Hello, dear readers of the online magazine “site”! Today we’ll talk about contextual advertising - what it is and how it works, how to set up contextual advertising yourself, create a semantic core and much more.

After all, in the modern world you cannot live without advertising. This was, is and will be the inexorable truth of human development. Something sell, offer, on something earn money, introduce yourself (product, service)- all this requires advertising.

Contextual advertising today is considered most popular , effective And cheap . Since users learn most of the information from the Internet, it is quite reasonable to advertise their products or services on the Internet.

From this article, readers will learn:

• What is contextual advertising and what are its types?
• How and why advertisements are created;
• What is a semantic core and how to create it yourself;
• What contextual advertising services exist and how to work with them;
• What are the features of contextual advertising on social networks;
• Where and how to order the creation of an advertising campaign from professionals, and also how much it will cost.

You will learn about this and much more from this article if you read it to the end. So, let's go!

1. What is contextual advertising and how it works - overview of the concept + principle of operation using an example 💻

Newspapers, radio, TV, and now also Internet are under the influence of advertising. There are advertisements literally everywhere on the Internet. Search engines, forums, sites, social media, chats– all this is an excellent basis for advertising.

Contextual advertising is different high efficiency , since it appears (shown) only to those people who are purposefully looking for specific information about a specific request.

Ads that are more effective are shown in search results, since visitors who are looking for information are easier to motivate to purchase.

contextual advertising– this is a tasty morsel for advertisers. Advertising is sold based on the number of clicks. That is, the advertiser “pays” only those users who visited his resource, and not the number of people to whom the advertisement was shown.

To better understand what contextual advertising is, it’s worth breaking it down into step by step example:

1. User (potential client) in search

Let's say the user wants to purchase hanging chair for living room. He enters the simple phrase “ hanging chair" and presses the search button.

2. Search result

After a few seconds, the search engine produces results that match the request. 70% links will lead to sites that contain information about hanging chairs and to online store resources.

30% - This is contextual advertising. It can be located either on the right side of the main search or above it.

Often, offers in contextual advertising are more interesting to users, so they follow the corresponding link. Moreover, this helps save time, since the link leads not just to the online store, but directly to the product page.

4. Successful purchase

Advertising on web pages works in a similar way. While the user is studying the topic of the site, contextual advertising brings to his attention advertisements that correspond to the information presented. And if he is interested in an advertising offer, he will go to the advertiser’s website.

To summarize, we can obtain the following definition of the concept:

Therefore, contextual ads always correspond to the user’s request or relate to his area of ​​interest. Most are created based on key queries.

2. Why is contextual advertising needed and in what cases is it used? 📌

Contextual advertising follows users with every mouse click. Therefore, it is quite reasonable to think that if these were simple blobs of text, they would not be present on the Internet in such quantities. Means, contextual advertising is needed.

contextual advertising is a well-thought-out marketing move that guarantees “hot” transitions with a high level of conversion (performing targeted actions). Only those who are unfamiliar with its capabilities can doubt its necessity.

This type of advertising is the most powerful way, which allows you to directly promote the interests of the client. Help in quickly finding the necessary product or service, unobtrusively providing relevant information and then making a profit, that’s what contextual advertising is for.

• Sale of goods;
• Advertising of services;
• Increased sales level;
• Presentation of new products on the market;
• Advertising on the Internet or an additional source of traffic to the site.

This ad is a great choice. unobtrusive interaction seller And buyer. It brings profit to sellers, and saves clients a lot of time, which they could have wasted aimlessly searching for a store, a product and a suitable price.

Main, what you need for a good advertising campaign– is to choose the right keywords and anchors that will attract buyers to the site. These manipulations will save money for the employer and attract really interested visitors.

To identify the main key queries on a certain topic, experts in their field recommend using services such as Wordstat, Yandex.Metrica And Google Analytics, Adwords.

For increase popularity of a particular brand contextual advertising is used very often. This represents the brand on several levels:

• Recognition. Due to frequent “flickering” in search results or on websites, the brand becomes recognizable among the masses. Social consciousness is structured in such a way that if there is a recognizable element, then the majority of individuals position it on the positive side.
• Confidence. This point is quite controversial and depends only on how competently the advertisement was made. If the advertising worked and the client was satisfied with the purchase, the likelihood that he will return increases significantly.
• Innovation. Promotion of new products or services to the market, constant promotions, discounts and advantageous offers have always attracted customers. And what if not contextual advertising of the site will help the user learn about a tempting offer.

There are two payment options for such a service:

• Pay per click. The advertiser pays only for the number of visitors who follow the link.
• Payment for impressions. The advertiser pays for the display time spent on a specific target audience.

Depending on the product or service being offered, you need to think carefully about what kind of advertising is best to pay for. But in any case, both the first and second will give long-awaited results.

3. Types of contextual advertising - TOP 4 main types 💎

Although there are a large number of varieties on the Internet, among which the contextual one is considered the most advanced, even it has its own varieties.

Type 1. Search advertising

One of the most popular contextual advertising ads those that are shown to users along with search results are considered. This the most effective tool for attracting clients .

Important! Such ads are optimized using headline and text. During development, popular key queries are used.

Each webmaster can create his own contextual ad, since access to resources with which you can learn about popular “keywords” is open to everyone.

With the correct use of a keyword and a good sparkling table of contents, you can get high conversion rate.

View 2. Thematic advertising

For example, if the site is dedicated to growing mushrooms at home, then frequently encountered advertisements will concern the sale of soil, fertilizers or mycelium.

1. The customer selects key queries to which his ad will respond.
2. Advertising parameters are configured; the cost of the entire advertising campaign depends on them.
3. Placement of advertisements on thematic pages and search engines.
4. The advertisement responds to the user's request.

Thematic advertising allows the advertiser to target his work exclusively for the target audience. That is, take into account the interests of people with the same needs, requests, hobbies and social status.

Type 3. Contextual media advertising

The media context is focused not only on attracting customers, but also on solving other problems:

1. Image. A bright banner strengthens the image of a brand or company.
2. Demand. These advertisements are able to attract more attention than plain text, therefore significantly increasing the demand for the product or service.
3. Association. Businessmen who occupy a specific niche in the market often worry about their visibility. Contextual media are capable of creating an association between goods and the manufacturer (seller).

The banner always has a call to action. The user is encouraged buy, look, call or just go to the site and learn more, and the product image facilitates this action.

View 4.

Choose different words and phrases based on the topic of your advertised resource.

Stage 2. Analysis and monitoring of competitors

Stage 3. Compliance with the rules for creating contextual advertising

Let's consider the basic and general rules for composing advertisements in contextual advertising services:

1. Do not place contact information (tel., e-mail, etc.) in the headlines or text of advertisements;
2. observe the permitted number of characters in the text and headings of advertisements;
3. do not make mistakes in ad blocks;
4. do not use third-party brands, trademarks, abbreviations;
5. comply with your country's advertising laws;
6. do not compare your products and services with competitors;
7. use standard symbols and punctuation.

Now we move on to the stage of composing the title and text of the advertisement.

Stage 4. Compiling and writing a title

Write a headline that is intriguing, eye-catching, and encourages the user to read. You should include the keyword/phrase in the title as needed.

Stage 5. Compiling ad text

• describe the benefits of the product (product) or service;
• write the text concisely and specifically;
• describe promotions, discounts, special offers with a limited period for your goods/services;
• use words - discount, inexpensive, sale, incredible, easy, simple, free, etc.;
• ask questions in the headlines and give answers to them in the texts;
• enter keywords and phrases into the ad text;

Stage 6. Selection of resource landing pages (landing pages)

It is very important that the potential client who clicked on the advertisement is not disappointed in the advertised offer. You need to set up contextual advertising so that it immediately lands on the page of the web resource you are interested in, and not on the page with contact or other offers.

Stage 7. Setting up targeting

It's important to target your ad correctly. You can configure the display of advertising in certain time(setting by hours and days of the week) or for users from the desired cities/regions (For example, set up advertising only for Muscovites from Moscow and the Moscow region).

• Consider the features of each contextual advertising platform;
• Write effective advertising texts
• Analyze the progress of advertising and constantly optimize the process;
• The pages that potential clients land on should be clear and convenient.

Sometimes it’s easier to turn to professionals (directors, agencies and companies) who will quickly and effectively place contextual advertising for your product or service.

7. Where to order contextual advertising and what is its cost - review of the TOP-3 companies (agencies) providing services 💰

Each agency that offers contextual advertising services has its own characteristics. Let's take a closer look at the prices for creating an advertising campaign and running contextual advertising (what is the cost of contextual advertising services) for each of these companies.

1) iConText

The company is distinguished by having exclusive competence on the platform Adobe Media Optimizer. Also works with Facebook, Direct and Google AdWords. The Adobe Media Optimizer platform is a special way to advertise.

If many systems have an auction “policy” for a key query. In this system, the main key queries can be placed in a separate “portfolio”, which will take part in the auction.

Due to the fact that there are more queries in the “portfolio”, some of them may be more relevant, others less so. The arithmetic mean is calculated, which increases the chances of winning the auction and increases the advertising campaign performance by 20% .

Minimum cost of contextual advertising, with which the agency begins to cooperate with customers, is 50,000 rubles . The price for contextual advertising services is quite justified, especially considering that for some requests the bid price on Yandex is several times higher.

There you can also get training in contextual advertising and provide similar services yourself in the future.

2) Blonde.ru

The contextual advertising agency has developed and launched 2 (two) of its own advertising platforms. The contextual advertising company has existed since 2007 and specializes in contextual advertising. Collaborate with systems Yandex And Google, on which advertisements are placed.

Expenses for contextual advertising This agency's solutions directly depend on the client's needs. The amount from which they begin cooperation is not indicated here. The client who contacted this agency pays exclusively per click, that is, for the number of transitions.

Cost per click is determined using the “ auction " That is, there is no fixed cost; it is determined as a result of bidding.

The auction is carried out automatically, the winner pays the cost per click of the previous user and the minimum step. If the cost of advertising per click suits the winner, the agency begins to cooperate with them.

3) Registration.ru

This company works with many advertising services. In addition to the three main ones, it cooperates with K*50, CoMagic, MyTarget, CallTouch. Every year they give presentations on online marketing promotion. They also offer SEO optimization services for web resources.

8. Features of setting up contextual advertising 📎

Automated resources, of course, simplify setting up targeted advertising, but everyone should understand the basics - from beginners to professionals .

You can find a lot of tips on the Internet that will help you set up profitable contextual advertising. Some of them are great for helping beginners, while others can only confuse the advertiser more.

8.1. Placement strategy

For example, in the Yandex search engine you can see 3 (three) variations of advertising placement:

• "Special". The advertisement is placed immediately above the main search results field.
• "Guaranteed." Advertising is located on the right side of the search results.
• "Dynamic". Advertisements are placed under “guaranteed”, occupying positions from the first to the eighth lines.

Depending on which position the advertiser chooses, the cost of the advertising campaign will vary. Naturally, every advertiser wants to get into “special placement” or “guaranteed impressions” positions, but not everyone can be lucky, because everything is decided at the auction of bids In addition, the quality of the advertising text influences the results.

8.2. Targeting

There are several types of targeting settings:

• Geographical. This position allows you to customize your ad so that it is shown to residents of a specific city.
• Hourly. The advertiser has the ability to set up an advertisement so that it appears at a certain period of time.
• Behavioral factors. This type of targeted advertising allows you to track user interests. By analyzing the browser history, the system receives data according to which it offers a specific product or service.

8.3. Advertising on thematic platforms

When setting up an ad, you can choose which sites you should post ads on and which ones you should avoid.

8.4. Number of ad clicks

However, it may also be that the influx of customers in the first week will exceed the estimated estimates.

There may be several reasons why this will not suit a businessman:

• Limited quantity of goods.
• Inability to cope with the influx of buyers.

If you do not control such a process, then the entire amount that was intended for 10 weeks can be spent much faster. And besides this, if you do not provide such a large number of clients with proper service, you can lose your good reputation.

Automatic budget allocation will help eliminate such misunderstandings and make advertising much more effective.

8.5. "Negative words"

If the ad contains words with a sign «-» , then users who are not the target audience will not be able to see it.

For example, the store offers new laptops and accessories for them. Therefore, users searching for “used laptops”, “used batteries” will be considered a non-target audience.

Important! Requests that do not correspond to the main focus should be written with a minus sign, then they will not be shown to users who are not interested in this.

8.6. Control

Changes are constantly taking place on the Internet, especially when it comes to contextual advertising systems. Every day there is a fierce struggle for high positions. Advertisers raise the stakes, improve their ads, change the pricing policy per click.

These processes should not be left to chance; if you hesitate a little, good advertising positions may be lost.

Step-by-step instructions for creating a semantic core for contextual advertising for beginners

9. How to create a semantic core for contextual advertising - collecting synonyms in 5 simple steps 📊

The semantics of an advertisement is its most important component. It is at this level that the advertiser begins to fight for the client. After all, the number of impressions and the level of competition directly depend on the selected queries.

Semantic core is a set of key queries that best position a product or service and are most often used by users.

Creating a semantic core seems difficult to many, and almost an impossible task for beginners, but, nevertheless, there are ways that will help in this matter. There have long been step-by-step instructions for selecting a semantic core.

Step #1. Preparatory

At this stage it is worth preparing to create a semantic core. It is fundamentally wrong to assume that semantics is a matter of minutes and high-frequency queries that Wordstat issues will do.

Step 1. Drawing up a table and distributing words into columns

First What you need to do is create a table with key queries.

In the first column write down a product or service, that is, what the entrepreneur offers. It is worth recording all the word variations that users search for in search engines.

In the second column it is necessary to write down all the words that describe the action that can be performed with a product or service - “buy”, “purchase”, “order”, “register”, “send”, etc.

Third column intended to indicate geographic location. Its users also point differently.

For example, if we take the city of St. Petersburg, then Internet users can indicate it in the search bar as follows:

• "Saint Petersburg".
• "SPb".
• "Peter".

Users may deliberately abbreviate words for ease of use. Sometimes this is not global in nature, but in some cases this point is worth taking into account.

Fourth column is responsible for the characteristics of a product or service. Simply put, it answers the question, “what is it like?” All the options that users can use in search are worth considering.

The variability of keywords should be taken from your head. You need to think about what criteria and queries users use to search for information. If you run out of thoughts, you can move on to services that help in selecting key combinations of words.

Yandex Metrica and Wordstat, Google AdWords and Analytics, – these services should not be ignored, because here you can find not only relevant key queries for “semantics”, but also absolutely incredible search phrases that can be used profitably.

Step #2. List of keywords

When the table is ready, you can start creating the list " keywords».

How to choose keywords for contextual advertising?

Step 2. Select keywords for contextual advertising using the Promotools.ru service

Use conditional " multiplication" to create all possible variations of key queries.

Doing this manually takes a long time, so it is common to use a key query generator. Eg , Promotools.ru, a good generator with a user-friendly interface.

The automatic generator is easy to use. The user only needs to enter the keys from the table into the appropriate cells, and the system itself will display all possible combinations.

Step #3. Remove unnecessary requests

After the system automatically generates key queries, there can be about a thousand of them. Most of them can safely be considered " garbage" and delete .

It is difficult for a beginner to figure out which request can be considered good, Which one then bad. Therefore, experts recommend using the Key Collector service, or any other service that helps remove all irrelevant queries.

You need to load a list of the resulting “keywords” into the program and start the process of collecting statistics from Wordstat. The result is a list that consists of all similar queries, that is, “negative words”.

Step 3. Clear all unnecessary requests

“Minus words” in the Key Collector service must be removed. To do this you need to go to " Data» — « Group Analysis" The program will automatically generate words in groups that make up the queries. Groups of words that don't answer consumer interests, it is necessary to mark and save in a separate document - these will be the very “minus words”.

Groups of marked words are removed from the program, and the remaining queries will be the semantic core.

Step #4. Grouping and segmentation of key queries

Step 4. Sort keywords into groups

To do this, the list of key queries will need to be divided into several segments. All “keywords” can be divided into groups to which they will be suitable.

For example, the first group could be keywords that contain the phrase “St. Petersburg”. The second group could be queries with the word “inexpensive”, etc.

Each group of “keywords” should be written down on a separate piece of paper. When all key queries are sorted into their groups, the process of creating a semantic core can be considered complete.

Step #5. Taking into account the features of Google AdWords!

As practice shows, Yandex has less stringent requirements for both resources and advertising. Here, “minus words” can be in one word form (and sometimes not at all). Google AdWords works a little differently.

Firstly, the system wants to see “minus words” in all possible word forms in the contextual ad.

To prevent errors that may occur due to human factors, you can use automatic services. (For example, service htraffic.ru )

Second What you need to know when working with Google – this is the absence of prepositions. For example, if the request sounds like “buy a laptop in St. Petersburg,” it should be changed to “buy a laptop in St. Petersburg.” Otherwise, users who make requests without pretext will simply not see the advertisement. And such users are the majority.

Composing a semantic core is not so difficult. It is much more difficult for contextual advertising services to please your advertisements.

10. What does the cost of contextual advertising depend on - 2 main factors 💸📋

Cost per click – This is the amount that the advertiser is obliged to pay for the user to switch to his resource.

This indicator is influenced by several factors.

Factor 1. Niche (topic) in which the advertisement will be placed

Cost per click in these categories often varies from 10 rubles to 25 dollars. Segments that are rated slightly lower are entertainment, hobby, inexpensive goods(products with a pricing policy from 100 to 1000 rubles).

Factor 2. Advertising setup

Often, services that offer contextual advertising services provide their clients with the opportunity to use ads with “ maximum efficiency " That is, advertising will appear on the highest paying places in search results.

Each ad will be broadcast in the location where the probability higher clique. As a result, the cost per click will be much higher. In some cases this may not be entirely justified. After all, if you set up your ad correctly, you can get a lot more clicks by spending the same amount of money.

To increase advertising effectiveness And reduce cost per click you need to know how to do it right set up an ad. Only then, even in the most expensive segment, can you count on the maximum number of transitions with reasonable financial investments.

Also, the cost of advertising may depend on the so-called auction. This can be found especially often in the Yandex service. Direct. The principle of this auction is quite simple. Each advertiser selects key queries and makes the minimum rate he is willing to pay in 1 click.

Then, among all the key queries submitted by advertisers, the one with the highest price is selected. This request receives the highest positions, and accordingly the advertising campaign will stand a lot more. That is, in fact, the advertiser sets his own price.

It's also not worth it ignore the level of competition when calculating pricing policy. There are special services on the Internet that show the number of competitors by specific request And average cost per transition.

One of these services is Mutagen.ru ( Mutagen.ru). Here you can even find out how much a guaranteed screening and entrance to special accommodation will cost.

You can only check for free 10 requests per day, but after registration you will need to deposit approximately 15 rubles into your account as a guarantee that the user is not a robot.

11. Contextual advertising on social networks - advantages and disadvantages 📄

Targeted advertising is not much different from contextual advertising , which can be seen in search engines or on web resources. The ad can be text or display. When clicked, it leads to the advertised page of the site with the product offered.

“Disadvantages” (−) of contextual advertising on social networks

1) Difficulty tracking

2) Features of creation

Since it is difficult to track effectiveness, creating and setting up targeted advertising requires a subtle approach.

3) Cost

Since in this material we will touch on the basics of contextual advertising, for your convenience we have divided it into main points.

What is contextual advertising?

Contextual advertising is a type of advertising on the Internet that is represented by a text or image ad and is shown depending on the user’s request (context). The advertiser himself chooses for which queries and on which platforms his site’s advertising will be shown. There are two main types of contextual advertising: thematic and search.

This post from the editors of IM will help you understand the basic concepts in contextual advertising, make it clear what contextual advertising is, how it looks and works, as well as what systems and services are most often used to run advertising on the Internet.

Search engine

Search contextual advertising will be shown to the user if his request matches those specified by the advertiser in his company’s settings. The main advantage of this type of advertising is that the user himself shows interest in a certain product and writes about it in the search bar; all we have to do is say (with the help of advertising) that we offer this type of product.

This advertising works in all major search engines Yandex, Google, Rambler, Mail, Bing, Yahoo, Badoo and others. At the same time, the algorithm for displaying advertisements for each individual system may differ, as is the case, for example, with Yandex and Google. And a search engine like Badoo (the Chinese analogue of Google) is partly generally closed, since it is possible to place ads there only while in China.

Thematic

Thematic contextual advertising will be shown to users on sites that participate in affiliate programs ( Google AdScense, Yandex Advertising Network). The display of which particular advertisement will be carried out depends on the last queries entered by the user or the sites on which subject they visited (which is also context).

Most likely, you yourself have noticed more than once that after searching for, say, “buying shoes,” advertisements offering the purchase of shoes begin to appear on the pages of other sites and on social networks. This, by the way, is the main advantage of thematic contextual advertising, even if the advertisement was not viewed or was not clicked on in the search results, it still remains chance to attract a user to your website and tell about the product.

But there are topics for which displaying advertising based on user behavior is prohibited ( medicine, products for adults), so they can use another type of thematic contextual advertising - contextual targeting or display by sites. For example, on a forum about medicine, in a discussion thread about denture implantation, an advertisement for dentistry may be shown.

Could it then happen that your advertisement will be shown on a low-quality website or one that violates Russian legislation? No, because only verified sites with high traffic can participate in affiliate programs, so you don’t have to worry about the company being compromised due to advertising on a “not good” site.

Retargeting and remarketing

We have placed retargeting and remarketing in a separate section because they can be used without connecting the first two types of context.

Contextual advertising systems

Yandex.Direct

In recent years, Google has taken away a significant part of Yandex's audience, thanks to mobile traffic, but nevertheless, more than 2,000,000 people use Yandex search every day! This is the largest Russian search engine. Therefore, advertising in Yandex Direct enjoys enormous popularity. In addition, Direct has a simpler setup.

• on Yandex search results pages;
• on the sites of the Yandex partner network ().

The choice of which ad will be shown for a specific request and for a specific user is determined automatically by Yandex algorithms based on compliance with the topic, rate per click, CTR, city and other indicators.

Google AdWords

More advanced interface, to which Yandex Direct has recently been moving, offers. In addition to a variety of tools for setting up and analyzing the effectiveness of advertising, which requires more painstaking setup, Google allows you to advertise your site not only in Russia, but throughout the world (except for China and the DPRK).

By analogy with Yandex, advertising is divided into search and thematic (KMS), and in addition to the pages of search and partner sites (including Bing and Mail), it is intended to be displayed on the pages of Google services (Maps, Gmail, Merchant, YouTube, Pictures, etc.).

Wherein You can set up ads separately for YouTube and Gmail, in the form of a letter or your own video, which significantly expands the advertiser’s ability to reach his target audience.

You can also separately set up advertising campaigns for mobile devices (tablets and smartphones), which, depending on the target audience, allows you to make targeting more accurate. And in advertisements, in addition to standard clarifications and quick links, you can configure the display of goods and services with their cost.

Geographic targeting can be set not only to a region, country or city, but to a separate area by setting a point in the desired location on the map and specifying the coverage radius.

Contextual advertising in 2017-2018

If a couple of years ago, you could simply collect a database of relevant keywords, write advertising texts and track bids, but now, with the rapidly growing cost per click and competition, you need to be able to work with all possible formats and targeting. Find exactly those visitors who will bring profit, and not just visit the site. Find your way by testing different approaches and formats. Because there is no longer one correct approach to setting up advertising.

In addition, if previously there was a significant difference between Yandex Direct and Google AdWords, today it is becoming less obvious, and in the future it will cease to exist at all. This is because Yandex is introducing more and more new tools in order to catch up with its foreign competitor in terms of the set of tools.

It is worth noting that contextual advertising in 2017 becomes more personalized, targeting opportunities for different audiences are expanding. The importance of correctly targeting those users who search from mobile devices is growing. There are more ad formats. Analytics capabilities are increasing.

All this serves as the basis that the contextual advertising market will only continue to grow in 2018. More and more new advertisers will come, who will be more aware of advertising on the Internet and will be more demanding of contractors. Nevertheless, this direction is one of the most promising on the market for at least another 5-10 years.

Contextual advertising in Yandex.Direct can be set up even if you are not a professional. It is unlikely that you will be able to configure high-quality advertising campaign right away, but if you follow the advice in this article, you will succeed no worse, if not better than your competitors.

There are a lot of lessons and courses on the Internet on setting up Yandex.Direct. If you plan to continue to conduct advertising campaigns yourself, then it is better to study the original source - the Yandex.Direct help http://direct.yandex.ru/help/, almost everything is there and for free. 90% of articles and courses on the Internet are a retelling of official information.

But if you have very little time, then this article will help.

The essence of contextual advertising.

Contextual advertising allows an advertiser to display their ads in response to phrases people enter into the search bar. And setting up advertising consists of choosing phrases for which to display ads and composing these same ads. Moreover, the ads should lead to the relevant pages on your website.

• Demand (need)- a phrase that a person enters into a search engine. For example, “buy a press machine.” That is, it is obvious that a person wants to buy an exercise machine and we understand which one (for the press).
• Offer is your ad that is shown in response to this phrase. For our example, it is correct to show an ad whose essence is: “We have abdominal exercise machines, we sell them.”
• And again offer- this is the page on your website where the ad leads. When a person clicks on an ad, he is taken to a page with a description of the abdominal machine (or a catalog of such machines)

You must have a good understanding of what needs your offer is aimed at in order to choose the right phrases to display your ads.

And yet, search engines are used by tens of millions of people every day. You must understand that your ad will be seen by a lot of people, and your ad may be shown thousands of times a day. Therefore, mistakes in advertising campaigns very quickly take away your advertising budget.

Your task is to cover only the demand for which you have supply.

Basic mistakes of newbies

And the main mistakes that beginners make are related to a lack of understanding of the essence of advertising and laziness. These errors prevent supply and demand from meeting:

• Selected to display ads too general phrases, which do not contain a formulated need. For example, for our case, the phrases “exercise machine”, “sports”, “ideal abs” are not suitable, because It is unknown what a person is generally looking for and whether he is going to buy, and we only deal with abdominal exercise equipment.
• Selected phrases that formulate an imprecise need, which makes it impossible to understand whether this is your client or not. For example, the phrase “buy a trainer” doesn’t suit us either, because there are different types of trainers, but we advertise for the abs.
• In the ad text no clear proposal. For example, if our only product is an ab roller, then we CAN write in the ad that we are selling an “abs trainer.” But then people who are looking for other types of exercise equipment will also click on it. And we pay for every click. It’s better to immediately write “We are selling an ab roller.”
• Well, the worst mistake - no landing page. If a person clicks on our advertisement, then he expects to see what is said in the advertisement. In our case, he expects to see prices, photos and descriptions of the simulator. What if he ends up on the main page of the site, where there is simply news from the world of sports?

Again. Your ad should reflect the essence of your offer and should appear in response to phrases that indicate that a person is your client. If you run vague, overly general ads in response to overly general phrases, people will click on your ads, and you'll have to pay for those clicks.

Imagine an example. A person enters the request “I want to buy something.” And you show him an ad “buy something from us.” He clicks on the advertisement and it turns out that you sell cement, and he wanted a bicycle. You paid money for the click, but the client left.

Where to find phrases to display ads

The easiest way is the service http://wordstat.yandex.ru/. There you enter words and see what people searched for with those words. These are the phrases from which you need to choose.

The fastest way to select phrases and avoid mistakes is in advance.

Please note that the numbers opposite the words are the total number of impressions of ALL PHRASES CONTAINING THIS WORD. To find out the exact number of impressions of a particular phrase or word, you need to put them in quotation marks " ". It is very important.

For example, the phrase “buy a trainer” gets about 50 thousand impressions. And the phrase “buy an abdominal exercise machine” is about 1 thousand. More impressions means more people will see your ad, but we've already discussed that we don't need those impressions and unnecessary clicks. In addition, if an ad is often shown, but is not clicked on (if your ad is well formulated, is shown using a very general phrase and people immediately understand that this is not what they were looking for), then the cost per click begins to increase (more on this another time) .

Well, now some tips if you decide to advertise in Yandex.Direct

• Be sure to use the professional interface (you can choose during registration). If you find it difficult to understand, read the help section. If you don’t want to figure it out, it’s better not to spend money, but hire someone.
• Don't forget to indicate the time and region of the advertising campaign. It is advisable to create your own advertising campaign for each city (different cities have different cost per click and you can adjust the click for each city separately, otherwise you will have to set the cost for the most expensive city)
• Place key phrases in quotation marks " " to limit the display of ads specifically for a given phrase. You can do without quotes, but then you need to exclude ad impressions.
• Choose phrases consisting of several words (preferably 3-4), usually such phrases contain a clearly formulated need and you can show a specific proposal.
• Only one ad per phrase! This allows you to create your own ad for each specific phrase and improve it in the future. For each need formulated in one phrase, it is advisable to make your own advertisement with an offer for this need.
• Use words from the keyword phrase in the ad title, then when the ad is displayed, matching words will be highlighted in bold text.
• To make your offer truly clear, use prices, terms, model, and delivery regions in your advertisements. Then truly interested people will come to you.
• Track statistics every day. If a certain phrase is gaining impressions very quickly and there are few clicks on it, then you have taken too general a phrase and your ad does not correspond to what people are looking for.

A win-win option for setting up Direct for a beginner

This advice is for those who don’t understand anything at all and are afraid to waste money.

Choose only one phrase to display your advertising, but one that makes it immediately clear that a person is ready to spend money (phrases with the words “buy”, “order”). Make an ad that will make the person immediately understand that you will help him. Run advertising, look at the results. Then add one new phrase every day and write a new ad for each phrase.

Track the statistics and in a few days you will understand how contextual advertising works and you will be able to add more phrases and ads.

Gone are the days when SEO specialists created contextual advertising “for rent” - the PPC market needs competent specialists. In this article we answer questions that concern many beginners. You will learn what personal qualities are needed to work with contextual advertising, and also find useful tips and links.

In the first part, the teacher of the “PPC: Contextual Advertising” course will help you get rid of illusions and understand whether this kind of work is right for you. In the second, I’ll tell you where to start learning about PPC and which sources you should trust.

Finding a real contextual advertising specialist is not so easy :)

To understand how a PPC specialist works, imagine a programmer who writes code and at the same time rhymes the lines in iambic. In contextual advertising, you need to adapt to the limitations of advertising systems and create original advertising that will appeal to potential customers and stand out among competitors. This is the complexity and beauty of our work.

PPC specialists not only influence what users see in searches, they help businesses attract new customers and bring back old ones. Good specialists help clients identify and fix problems, which means they make the world a little better.

Another advantage of working in the PPC industry is the dynamics. You'll see the results of your work fairly quickly, and in most cases you won't have to wait six months to see if your strategy is effective. And in terms of self-development, you simply cannot stand still: the sphere is constantly and rapidly developing.

First of all, you need to figure out what personal qualities you should have. After the test task and successful completion of several interviews, workdays will begin, so you need to be mentally prepared.

1. Analytical mindset

Creating and launching advertising campaigns is a third of the way. The main thing is that advertising brings results to the client, and for this it is necessary to regularly optimize campaigns. A specialist must put forward hypotheses and, by analyzing a large amount of data (from advertising accounts, analytics systems, from the client), look for their confirmation or refutation.

Based on the results of the analytics, the specialist creates a work plan for advertising accounts. Often this list consists of monotonous tasks: regrouping keywords, expanding the list of targets for the display network, excluding information links in dynamic search campaigns, and the like.

In addition, there is a pool of necessary monthly work: expand the list of negative keywords for search campaigns, exclude irrelevant negative sites in media campaigns, update banners.

3. Persistence

Sometimes in work there are situations where I have tried all possible options, but there is no result. And here the most difficult part begins: redoing, for example, a media campaign for the seventh time, looking for non-standard approaches, experimenting and at the same time trying to look critically at the work done.

4. The ability to clearly and competently express your thoughts

It is a misconception that a contextual advertising specialist does not need to communicate with people. Yes, there is less communication than Project or Sales Manager, but still a specialist needs to communicate with colleagues, technical support of advertising systems, programmers, designers, client marketers, and sometimes take part in Skype calls and meetings with clients. Therefore, you should learn to clearly formulate thoughts, write competently, and defend your position with reason.

5. Self-learning

The field of contextual advertising is developing very quickly. What seemed new two months ago is now considered commonplace. To work effectively and make the most of advertising opportunities, you need to monitor updates to advertising systems, new tools and market trends.

A specialist must quickly understand what he sees for the first time in his life: new advertising tools, analytics systems, client CRM. In this case, you will have to work with a variety of topics - solid fuel boilers, LED lamps, laser cosmetology.

6. Multitasking

There will be a lot of tasks and information. Contextual advertising brings quick results: today we launched advertising - tomorrow we already have the first statistics for analysis. Decisions need to be made quickly; the number of tasks per day grows exponentially.

If the above points are close to you or you persistently develop these qualities, feel free to move on to the next question.

An employer will be more willing to hire an applicant who, in addition to desire and sparkling eyes, has basic knowledge.

Study the theory. If you want to configure something for the first time, carefully read the help and publications on the topic. Don't trust your intuition and don't be fooled by the deceptive simplicity of the interface - one insidious checkmark in the settings can ruin the result of your work.

You can find a lot of information about PPC, the main thing is not to get lost in this stream and understand what you need. Key areas to focus on:

You can master basic knowledge on your own or in specialized courses. Let's consider both options.

1. Seminars and courses in contextual advertising

Don’t go to courses that will teach you “how to set up advertising in 5 minutes and make a million.” In contextual advertising there are no ready-made universal recipes; you always need to take into account many factors: what project you need to work with, seasonality, competitors’ offers, and so on. If you want to get a job and become a good specialist, do not chase big promises, but take a serious approach to studying the basics.

• Netology - distance video courses;
• WebPromoExperts - distance courses and groups in Kyiv;
• EMPO - distance courses;
• I-Marketing.ua - conduct courses in Kyiv, more focused on targeted advertising on social networks.

Free courses on contextual advertising are regularly conducted by the Netpeak agency in Odessa and Kharkov. In the near future we can expect courses in Kyiv. Only newcomers who are interested in working in the company can pass the selection. In order not to miss the opportunity, follow our social networks and updates on the Education Center page.

Free online courses are most often created by teams of advertising platforms:

It is also worth paying attention to free lectures for beginners from the eLama.ru service. They have well-structured basics of contextual advertising, have self-test questions and answers to them.

Some useful tips:

1.2. that you will receive in the courses. You must be able to apply your knowledge, understand what is used and why.

1.3. Feel free to ask questions to the teacher: showing that you didn’t understand something is not as embarrassing as then wasting your advertising budget.

1.4. Don’t expect that you will get absolutely everything you know from the courses., necessary for work, is only the basis on the basis of which you can develop further.

2. Official certificate is your best friend

Always look for information in the official reference first. If you can’t find it in the help or it’s complicated, turn to other sources.

It's easy for a newbie to get lost in the background explanations: the information is not always presented clearly, and important nuances can be hidden in notes within notes. One of the most convenient ways to learn is through videos.

If you are looking for an answer to a specific question, just enter it in the YouTube search, but always pay attention to the publication date and the authority of the lecturer.

3.1. Google has many official YouTube channels, segmented by tool and different countries. The content varies, so it's worth subscribing to them all:

• English channel Google Ads ;
• English channel Google Analytics ;
• Russian Google Advertising channel - " Google for Business »;
• Ukrainian - " Google Ads Academy ».

3.2. Official YouTube channel from Yandex.Direct - “ Advertising technology training ».

3.3. You will find many videos on contextual advertising on the SeoPult.TV website and their YouTube channel. For beginners, the “Simply About Complex” section will be useful.

3.4. Regularly conducts free webinars on contextual advertising WebPromoExperts. You can register for new webinars on the website or watch recordings on YouTube channel. I especially recommend paying attention to the PPC Day online conferences.

3.5. In the blog video sections #ON FINGERS watch short videos with answers to specific questions.

4.1. Books are a traditional source of knowledge, but they are rarely suitable for studying contextual advertising, because during the preparation of the text for printing, the interface and tools of advertising systems may change. If you are used to learning everything new to the sound of rustling paper, I recommend paying attention to the book “Contextual Advertising That Works” by Perry Marshall and Brian Todd. Google Advertising Bible" - helps to formulate a common vision of working with contextual advertising.

You may also find Ingate eBooks helpful. In most cases, they contain well-structured information and provide expert comments.

4.2. Look for up-to-date information in specialized blogs and information sites. You can find useful resources about Internet marketing in the collection “120 Blogs on Internet Marketing

• The most influential PPC experts according to PPC Hero.

5. Use checklists

All experienced specialists have a set of checklists in their arsenal to eliminate the human factor and not miss important details. Moreover, lists of mandatory items when setting up and optimizing advertising will be useful for beginners. A few links:

6. Where will you get help?

Look for professional communities or ask questions in the comments under thematic publications; the Netpeak blog will definitely answer you.

• In the Google Advertising Community, you can ask questions about working with Google Ads or Analytics. Google uses various incentives to motivate community members, so you are more likely to receive a high-quality answer.
• in the PPC-Club group they also answer questions about contextual advertising, and all answers are collected in the knowledge base.
• on Facebook it's worth paying attention to the community "

Hello, dear friends. Today we will talk about contextual advertising in the form of a review.

From the article you will learn what is contextual advertising, its types, advantages and disadvantages, what its cost and effectiveness are - let's look at real examples.

The material below will help you understand the features of contextual advertising and clearly see how it is placed on the Internet.

1. What is contextual advertising and what is its peculiarity?

If you are an active Internet user, then most likely you have seen such advertisements in search results and on various websites. Increasingly, marketers and entrepreneurs are using it to promote products and services.

2. Types of contextual advertising

2.1. Search advertising

Appears after a person clicks the “find” button by entering their query into the search bar.

For example, "plastic windows in Moscow":

2.2. Thematic advertising

These ads can be either similar in topic (close to the context of the page) or different from it.

If it is disabled, then only ads that match its content will be shown on the site.

(The figure shows the correspondence between the content of the site and the advertisement)

If behavioral targeting is enabled, then the site visitor will see those ads whose topics he previously requested in the search engine.

For example, on a site about culinary recipes, advertisements for cameras will be broadcast if a person has recently searched online “where to buy a camera”.

3. Dynamics of the contextual advertising market

Over the past 5 years, this market has been growing at a gigantic pace and ranges from 10% to 60% per year. In monetary terms, the bill amounts to tens of billions of rubles.

Companies that previously spent their advertising budgets on television are moving to the Internet. Banners, SEO articles, teaser ads have become popular tools for attracting customers on the Internet.

But here, too, the balance of power has changed towards the use of contextual advertising, and this is due to its obvious advantages, which I will discuss further.

• I am index- Yandex.Direct system
• G o o g l e- system Google Adwords
• Rambler- Begun system

Google and Yandex are now noticeably ahead of Begun due to their popularity and effectiveness.

Having a number of features and advantages, contextual advertising today allows thousands of people to run their business from anywhere in the world, working in those markets that are geographically remote from the entrepreneur himself.

For example, you can be located in Novosibirsk and at the same time sell cement in Moscow, while earning money based on Moscow prices.

5. What are the advantages and disadvantages of contextual advertising

The benefits of its use are obvious both to advertisers and to ordinary Internet users who are looking for goods and services here.

Let's look at them in more detail.

Advantages of contextual advertising:

1. Accurately hitting the target visitor. The user himself searches for those goods and services that are shown in ads (this is beneficial for both advertisers and search engine visitors);
2. Quick return on advertising. You launch an advertising campaign and within a few hours you receive the first applications (sales);
3. Minimum advertising budget. You can start advertising with a budget of 300 rubles. Contextual advertising can be used either separately, increasing the amount of funds for it, or in combination with other tools (banners, SEO articles, teaser advertising);
4. Flexibility in setting up an advertising campaign. The big advantage here is the flexibility to customize your ads based on your budget, geography, time of day and other parameters to achieve maximum effect;
5. Powerful analytics. After running an advertising campaign, you will have all the necessary data on its effectiveness and will be able to “tweak” any settings in order to get better results in the future;
6. Relevance (compliance) with the interests of the user. As they say, you wanted a party - here you go! :) You were looking for an iPhone, you will only see ads with iPhones. Are you planning to build a house and want to compare brick prices? No problem! Contextual advertising will help you navigate the huge number of proposals on this topic;
7. Convenient format of perception. No pop-ups, annoying sounds or flashing images on the whole screen! Neat, easy-to-read, short advertisements - all this makes this type of advertising both effective and unobtrusive;
8. Information content. Despite their compact size, contextual ads have all the necessary components to convey the necessary information: a picture (pictogram), a main semantic heading, an explanation and a link leading to the advertiser’s website.

However, they are not so significant compared to the benefits of its use.

Disadvantages of contextual advertising:

1. Short duration of action. The quick effect of such advertising does not last long; you constantly need to replenish the advertising budget and adjust the settings of the advertising campaign. This is especially noticeable in comparison with SEO promotion, which allows you to ensure a stable flow of traffic over time;
2. Risk of overspending if configured incorrectly. If you set up your advertising campaign incorrectly, the likelihood of losing money will be very high. For example, if you sell cell phones via the Internet and it costs you 500 rubles to attract one customer, and the profit is 2,000 - 3,000 rubles, then this type of advertising is a good investment. But if the cost of a click is unreasonably high due to incorrect settings of the advertising campaign, one client can cost you 3,000 thousand rubles or more, which will eat up all your profit;
3. Uselessness in some areas of business. Contextual advertising is a good marketing tool on the Internet, but sometimes even it turns out to be useless. There are niches in business where such advertising will not work. These are large grocery chains, oil and gas monopolies, as well as all other areas of business where customers buy goods or services based on recommendations or look for them exclusively offline.

How to use the advantages and combat the disadvantages of contextual advertising

When you have little experience in launching contextual advertising, you do not feel confident, or you just want to try running a campaign yourself, we suggest that you use contextual advertising automation services without fail.

They will help you avoid mistakes in setting up campaigns, eliminate cost overruns, and allow you to use the maximum opportunities of this type of attraction. Such services can practically replace a professional contextual advertising agency, and for free.

6. What determines the cost of contextual advertising?

One of the most important indicators when using contextual advertising is the cost per click.

The cost per click is directly affected by:

1. Niche in which contextual advertising is placed. For example, traditionally expensive and competitive niches are: business, finance, medicine, construction. In these topics, the cost of a click can range from 10 to 1,500 rubles ( 25 $ ). Niches with lower competition are: hobbies, entertainment, cheap goods (consumer goods) with an average price per unit of goods from 100 to 1,000 rubles. Please note that contextual ads in a particular niche are shown according to auction principle. That is, whoever paid the most for their ad will be promoted by the search engine to the most clickable (effective places). The cost of contextual advertising in this case consists of the total price for all clicks of your advertising budget;
2. Method of setting up an advertising campaign. Typically, contextual advertising systems, when creating an advertising campaign, by default offer you to use the strategy “maximum efficiency”. This means that your ads will air in the most expensive places in the search results and appear where they are most likely to be clicked on. Accordingly, the cost per click will be maximum. This is not always justified, since for the same money you can get more clicks by simply optimizing the settings of the advertising campaign when creating it. To reduce the cost per click, you need to know how to properly set up contextual advertising. Then in any, even the most expensive niche, you will be able to receive transitions to your website at the lowest possible price. At the same time, the quality and volume of traffic will be maintained.

In order to find out the cost of a click for various key queries for Yandex, I recommend using the service