This article is going to go into the ever-growing need to play the pay-per-click game and reach your prospects through content sites.
The pay-per-click ad market is constantly evolving, and so are the various ways of distributing ads. There are 2 specific areas that are getting the maximum attention as of now. First, how PPC is utilized as an effective branding mechanism, and secondly, what can advertisers do to get more out of the contextual PPC networks.
Nowadays, PPC advertising can’t solely be confined to “search marketing”, as it doesn’t give you the full picture. A recent research conducted by eMarketer shows that in the year 2007, advertisers will be spending close to 13% of their ad budgets on contextual advertising where as the sponsored search ads will be 43%. When you put this data along side the fact that around 45% of people’s time spent online is on “content sites” and only 4.7% is spent on searching. This is when you come to face to face with the reality of contextual advertising, where it is headed and what role it plays in web advertising.
As the focus moves onto the contextual ad networks, marketers need to think and analyze: How they can effectively work on engaging search marketing and contextual PPC ads? How are the contextual ads supposed to be synchronized with search ad campaigns to get a better ROI and grow brand awareness?
Find the Right Size
If you think that you can use the same keywords/ads that you used with Google Adwords and add them to other PPC networks will help you convert, think again. One of the important factors that you need to keep in mind is that with the contextual networks, you’ll most probably be reaching out to people at a different level in your overall sales process. They might not be in the same buying mindset.
On content websites, people are consuming content that’s related to your product or service and not searching for it. This is exactly why your ads need to be cutting edge and different to get clicks. As far as the ad copy goes, promotions, discounts and special offers take an upper seat when compared to the search networks along with creating a sense of urgency by including “time sensitive” elements in the ad copy. Your aim here is to work on using your ads to grow and leverage the level of interest that the content has already built up, and then shift people’s focus from considering to buying.
Planning Your Keywords
Keyword planning is a crucial part of any PPC campaign. However, there are a few differences when planning your keywords for the contextual networks, when compared to search. When we talk about keyword research for search networks, the key is to put yourself in your prospects’ shoes instead of using complicated jargon. What keywords would they use to search for your brand? Such insights help you see well and plan out your keyword strategy for your main keyword as well as the long tail key phrases.
However, when we look into contextual networks, many of the keywords that you mined for search are also important, given that the majority of the contextual networks will not completely ignore search traffic and include a part of it. But apart from this, you also need to understand what’s the market positioning of your product on the web. Remember that on the contextual networks, your ads show up not on the basis of specific search queries but on how the sites content relates to your keywords.
Also, another critical point that has to be kept in mind during keyword research/planning is that long tail keywords won’t generate much traffic on the contextual networks unlike search networks where the traffic is higher. This is why generic, broad terms gain a lot more importance and can be bought at a much cheaper price than on search.
Re-think Your Bidding Techniques
If you’ve been into SEO for even a short while, you know what kind of importance is given to grabbing the top slots on the first page of the search results. The same applies in the contextual networks as well. If you look at the basics, contextual ads appear on content oriented pages on a particular topic. This means nothing but that the site’s page value will be much higher than regular search listings. Thus, the contextual ad space might just have a 2-3 ads, which clearly means that if you don’t bid for the top spots, your traffic volume will dwindle down.
Optimizing to Succeed
Let’s face it, content goes through changes, and these changes could affect the traffic volume your ads bring on a daily basis, which in turn also brings down the number of clicks you get. This is why it’s important regularly optimizing to make sure you get a higher ROI for your contextual ads.
The purpose of this optimization effort should be to look into the success of running campaigns and as well as keep an eye on breaking news stories and how they can be used and leveraged to grow traffic.
This strategy is all about stay ahead of the crowd by optimizing your campaigns when related stories break, and make sure that your ads show up along these stories instead of the others. For well established brands this tactic helps in category/niche ownership; whereas for smaller, less established brands it helps in achieving a leap of progress.
When you use contextual PPC ads, you’re reaching out to prospects through online destinations where they spend the majority of their time, i.e. on content driven sites. And as this form of PPC advertising gains momentum and grows each year, you need to ask yourself what kind of opportunities you can grab using contextual advertising. More importantly, what are the risks you run for your brand/product if you don’t act on it?
