Targeting Strategies: Need to Get Contextual

Because of the implementation of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018, contextual targeting strategies are better suited to help you target user behaviors. Rather than target an audience, contextual targeting strategies make it mandatory for advertisers to understand the context of each web page. This will enhance targeting and brand safety.

What Is Contextual Targeting?

Let’s say you are a wholesale widget manufacturer that sells to companies needing widgets in their supply chain. The idea is to target webpages where people interested in widgets visit and are more likely to want to buy them. This targeting increases your click-through rates and leads to more conversions. Your widget ads would not show up on sites for foodies and baking fanatics, for example. They would only show up in complementary webpages in a contextual manner, like a page for a product made with widgets.

Contextual targeting is a method you can use to display your ads on sites, apps, and webpages that are a part of the Display Network. The Google Display Network helps you reach your customers while they’re watching a YouTube video or browsing websites, checking their Gmail account, or on their mobile device and apps. The Display Network helps you find the right audience. Contextual targeting uses topics or keywords of your choice to match your ads with the most relevant sites.

You Choose Topics and Keywords

When you start a Display Network campaign, contextual targeting lets you add content keywords and topics to ad groups. The keywords comprise individual words while a topic is a webpage’s general theme or its concept rather than a single, individual term.

Google Analyzes Webpages for Your Display Network

Leave it to Google to analyze the content of each webpage or URL in your Display Network. It considers such factors as:

• Text
• Language
• Page structure
• Link structure

Using all of this information, Google determines the central theme of each webpage.

Google Places Your Ad

For every webpage that your keyword matches the page’s concept or theme, Google evaluates your ad’s eligibility to show on that webpage. It uses several factors to test your ad’s relevance, such as language and location targeting.

For example, say you created an ad group to advertise your widget manufacturing wholesale business, and you included keywords “wholesale widgets” and “2018 widgets.” Google uses contextual targeting to find webpages in your Display Network that match those keywords.

Or when your topic matches a webpage’s central theme, Google still evaluates your ad’s eligibility for placement. Look at our widget example again. You could add the sub-topic “Widgets > Wholesale > Widget Specs, Reviews & Comparisons” to your ad group. This would help target your ad to webpages that relate to widget reviews and comparisons, regardless of whether those exact keywords appear on the page.

What Are the Benefits of Contextual Targeting?

Google lets you put images, text ads, and video on webpages of participating sites online. You get to put dynamic content in front of people who might not be searching for you. And they will realize how well the ad complements the theme or topic of the webpage.

YouTube Ads are part of Google’s ad system and are perfect for contextual targeting. Imagine being able to show prospects a brief video of your widgets before they watch a YouTube tutorial video on how to use widgets in product design.

Contextual targeting allows you to create some of the most evocative, memorable ads that pull in viewers by offering relevancy and timeliness. This enhances your ads’ conversion rates and boosts your return on investment. It also gives you the opportunity to be authentic, to get inside your viewer’s head, and to deliver a targeted message in the moment. You can deliver the right message at the right time, personalized to your viewer. What could be more powerful than that?

Finally, contextual targeting places relevant ads on webpages that will not annoy the viewer. It also saves unnecessary impressions, stretching your marketing budget that much further.

Why You Need an Agency for Contextual Targeting?

A digital marketing agency understands how contextual targeting options affect your advertising plans. Specifically, an agency will:

1. Create the ad based on best practices known to convert
2. Anticipate where and how Google will place the ad
3. Purchase the contextual targeting ad aiming for thousands of websites

The key is that with an agency’s help, contextual targeting automatically adjusts placement of your ads on webpages where viewers are most likely to click and convert. You get better leads from your ad spending and a boost to your revenue from increased conversions.

Since marketing strives to align your audience’s key interests with your product or service, contextual targeting matches ads with users in real-time, benefitting everyone.

If you are looking to enhance your marketing this year and fill your sales pipeline with high-quality leads, contact KEO Marketing and set up a free evaluation of your marketing toolkit with a member of our team.