happen. To get into the impression, you need to increase the CRT or increase the cost per click.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. If you are a business owner and you have a website (an online store, a service website, etc.), then you will most likely have to attract visitors to it either with the help of SEO or with the help of contextual advertising. And most often, using both of these channels.

We will still talk a lot about SEO in detail within this section (in relation to a commercial site), but we will consider general issues of working with context right now.

Well, in future articles, perhaps we’ll touch on the details of creating and setting up campaigns in Yandex Direct and Google Adwords.

Contextual advertising opportunities and secrets of success

Contextual advertising in Google AdWords

Let's start with the possible placements of your ads when using this contextual advertising system:

Google Adwords allows you to use several ad formats:

Yandex Direct

First of all, Direct is chosen for its huge reach of the target audience (this will be true for most commercial sites). If you need to get real large influx target visitors, then often there is simply no alternative to this contextual advertising system (there may simply not be so many users interested in buying something in Adwords).

Direct's ability to fine-tune a campaign is somewhat poorer than that of its competitor from Google, and the cost of attracting a client is slightly higher, but you have to put up with it. Let's see where your ads placed through Yandex contextual advertising can be shown:

Runner

Honestly, I didn't even track it Lately, where their ads are shown (probably still in Rambler mixed with Direct and in the affiliate network). A market share of contextual advertising of 1.5 percent does not greatly encourage such research. You can try it yourself and draw your own conclusions.

In this article we will try to tell you what contextual advertising is. in simple words, Let's reveal 5 secrets How to use this toolkit in practice. Contextual advertising is a strong marketing tool for high sales. Context is the connection or content (translation from Latin). The article is made full review this topic. The material is presented in blocks for convenience.

Just something complicated

This is a powerful promotion tool for businesses represented on the Internet. It consists of launching an advertising campaign, selecting keywords and composing ads, and is shown only to interested users on search or partner sites. With the right settings, it has a greater impact and increases profits. It differs from traditional advertising in that it is broadcast only on the Internet. To launch, you need a website or at least a page on networks. Displayed in response to the user's entered request. For example, if you ask “buy an iPhone” in the Yandex search engine, then the first place will be this type advertising, Google will be the same.

Contextual advertising in search engines

This area received its first and powerful development in 2009. Due to the crisis of that year, many enterprises went online and began to advertise themselves using this tool.

To date, two platforms have been identified with a turnover of tens of billions - the Yandex Direct advertising network (hereinafter referred to as Direct) and Google AdWords. Also on the market is the Runner, which works on the principle of teaser advertising showing pop-up windows.

Types of contextual advertising

Contextual advertising in search engines is divided into two main types. Search advertising and thematic advertising, broadcasting advertisements on partner sites (platforms). There are also a number of additional concepts (directions) that have received certain terms and definitions.

Contextual advertising on search and partner sites

In simple words, Thematic advertising broadcasts impressions of advertiser’s ads on sites that have become partners of the advertising network. In Direct this network is called YAN, and in google adwords— KMS. Any webmaster or website owner can become a partner in these systems. Google is simple, just send an application with any traffic and after moderation, if the site meets all the requirements, it will be accepted. Yandex and its direct system are more complex; they require visits from 300 people per day and an agreement is concluded with the Yandex advertising network.

Ads on such sites (platforms) are shown either strictly thematic, or are relevant to previously entered commercial queries from the computer of the user who came to such a site. That is, if you were recently looking for a sofa, and then go to a resource for buying apartments, advertisements for the sale of sofas will be broadcast.

Contextual advertising on a partner’s website

In the example, one of the resources on architecture, as you can see, part of the advertisements does not correspond to the topic. Such advertising can be seen on almost all partner sites.

Contextual advertising allows you to broadcast ads to a narrow circle of target audiences. This type of advertising received the term targeting, targeted advertising. Its principle and example were given above, using the example of sofas. That is, you can directly specify in the advertising campaign settings certain products (Keys) that were of interest to the user and broadcast your advertising on them through the websites of Direct and AdWords partners. Allows you to target ads to a specific gender, age, region, etc.

This type of advertising is widely used in all in social networks. Easily customized to the interests of a specific audience. Row special programs Parsers help to collect entire segments of your target audience and sell them your products and services.

Contextual advertising, what is it in Yandex Audiences? A type of advertising targeting based on a collected database of phone numbers and postal addresses. In the Yandex Audience service, you need to upload the existing database and, after moderation, you can broadcast ads to your hot audience of buyers.

It is worth noting the teaser advertisement. This type of advertising is broadcast using the principle of pop-up windows. There are several popular teaser networks that have a large pool of partner sites where such advertising is displayed. The runner specializes in such advertising.

Video advertising has become very popular lately. These are advertisements broadcast in the video display window. Due to the growth of the YouTube service audience, this advertising niche is becoming very profitable and popular.

That's basically what contextual advertising is. We briefly examined the main types, directions and concepts of this marketing tool. Now having initial general concepts You can correctly formulate a question about a particular area of ​​advertising and receive a detailed answer in the search engine. On our resource there are also many useful information, and new releases and cases are constantly published.

When is it profitable to launch this type of advertising product?

Let's consider when it should and will be profitable to launch this - advertising in advertising systems.

— Classic sales promotion;

It is necessary to increase sales volumes in the online store, the number of applications and orders for services and similar actions on the Internet resource. Contextual advertising in Yandex Direct and Google Adwords will help, they advertised and within an hour you are in the top search results and you already have results.

The same thing, the ability to launch as quickly as possible, no need to wait for pages to be indexed or traditional advertising to appear.

— New product or service;

For example, glasses for observation solar eclipse. A one-time product, I advertised on Google and Yandex, it worked and ensured an increase in sales. Such a short-term campaign must be broadcast on search. So that the ad is in the top positions in the search results. The user entered a query into search engine, and your advertisement appears in the search results, preferably in the top positions.

— Increase in resource traffic;

If the site is young, then traffic is important to it at the initial stage; traffic will not immediately come from search engines. The advertising itself does not affect promotion, but the visitors who come are targeted and interested in the resource, accordingly they will study the information provided and move on to several more pages. Website performance - behavioral data will go up, and this is already good for promoting the resource.

Advantages and disadvantages of such PR

The advantages are already presented quite well, we will only add that payment is made only for clicks on ads, that is, for clicking on links in the ad to the site, and not for impressions. Possibility of fine tuning for a narrow segment of the target audience.

Disadvantages: There are also some, contextual advertising on the Internet is one of the most complex promotion tools, its setup is very difficult, if it is not configured correctly, the advertising campaign budget will be spent and there will be no return. Since 2009, in some niches the cost of a click has increased to $20 or more per click.

Before launching yourself or hiring a third-party contractor, you need to understand the issue and understand what contextual advertising is. Study at least superficially the principle of setting up advertising campaigns in certain services where you are going to invest funds through specialists. This is necessary in order to competently draw up technical specifications for the implementation of these services for setting up advertising.

Setting up contextual advertising

The tool is very flexible in settings and it is not possible to talk about it in one article. Let's say the main thing. All settings begin with the selection of key queries. A minus words and phrases block must be created separately. Selecting a good core of keys is the key to success. Nessesary to use special services contextual advertising for the selection of key phrases, do not confuse it with the selection of keys for the site.

In Ya.Direct you can use a special link and engage a personal settings specialist directly from their service. But they work with large budgets, and the settings are made on very expensive keys.

When working with advertising in both resources, it is necessary to divide campaigns into search and thematic ones. There are completely different ad formats and settings. The principle in both platforms (Direct and AdWords) is the same, but the settings are different. It is necessary to use UTM tags and constantly monitor statistics. Any campaigns must be tested on small budgets before launching. Determine clickable ads and then launch advertising to the fullest.

Contextual advertising is subject to A/B testing. Always do tests. You need to check everything, headings, texts. Do not confuse them with landing page tests, these are different tests. A split test is performed by creating 3 - 5 advertisements with different text and different headings and seeing which ad performs better and which has the highest CTR. Broadcast your ads to the selling landing page. and we described in detail how to test them in simple words. The landing page also needs to be tested subsequently (conduct an A/B test). Well tested and properly configured, these two marketing tools provide high profits and significantly reduce the advertising budget.

— The title in the ad must match the title on the page;

— The landing page must be relevant to the offer;

— The resource where the offer leads must open quickly and have a mobile layout. Check your pages in the Google pagespeed service, it should be more than 95%;

Following these rules, the result will be a reduction in the budget and an increase in sales.

To be able to use these tools means to be in the know about internet marketing.

If you have a small organization and are just starting a business, then after studying the material on the topic for a week, you can set up your own company. Even by subscribing to our blog and studying the material, it will be quite enough to get started; of course, you won’t become directologists, but there won’t be a big drain on your budget.

Cost of contextual advertising

There are various myths about contextual advertising: some are expensive, while others think they are cheap. Don't believe it! Costs money! There are currently billions in turnover in this area. And high-frequency niches (keys) are quite expensive. The tool is one of the most effective, if it were not such, then such money would not be circulating there. To reduce costs, you need to be able to properly set up campaigns and monitor statistics. Efficiency is achieved by the same actions.

• Incorrect settings will lead to large financial losses;
• An incorrectly drawn up technical task for the performer will also bring a negative result;

When broadcasting and setting up campaigns, always consider the region. If you need to display ads throughout Russia, then be sure to exclude cities with a population of over a million! In Moscow, all advertising is more expensive, and when broadcast across Russia, all rates in all cities will go to Moscow! It's the same with Peter. By excluding these two cities, you will actually save your budget. For these two cities it is necessary to make a separate campaign and broadcast to them separately.

It is worth noting the fact that if the site is developed on any constructor, such as Vicks, then the agency or remote specialist director will provide additional work on preparing the landing page. This is due to the fact that sites and landing pages It’s almost impossible to tailor it to a normal advertising campaign on construction sets. There is no ability to edit service codes to achieve fast page loading, sharpening under mobile version etc. A director who respects himself and values ​​his reputation will either bill for additional work or refuse the order.

A good result is 50% profit from the invested budget. Invested 50,000 rubles, returned 75,000 net profit.

Excellent result, 100%. Invested one hundred thousand, received two hundred.

To achieve such results, it is first necessary to take into account the margin, the net profit from a product or service. If it is small and the cost per click is expensive, then no amount of smart settings will help. Well, then it’s a matter of technology:

• Collection of clues and stop words;
• Conducting competitor analysis;
• Drawing up a portrait of the target audience;
• Preparation of a selling landing page;
• Conducting an A/B test of an advertisement and landing page;

And you will be happy and have large sales volumes!

Profession Director

One of the new, highly paid modern professions. The director is engaged fine tuning contextual advertising. Having a certificate from Yandex and Google gives you good chances for high earnings. It’s not difficult to get these regalia, just take an online survey on setting up advertising from Yandex or Google, or better yet, both. The questions are not quite simple, but all the material is available on the Internet, just scattered throughout the network. Another option is to go professional education from good specialists, but costs money.

The director does enough work difficult work. Namely:

• Selects key queries (SEO core).
• Optimizes advertising pages.
• Creates sales advertisements.
• Conducts competitor analysis (their advertising).
• Conducts analytics for the entire campaign.
• Does all the work of setting up contextual advertising for clients.

The work, although difficult, is well paid and always in demand. Requires extensive knowledge in the field of internet marketing, SEO promotion, website building, and technical website settings.

It is more profitable for a large company with a large advertising budget to accept permanent job such a person. Smaller organizations can contact an advertising campaign agency. Small businesses can find good specialist for remote work.

When hiring a specialist to service advertising settings or an entire agency, pay attention to the advertising campaigns carried out, the work performed, previous Customers, reporting on ongoing campaigns, reviews.

This work from professionals is quite expensive. Do not use the services offered by advertisements, I’ll set up advertising for 3,000 rubles. You can set this up yourself after reading material on the Internet for a couple of hours. Yandex Direct technical support always answers questions quickly; by asking a question correctly, you can get good help for free.

conclusions

This Powerful tool sales and marketing, allows you to get a good return. Requires a lot of knowledge in settings. Beginners will need to find a setup specialist. Stay with us, follow the new material, and you will learn how to competently set up contextual advertising without spending virtually any money or time.

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One of the most effective types advertising - contextual. Thus, according to Yandex, the volume of this market increases annually by 40%, the client response to search ads reaches 5%, while in media and banner advertising this figure on average does not exceed 0.5%. For achievement good effect you need to know the rules for using contextual advertising and follow the technology for its use. Let's talk about them.

Kirill Samoshonkov,

General Director, Novatika, Moscow

In this article you will read:

Effective contextual advertising can seriously improve the situation of any company. Online advertising platforms offer several placement options - text ads, media-contextual (text and banner) and simply media banners. Most experts rightly believe that media and media-contextual banners are more suitable for image campaigns (they work on visual memory and are an analogy to traditional advertising: the client saw and, even if he didn’t go to the site, remembered you), and for advertising goods and services it is better use text ads - effective contextual advertising.

Contextual advertising - ads with search results that are displayed in the most prominent places on the Internet page. This is usually the top left corner (the first one to four links) and the right margin. Main sites (more than 90% of volume contextual placement), as you might guess, coincide with popular search engines - Yandex, Google, Rambler, and services for advertisers are called Yandex.Direct, Google.Adword and Begun, respectively.

The principle of contextual advertising is inherent in its very name: advertisers’ ads are shown when there is a contextual match with keywords in the user's request. Thus, advertisements for the installation of plastic windows will be displayed when requesting “installation of double-glazed windows” or “ plastic windows prices”, and the ad “40% discount on LG vacuum cleaners” will appear upon request “buy a vacuum cleaner” and “promotions on household appliances LG".

What makes contextual advertising effective?

Due to reaching directly the target audience, only those users who are looking on the Internet for information about a specific product or service, effective contextual advertising has a very high response and is considered one of the best promotion tools. That’s why it’s very popular: there are millions of advertising campaigns a year on major Internet platforms. The advantages of contextual advertising are that it is accessible (promotion on the Internet through context can be started when minimum budget) and the fact that the client himself can regulate the intensity of promotion in accordance with specific tasks.

The main task of contextual ads is to potential client clicked on your ad and went to the site. An example of contextual advertising is considered very good when the share of customers who go to the company’s website reaches 5–7% total number who saw the contextual ad. Although in our practice there are examples when this share reached 30%.

Caution doesn't hurt

Despite its apparent simplicity, this method of promotion requires the advertiser to take himself very seriously, knowledge of the theory and tools of performance management. Moreover, now the sphere of Internet technologies is at the stage rapid development and it will be difficult for a non-professional to keep track of the latest innovations for competent online promotion. Therefore, as part of large campaigns in highly competitive markets, planners, writers, and analysts are brought in to develop contextual advertising.

If the resources to complete a task are limited and do not allow you to use the services of promotion specialists, you need to prepare as much as possible to independently conquer the peaks of the context. At a minimum, so that due to ignorance of the specifics of the tool, the company’s annual advertising budget is not wasted in just a week.

For those who decided to launch a contextual advertising campaign on their own, without the help of intermediaries and advertising agencies (and there are already more than 2000 of them in RuNet), there is now great amount hints in the form of detailed and clear instructions on the websites of context providers; you can also find advice online from professionals in this market.

Designed for everyone

Almost any business, even the most niche one, will find its consumers through context. Whether you work in the b2c or b2b market, there is no difference. If buyers of your products and services are online, then you are one of the most shortcuts they include contextual advertising. The modern tools here are so flexible that you can find your client, even if there are very few of them on the Internet.

For example, one of our clients is a manufacturer of mobile and prefabricated concrete plants. It is clear that there are few buyers of his products, but the settings that the sites provide allow you to bring a stable number of target consumers to the client’s website. Moreover, the advertising campaign budget remains low, and the results are effective.

Site selection

As I said earlier, today there are three main providers of contextual advertising - Yandex.Direct, Google.Adword and Begun. The audience is more or less balanced everywhere, the only difference is in the nuances. It is believed that the Google platform is chosen by the younger generation with a technical bent, Yandex is used by people of the middle generation, and the older generation prefers Rambler.

In addition, advertising opportunities are actively developing on the social networks VKontakte and Facebook. An undoubted advantage of social media is its approach to reaching an audience. If the advantage of contextual advertising is that customers are identified by their queries, which they enter into the search bar, then here, thanks to the personal data voluntarily provided by participants, it is possible to target the display of ads by gender, age, marital status, position, interests and many other parameters, including the mobile operator used.