Contextual or Targeting Advertising: What to Choose?

Published:30 August 2022 Updated:18 April 2023

Targeted and contextual advertising are promotion methods that are often chosen by entrepreneurs for their effectiveness and capabilities. But not everyone understands how they differ and how to use them correctly. Even when turning to professionals, entrepreneurs need to understand how different types of advertising work and where they are used. It is important to understand what these ways of promotion are, how they are similar and how they differ. 

Targeted advertising

Targeting is a tool used to promote websites and brands on social networks. For this purpose, advertisements are published in feeds and special blocks. To make the campaign as effective as possible, the target audience is analyzed, and various features are studied (geo-location, demographic and time parameters). The advantages of this option include:

  • Launch speed. You can create a campaign in an hour. The same amount of time will be spent on moderation.
  • Flexibility of settings. You can use many criteria to select the users who will be shown ads.
  • Accessibility. Even small companies can organize such a campaign.
  • Ability to create ads for different audiences.
  • It is not necessary to have a website, the brand is enough to create a page in one of the social networks. 

The main disadvantage of targeting is that promotion is carried out for a “cold” audience. The user can go to the site, but not buy the product. 

Those who don’t know how to set up targeting ads can turn to professionals. This will help save time and money, because without the right settings, you can only lose money without getting the expected results. For example, Prodvigate (go to site) prompts you to choose targeting settings to get new subscribers to YouTube. Segmento Target (go to site) allows you to select a target audience, analyze it in order to upload it to the advertising cabinet in VKontakte. You can also use the service tools to place ads in social networks Click.co.uk. and Sociate (go to site). 

Opinion of an expert

The Prodvigate service analyzes each channel separately, looks at the niche and competitors and, based on this data, selects the right settings for the advertising campaign. We place great emphasis on the interests of users, so we select the most relevant audience for each channel.

The methods of promotion are the most effective, because Prodvigate is the official premium partner of Google and uses only the tools of Google Ads. We guarantee the most effective result of the promotion for everyone who uses the services of our service.

As for such indicators as the number of subscribers, likes, and comments, they depend primarily on the quality of the content of the author himself. We make an average forecast for any advertising campaign with any budget. However, viewers are living people, so they will also look at how much they like or dislike your content.

Maria Azeeva An employee of Prodvigate, a promotion specialist atYoutube

Contextual advertising

This method of promotion involves showing ads that depend on the query or the content of the page. Advertising can be thematic or search engine advertising. The first corresponds to the content, placed in articles or on the sidebars of various sites. Search advertising involves showing when certain keywords are entered into a search engine. 

Ads are seen by those looking for a particular service or product. They are shown both in search engines and on partner sites. To run it, you need to create advertising accounts on Google and Yandex (or other search engines), choose the right queries, and prepare layouts. You can do it yourself by asking for help from specialists or by setting up the process in an automated system, for example, in Aori (go to site). The advantages of contextual advertising include:

  • Economy – payment is made only for transitions.
  • Non-obtrusive – thematic content is not annoying.
  • Targeting – shows only those who are interested in the service or product. 
  • Effectiveness – the result can be noticed immediately after placement.
  • Easy to track the degree of effectiveness. The settings can be changed if desired. 
  • Ability to change the ad and cost per click at any time. 

As for the disadvantages of such advertising, they include a fast cycle. The campaign works only when the ads are published. Therefore it is necessary to regularly refill the account. There is also a risk of overspending the budget due to incorrect settings, so it is important to contact specialists, such as the service Click.co.uk.

Differences between contextual and targeting advertising

Note a number of differences between these methods of promotion. 

Choosing an advertising platform

The main difference between targeting and contextual advertising – the place of placement. To show ads in the first case, use social networks, in the second – the advertising offices of search engines. Formats may also differ. For contextual advertising choose text, banners and media ads. There are more formats for targeting: videos, stories, carousels with photos, feeds, etc.

Selecting users

One of the main differences is the principles by which the target audience is selected. Ads are shown taking into account the queries of users on the Internet. Therefore, the price is influenced by the popularity of key queries. Contextual advertising responds to the queries of those interested in the product or service. Targeting does not depend on requests. Ads are shown only to users of social networks (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, etc.). And only those who meet certain criteria and belong to the target audience. Therefore, such ads are usually created to increase demand from potential customers. 

Hot and Cold

Contextual advertising is more often chosen to attract hot and warm clients, while targeting is for warm and cold clients. In the first case, users are already interested in a particular service or product because they are looking for a similar product on the Internet. If we talk about targeting, it is aimed at those who have not yet shown interest in the proposal, but he may need it. This is what CA analysis is used for – the product or service is offered to those who can potentially use it. 

Click price

This figure depends on the product and the region of promotion. But almost always a click on a contextual ad will cost more. This can be explained by the fact that a “hot” client is more likely to leave a request and buy a product or service.

Opinion of an expert

Both promotion tools, working together, can give maximum results. That is why many companies decide to combine them to attract more users. Often they use contextual advertising to attract a hot audience and traffic from social networks to the resource, targeting both hot and cold audiences through targeting.

Drokina Tatiana Specialist on work with SMM-services of the projectRevieweek

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