Artificial intelligence has become essential to modern marketing. Companies are finding newer, more creatives ways to integrate AI into their marketing strategies. This goes for both brand and performance marketing.
AI can be useful in both online and offline marketing, but it tends to have greater efficacy in regards to online marketing strategies. Smart marketing executives are leveraging AI to boost the ROI of their online branding efforts.
One of the best ways to utilize AI in marketing is by taking advantage of contextual advertising. A number of artificial intelligence algorithms that have been instrumental in improving the performance of contextual advertising campaigns.
Contextual Targeting Advertising is becoming one of the most popular methods of serving ads online, due to these developments in AI technology. It is associated with positive results, and it helps to sidestep the privacy problems associated with third-party cookies. However, it is important to make sure that you avoid some of the common pitfalls of using AI in marketing.
AdMedia, a highly experienced company from Los Angeles, CA, explains how your company can build its image through AI-driven contextual targeting and contrasts the technique with behavioral targeting.
Explaining Contextual Targeting
Contextual targeting uses information from first-party cookies and the website where the ads will be placed to decide which ads should be displayed. Proprietary AI systems examine all aspects of the website where the ads will appear and all relevant data about the ad and the website to which it will click through. This form of advertising has several advantages, which will be explained below.
Three Major Advantages of Contextual Targeting
To understand why contextual targeting is superior to behavioral targeting when building your company’s image, it is necessary to be familiar with its advantages and how new AI algorithms help amplify them. AdMedia explains the positive aspects of contextual targeting, delving into how advertising can be a boon for companies of all kinds.
1. Contextual Targeting Drives Sales
Contextual targeting presents an advantage because it helps to drive sales. When your company’s ads are properly placed in areas where your targeted consumer segments are already browsing, you will have a better chance of capturing those visitors and possibly making a sale.
For example, if your website sells gourmet food, putting an ad on a recipe website or supermarket website will be productive. Customers may be looking for specific products to buy, or they may be interested in browsing just in case they see something they like. Either way, contextual targeting can help your company grab consumers’ attention.
AI technology can help immensely with maximizing sales volume from this marketing strategy. Machine learning algorithms are able to identify the variables that lead to the most sales, which helps increase the profitability of these campaigns.
2. Contextual Targeting Helps to Collect More Leads
Contextual targeting helps to collect leads because it appeals to customers. When customers click on your ad, they should be brought to a landing page where they can sign up for a special deal like free shipping or a percent-off coupon, or the opportunity to join an event. This can help you collect leads effortlessly.
You can also use contextual advertising in your email marketing. This means that your leads will be frequently contacted to keep your company at the top of their minds.
AI algorithms are great at helping drive more leads, because they can identify the types of visitors that are most likely to convert at any given time and make sure they are the ones that see the ads.
3. Contextual Targeting Builds Brand Awareness
Associating your business with another reputable firm is an excellent way to build brand awareness with AI technology. With Contextual Targeting Advertising, you are putting your ad where your best potential customers will see it. You may introduce your company to a new set of customers or reintroduce it to people who have visited your site in the past. For example, if you are running a car review website, you could advertise on a website that sells car and truck parts.
Contrasting Contextual Targeting with Behavioral Targeting
Behavioral targeting through AI technology became popular with the advent of third-party cookies. Advertisers could track purchase histories, browsing histories across all websites, and search engine histories, among many other criteria. Through this type of advertising, companies could track consumers’ every move online by placing cookies that traveled with them across websites. These cookies also captured shopping activity from various websites, aggregating them to create a personally identifiable dataset.
Behavioral targeting worked well for several years, but the upcoming removal of third-party cookies from three of the most popular web browsers (Safari, Chrome, and Firefox) will cause it to recede in popularity. The elimination of the third-party cookie is only a few years away, and websites that have relied on behavioral tracking will need to find a new strategy that uses AI.
Privacy advocates have spoken out against third-party cookies and behavioral targeting for several years. Bad actors can use this technology to hijack web browsing sessions. Ads served using behavioral targeting are also perceived as being creepy or intrusive in many cases. For example, many customers are annoyed when their Amazon search results appear on Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
Building Your Company’s Image
By taking part in consumer-friendly forms of AI-driven advertising like contextual targeting, your company will be associated with positive traits. Having a strong background in contextual targeting means that companies like AdMedia can reach the same sales and click-through targets as behavioral advertising firms without compromising users’ privacy and identity.
Personalizing Ads Without Intruding on User Privacy
Consumers appreciate properly personalized ads. They want to see advertising that is related to their search history and browsing history, within reason. According to AdLucent, 71 percent of all online consumers find targeted ads useful. They appreciate the convenience of having the right information served to them at the right time. This is where contextual advertising shines.
Personalization wouldn’t be possible without greater advances in AI technology. The good news is that AI has become more effective at identifying customer profiles and building personalized content for them.
Contextual advertising uses only first-party cookies and the website itself to serve ads. First-party cookies are easily accessible and are directly related to the site where the ads are being served. Within contextual advertising procedures, the information from the website where the ads are served is extracted through the proprietary process of Semantic Logic.
AI-Driven Contextual Advertising is the Future of Marketing
All companies that advertise online need to be aware of the coming elimination of the third-party cookie and its consequences for behavioral targeting through AI technology. Systems that use first-party cookies and contextual information are more likely to last well into the future when more privacy-focused website rules have been implemented.
Contextual Targeting Advertising is one of the best methods of reaching consumers today. Your company will find customers where they are already browsing, searching for products and services relevant to yours.
Knowing how contextual targeting can help your company is a must. Exploring all of the relevant aspects of contextual targeting helps choose a future advertising strategy.
