Brands worldwide are looking for more efficient ways to bring awareness to the goods and services they offer. If you are looking for a marketing strategy that works, consider contextual relevance in marketing.
Brand awareness leads to quicker conversions when customers can rely on the information given to them in an advertisement. When your ad appears on a site the buyer already trusts, it lends credence to your content.
Let’s look at the factors that make contextual targeting relevant to advertisers. First, take a moment to understand what contextual relevance in marketing is and how it compares to behavioral marketing.
What is contextual relevance in marketing?
Contextual advertising is an advertising strategy where advertisers place ads on the site based on its content. For instance, placing beauty product ads on fashion blogs and style websites is a form of contextually relevant advertising.
The key focus of this advertising strategy is not on the one consuming that content but on the content being consumed. This strategy targets potential consumers who are already interested in your website’s content.
Researchers discovered that if you serve content in the digital world without context, it adversely impacts that brand in the buyer’s mind.
Alternatively, you can mitigate these adverse effects by adopting a contextual targeting strategy. That will help you build brand loyalty based on correlations buyers make between your brand and the company that published your ad.
Contextual marketing vs behavioral marketing
Advertisers once used contextual relevance in all of their advertising. However, they sidelined that strategy in favor of behavioral marketing – a strategy that relies heavily on targeting shoppers based on browsing behavior, not specific products. In fact, by 2026, the global contextual advertising market will reach more than $300 million.
Behavioral advertising will still have its place in the marketing world. However, people understand seeing relevant products when they are shopping. They cringe at the thought of their online shopping behaviors being tracked.
What they don’t know is that contextual marketing goes one step further than behavioral marketing. You still reach your audience by leveraging digital language data such as:
- Location
- Product buying patterns
- Previous purchases
- Current shopping cart items (on and off-site)
- Environmental factors (weather, traffic, etc.)
3 reasons you need contextual relevance advertising
Contextually relevant content captivates your customers at the early stages of the buyer’s journey. That is arguably the most critical time in the conversion process.
Your customer already has reason to buy from you because they saw your ad while they were already shopping for similar items. Why is this so essential in marketing?
1. Privacy law compliance
Across the globe, consumers today are more aware of data privacy laws and better equipped to protect their personal information. On top of it, stricter general data protection regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) statutes have made it more difficult for cookie-based ad targeting.
Furthermore, Google revealed in 2022 that Chrome will no longer use third-party cookies. This was followed by Apple’s warning that users must opt-in to identifiers for advertisers (IDFA) when used.
The result is that contextual targeting is becoming the preferred method of advertising. It does not rely on cookie-based targeting. Also, it is one of the few ad-targeting practices that adhere to international privacy laws.
2. AI innovations
With robust artificial intelligence (AI) and the algorithms it develops (along with broader dataset sources), website content analysis has improved significantly.
Unlike before, AI can now detect context accurately and understand the content sentiment on the web page. This allows you to place an ad on a page and reach your audience with improved precision.
The result has been the growth of contextual targeting success. It does this by analyzing typical keywords on a site to learn the various forms of content, like audio, video, and image files.
3. Personalized messages
Get your message in front of the right buyers and the perfect time. Contextual relevance is at the core of modern marketing success because it ensures those most interested in your message see it. Customers feel like it is personally directed toward them and what they are currently shopping for, driving them to buy from you.
Contextual relevance for increased revenue
Get your content to reach your target audience using precise marketing strategies. To do this, you will need to partner with a brand that can help get your contextually relevant content published on the most relevant sites to your products.
At RevContent, we help publishers and advertisers expand their audience, reach target demographics, and boost revenue through native advertising. Our platform delivers in-depth analytics, real-time reporting, and a world-class support team developed to get you the most out of your marketing budget.
Get advertising that works on websites you can trust. Launch your campaign today and watch your revenue grow. Contact us to learn more.
