How Embracing Contextual Advertising Benefits B2B Marketers and Customers

In our recent post about the third-party cookie phaseout, we discussed the much discussed upheaval to the online advertising ecosystem.

In response, some advertisers are working to develop new, less invasive ways of tracking user behaviour. Other brands are taking their inspiration from the past, from before advertising developed its cookie habit.

To keep up with customer expectations, they're reconsidering contextual advertising. It offers both a user privacy solution and the potential for a great customer experience (CX).

What Is Contextual Advertising?

Context really matters in content marketing and advertising. Instead of targeting ads based on user behavioural data, contextual advertising focuses on the environment in which ads will appear.

It is hardly a new idea. Context was the foundation of print ad buying pre-internet. It was also the primary targeting method before the rise of cookie-based advertising in the mid-noughties.

Previously, contextual advertising required extensive campaign planning, editorial consideration and manual oversight to ensure ads aligned with publisher content. Otherwise, marketers risked their ads showing in some dodgy placements that would waste money and harm brand reputation. 

Fortunately, contextual targeting has advanced. The process is fully automated today. Modern contextual advertising leverages AI and machine learning to gain a human-like understanding of content.

Algorithms determine which ads will be most relevant for a placement by analysing keywords, content, geolocation, ad placement, and metadata. They can also determine if ads will drive the desired customer interactions and provide real-time data for optimising campaigns.

By understanding the context, advertisers can target prospects based on the content they are consuming at that moment. Essentially, they are connecting with users based on their current frame of mind rather than past behaviour. This focus on mindset makes contextual targeting a good fit for B2B journey-based advertising strategy.

Why Is Contextual Targeting Making a Comeback?

Cookie-based advertising has dominated over the last decade. However, customers' privacy concerns and regulatory changes are curbing the use of these digital advertising tools.

Contextual advertising has been gaining traction. It's attractive because it is less reliant on personal data that behavioral advertising. Its ability to target more niche audiences makes it of particular interest to more specialised B2B brands.

Other benefits include:

Increased Brand Safety

A 2021 TAG and BSI study showed the impact of context on consumer behaviour and brand loyalty. The survey found people would reduce or stop purchasing products if a favourite brand's ads appeared near negative content. With contextual targeting, you can do more than avoid negative content. You can match ads with relevant content that create positive associations. 

Stronger Brand Recall

Research also shows users are more likely to remember advertising that appears in a related context. Matching ads about your product or service with an article’s message creates a stronger, more detailed memory response. By leveraging contextual targeting, advertisers can significantly enhance brand favourability before audiences even click through.

More Relevant B2B User Experience

For B2B advertising, context can often be more telling than individual behaviour. This is because a B2B buyer is rarely a single person; it is a team of decision-makers. Each person has multiple responsibilities and projects outside their role in the account you are targeting.

However, when a prospect is browsing content about a specific topic, it signals their intent at that moment. Instead of following them throughout daily life, you reach users when they are acting as a member of the buying team. By serving ads when viewers are in a receptive frame of mind, you create a more relevant, helpful experience.

More relevant, valuable experiences are good customer experiences.

How Does Contextual Advertising Work?

The process starts with the publisher's ad server categorising every piece of content on their domains/apps. When someone visits a property, the ad server passes this information to various AdTech platforms. (Check out our guide to programmatic advertising for more information on ad exchanges, supply side platforms, and demand side platforms).

These systems evaluate multiple factors to determine which ads should appear where. Topic categories, keywords, device type, and bids all play a role.

In terms of day-to-day campaign management, contextual advertising really isn't all that different from cookie-based programmatic advertising. Advertisers can set bid limits, create specific targeting parameters, gather performance data, run tests, etc. The main difference is strategy, as we must build campaigns around the user’s mindset/intent, rather than user behaviour. 

Targeting Levels:

As with behavioural targeting, marketers can use contextual advertising to reach a range of audience types.

• By site category: At the highest level, brands can target ads based on the website or app category. For example, online publications focused on a specific industry vertical. This method can be a good choice for connecting with prospects in the awareness phase of their purchase journey.

• By specific domain/app: You can also aim campaigns at a particular domain or application. For instance, a related mobile app that integrates with your new product. This approach is quite helpful when targeting more niche audiences in the research phases.

• By page content: Another option is to home in on specific text or rich media. For example, page keywords, title tags, alt text for images, video titles, and other rich media tags and metadata. This level of granular content targeting allows you to connect with high-intent prospects interested in specific information.

Contextual Ad Formats

Contextual adverts can also take many shapes, including text ads, displays ad, videos, and sponsored content.

• Contextual Text & Display Ads: Like behavioural advertising, these can appear across the web on blogs, social media, and search result pages.

• In-video Contextual Advertising: There are also opportunities to use contextual targeting with videos to place in-stream & out-stream ads. Done correctly, these adverts serve as an extension of the viewing experience. For example, you can display ads to accompany an influencer's content highlighting a particular product. It creates a seamless way for viewers to learn more about a potential solution to their own situation.

• Native Advertising: Native advertising integrates seamlessly into the editorial style or content of the host site. You can embed adverts into content pieces or social feeds to create a less intrusive user experience. They can also appear as sponsored content, such as emails, videos, or articles. An excellent example of native advertising is LinkedIn Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Dynamic Ads.

• In-game Contextual Advertising: Brands can also employ contextual advertising in interactive media like games. Thanks to advances in AI, algorithms can now understand facial expressions and recognise images/scenes. This ability allows contextual advertising platforms to place ads according to what is happening in the game in real-time.

• In-app Contextual Advertising: More and more companies are introducing contextual ads into the field of mobile app advertising. Instead of using mobile advertising IDs, advertisers use insights from contextual traffic and first-party data to target app users. For example, the app store category, the app publisher, and session-specific information about how users interact with the app.

Combining these different placement levels and ad formats, B2B advertisers can create relevant campaigns encompassing the entire B2B purchase journey.

What Do You Need to Do to Make the Shift to Contextual?

The shift to contextual requires that you reexamine the role of advertising through the lens of data privacy and customer experience (CX) strategy.

Start by mapping your ads to different publications, media channels, and platforms across our entire buyer’s journey. This will allow you to better target ads and provide real value to prospects in different buying stages.

Rather than simply following users around the web, you want to be more intentional about where you place ads. (This includes being more mindful of where you don’t want your brand to appear).

Look at combining advertising with inbound methodologies. On its own, contextual advertising is a great tool, but it can only do so much. You want to ensure that your advertising efforts are fully part of—and add value to—your broader content marketing strategy.

Finally, when designing ad creatives, consider how context will influence user perception. Your adverts should do more than broadcast a message. They should actively enhance the user’s experience with the surrounding content.

Building Effective Advertising Strategies with 1827 Marketing

The impending cookiepocalypse is an opportunity for B2B brands to step back and question some long-held assumptions about digital advertising. We could try to build a simple replacement for cookie-based targeting. Or we could seize the opportunity to design more effective, customer-centric methods instead.

Contextual advertising could prove to be a key solution for helping B2B marketers operate in the new post-cookie environment. Contextual targeting technology has grown much more sophisticated, and now uses a human-like understanding of content to create relevant experiences. It is a dynamic system that constantly analyses contextual data to deliver better results.

It also allows B2B marketers to better pair content to specific phases of the customer journey. Ads appear in meaningful situations that help reinforce their message and prompt action.

Contextual advertising is a proven model that serves relevant ads while protecting user privacy. However, to be clear, we are not saying it is the only solution. Use it with other advertising tactics like condition-based targeting, first-party data targeting, and consent-based behavioural targeting.

Each of these models serves a different purpose within a campaign. The trick is knowing when and how to employ these tools to reach audiences and create a positive customer experience. 

That is where 1827 Marketing comes in. We provide expertly managed, highly effective advertising campaigns designed around your brand’s customer journey. Contact us today to learn more.