According to Statista Report, the expenditure on contextual advertisement would increase by 13.8 percent every year from 2022 to 2030. The element of digital marketing that has taken center stage is how ad targeting can be improved and deliver the message to its relevant audience.

In other words, growing data protection policies encourage the reconfiguration of the advertising market. Most of these third-party solutions are addressing brands looking to create engagement with users already interested in the subject to gain profitability.

There is a need for Video Streaming Platforms (YT, OTT, Web) in Contextual Advertising.

What is Contextual Advertising?

Contextual advertising refers to placing ads on web pages based on the context of the webpages. All publishers have had to do ad targeting based on the activities and search history of individual visitors to the site.

One example could be an advertisement for running shoes on the pages of a sports blog or an article on fitness and health.

Types of Contextual Advertising

  • Contextual Display Ads – A Contextual Display Ad Unit is a Regular Banner Ad that is placed on websites containing content specific to the region the advertisers are targeting.
  • Contextual video advertising – This activity often involves the cross-promotion of other types of advertising using video or short clips containing advertisements placed in or around visual entertainment content.
  • In-App Contextual Advertising – Geolocation and sticky text advertising in mobile/web apps. Such ads are based on the content of the app or game and the activity of the user.

The Use of AI in Contextual Ad Targeting

The current strategy involves use of Information technology namely Artificial Intelligence and the Machine Learning concept which impacts contextual ad targeting. According to how it could be put, AI – can do real-time ad inventory across the digital landscape for certain brand parameters like ad briefs, target audience, target area, engagement, safety, and appropriateness of the content in ad execution. The evaluation is done over the wide array of the ad inventory availability targeting specific regions and demographics using content, context as well as sentiment analysis for each advertising campaign.

Contextual Relevancy with in-situ Brand Safety

Ads are served on relevant sites and content – thereby the chances of being displayed together with irresponsible or destructive content are very few, if not none. This helps in preserving the corporate image hit by such ads.

Contextual Brand Safety refers to the strategies and tools that are employed to ensure that the advertisements are placed only within the relevant and appropriate content thereby protecting the brand image. This strategy not only concentrates on the demographic of ad placement but also examines the various content elements on a website or page to exclude ads from appearing side by side with questionable, negative, or unsuitable content.

Contextual Brand Relevancy enables targeting at a contextual level by Artificial Intelligence which allows more opportunities for brands to select better ads at a more precise time through elements, logos, faces, keywords, objects, sentiments, etc. We provide the set of themes for targeting and excluding the unsafe content all over the full set of brand safety categories according to GARM rules.

Benefits of Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising is when an ad is shown to the audience based on the web page they are viewing. Following are a few things that are favorable:

Relevance to Audience

Innovations designed for promotion within the net would correspond to websites the visitor is viewing, and thus the chance of persuading the client to buy is high. The chances of clicking an advertisement for sports shoes on a sports news website are very high.

Improved User Experience

Because these advertisements relate to the currently viewed information, they are not out of context or annoying, hence improving the user experience for the site.

Higher Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Interaction with advertisements that are relevant to what the readers are going through at that moment in time is bound to result in a higher CTR. Relevance often leads to pulling highly engaged actions, which in some cases results in a relative increase in click-through rates.

Privacy-Friendly

Although user behavior and website history inform behavioral advertising, contextual advertising doesn’t need tracking cookies or personal information hence doesn’t have such inconveniences.

Cost-Effectiveness

Most online contextual advertising is more cost-efficient than most online advertising of the behavioral type because it is less competitive than other forms of advertising especially in niche contexts.

Better Conversion Rates

Contextual ads have a strategic advantage over other forms of advertising that normally try to attract a general audience by focusing on the audience’s attention and interest in the ad and the context of the homepage.

Conclusion

Brands seeking to communicate with their audience without compromising on the user’s privacy have a good alternative in contextual advertising. As third-party cookies are becoming obsolete and with the increased concern about privacy compliance, businesses are using this method more to target individuals through which type of content individuals are engaging with rather than the individual’s data. This not only enhances user satisfaction but provides higher click rates, improved conversion rates, and more economical advertisement rates.