Have you ever observed that while randomly scrolling through YouTube suggestions, you get an advertisement recommendation of shoes you were looking for at the e-commerce websites?
An even simpler example is how your Google news feed always shows news articles of your interest that may be related to your subject, job, actors, or places. Is this a mere coincidence or marketing strategies that try to get across to you whenever you need them?
Here we are discussing contextual marketing that can explain all these coincidences.
An introduction to contextual marketing
Mass marketing or conventional marketing requires marketing on a larger scale. These marketing strategies target a generalized audience, showcasing generalized products.
What if you recommend an advertisement for a water cooler in the winter? It might seem like nonsense.
Or it can even irritate you if you are doing something important. Companies have now turned toward contextual marketing to get over this irrelevancy of conventional marketing.
Contextual marketing, usually known as target advertising, involves designing relevant advertising campaigns based on the target audience’s keyword research and browsing activity.
Companies invest money in CRM tools that help store and retrieve all this information. Every time you do a keyword search, open a website, or look for some products at the e-commerce websites, a third-party cookie stores the browsing information.
This information helps to build buyers’ profiles and identify target audiences.
Marketing campaigns are designed according to the products in demand, demographic locations, and price requirements.
In conventional marketing, improvisation along changing demographic areas was not possible due to the generalization of the strategy. But, in contextual marketing, digital marketing is used to track the response and demand of the products.
It ensures that the right kind of advertisements reaches the target audience via mostly accessed channels.
The posts you make on various social media platforms also help design contextual marketing campaigns. Some companies use tools to analyze comments you write on social media platforms, and these comments can be related to queries, your interest, or current needs.
Now, which channels use contextual marketing to increase their engagement. E-commerce companies use contextual marketing to recommend relevant products to the target buyers. You might get ads for products similar to what you have bought recently.
New websites like “Hindustan Times” and “CNN” also use these strategies to run personalized ads. Google’s AdSense is an example of how all the ad pop-ups are mostly related to your google searches.
Why does a company need to use contextual marketing?
Mere content and digital marketing are not enough to increase revenue; contextual marketing is necessary for designing practical advertisement campaigns. Following are some reasons that can explain the need for contextual marketing in a current market scenario-
1. It is cost-effective
Mass marketing is expensive because all kinds of advertisements are marketed to all customers. In contrast, contextual marketing reduces the number of efforts and channels the remaining efforts in the right direction.
Small budget businesses can also invest in contextual marketing via cost-effective CRM tools.
2. It helps in developing relevant content and marketing strategy
Marketing strategies need to be relevant to increase engagements and produce desired results. By tracking and analyzing buyers’ online activities, it is possible to make improvisations in the existing strategies.
3. Higher click-through rate
If you get a recommendation of your favorite shoes you were looking for, you will click it. A science student who receives an article recommended about science-fiction will read it. Contextual marketing increases the chances of clicks by showing the advertisement the buyer needs to see.
They help get a better engagement with the website as more and more people visit it via advertisement clicks. Higher click-through rates also ensure higher revenues.
4. Higher revenues in lower investment
Every company wants to generate higher returns from the costly marketing investments they design. If these marketing campaigns are strategically positioned using target advertising, they ensure more revenues.
More and more buyers would visit the website through advertisements intended for them, and a relevant ad can gain more engagement than fifty generalized ads designed for the masses.
5. It provides a better customer experience
Customers hate the bombardment of irrelevant advertisements that have no relation to their needs.
People like it when their problems get resolved quickly, so marketing managers design campaigns to run ads related to customers’ needs. It helps in providing a better buying experience to the customers.
Bottom-line
More companies are using contextual and digital marketing to improve their sales. Mobile phone search engines and browsing activity are also used to track the audience.
Most people only have access to phones, and their browsing activity is mostly through them, so restricting the analysis to computers will not be fruitful.