Contextual Marketing: In Search of the most effective context

One of the best-known marketing commandments is to know your consumer. When designing their products and advertising, brands often keep the ideal customer in mind and can describe in detail their sex and age, where they live, and what their tastes and hobbies are (Personal Buyer in Inbound Marketing). But contextual marketing takes us a step further: it’s no longer just about knowing who our client is, but also where he is, what he’s doing, and what he’s going to do next.

Contextual marketing is based on combining data with the context to offer the right message at the right time. For example, suppose Marta searches Google for red party dresses. Then go on Facebook and see an ad for this type of dress, which you click to check out the latest models. The next day, Marta is walking, and her mobile shows her the latest offers in red party dresses at a nearby store. The possibility that this announcement will get Marta to buy one of them is very high, thanks to the announcement being in the right context and timing.

By teaching the most interesting ads and products for the consumer, contextual marketing gets:

• Reduce fatigue and consumer rejection of ads.
• Eliminate the less profitable ads, reducing spending on advertising.
• Increase the number of clicks on ads.
• Increase the number of conversions.

Contextual ads can be placed on many different channels: social networks, search ads, video ads, websites, apps, and even outdoor advertising. The idea is that all channels are integrated, and every user interaction allows us to know even more about it and offer you even better ads.

Therefore, to introduce contextual marketing in your strategy, the first step is to have the right information. A good place to start is the marketing cloud created by SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, and IBM. There you will find a system to collect information from consumers of your brand, analyze the best optimization of ads, and automate the entire work process.

In short, contextual marketing is a new way to see advertising based on the information mine that we have at our disposal. To use this tool successfully, marketing teams must collaborate with information technology experts to apply the scientific method to marketing and exploit the full potential of the data. The result will be much more effective advertising and satisfied consumers.