Contextual advertising is everywhere. When we go into the search and type in a query, most often, we are first shown ads and only then do the search results come. When we go to a news site, banners with ads are displayed right in the articles or on advertising spots.

In this article, we will take a closer look at what is contextual advertising how it looks and works. What systems and services are most often used to launch contextual advertising on the Internet.

What is contextual advertising in simple words

Contextual advertising is a type of advertising on the Internet, which is a text or graphic ad and is shown depending on the request (context) of the user. The advertiser himself chooses for which requests and on which sites the advertisement of his site will be shown. There are two main types of contextual advertising: thematic and search.

Surely, you have already noticed that when you search, in addition to the main issue, advertisements appear at the top and bottom on the topic of your request and with a link to the site that contains the product or service you are looking for.

Also, contextual advertising ads are found on other sites that participate in Advertising network Yandex (YAN) or Google (KMS). These ads are shown based on the search history we have entered and the sites we have visited, as well as depending on the resource we are currently on. So, with a greater degree of probability, contextual advertising advertisements on the subject of medical services will be displayed on a health site.

Special automated system determines the content of the pages of the site and finds ads that match the information from this page. So the ads for sale household appliances appear on the pages of the site about the repair and construction.

Types of contextual advertising

search engine

Search contextual advertising will be shown to the user if his request matches those specified by the advertiser in the settings of his company. 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 box, we just have to say (using advertising) that we offer this type of product.

This ad works in all major search engines X Yandex, Google, Rambler, Mail, Bing, Yahoo, Badoo and others. At the same time, the display algorithm advertisements for each individual system may differ, as, for example, in the case of Yandex and Google. And such a search engine as Badoo (the Chinese analogue of Google) is partly closed altogether, 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 ( , ). The display of which ads will be carried out depends on the last requests the user entered or the sites of which subjects he visited (which is also a context).

Most likely, you yourself have noticed more than once that after searching for [ buy shoes], on the pages of other sites and in in social networks advertisements begin to appear offering the purchase of shoes. By the way, this is the main advantage of thematic contextual advertising, even if the ad has not been viewed or clicked on in the search results, it still remains chance to attract a user to your site and talk about the product.

But there are topics for which it is forbidden to display ads based on user behavior ( medicine, goods for adults), so they can use another type of thematic contextual advertising - contextual targeting or display by sites. For example, in a forum about medicine, in the discussion thread about implantation of dentures, ads for dentistry may be shown.

Can it then happen that your ad will be shown on a low-quality site or on a site that violates the laws of the Russian Federation? No, because only verified sites can participate in affiliate programs. However, ads may be shown on news sites alongside news about disasters or other disasters. Google can disable this ad display.

Retargeting and remarketing

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

• header
• Advertising text
• Primary link (address of the advertised site)
• Contact information (address, phone)
• Quick links (main sections of the site)
• Refinements ( Additional Information) , links (the landing page that the user will be taken to when they click on the ad), and additional elements.

For example, this is what a Google ad looks like. Depending on the company's settings, certain elements of ads may not be shown - in the picture below, the first ad does not have a block of quick links, but there are products and prices.

Let's now take a look at the same query.

By clicking on the discreet "Show All" link, you can see all the advertisers who participate in the auction for the entered query, which helps to evaluate competitors.

The first page of Yandex search results contains a maximum of 7 ads: 4 in the top block (special placement) and 4 in the bottom block (guarantee). Google has 4 on the top and 3 on the bottom.

Traditionally, the formats that can be used for impressions on the Google Display Network are slightly larger: text, graphics, and video.

Control

Contextual advertising can be managed manually, with the help of special services or through an agency (contractor). But in any of these cases, you must be able to control the process, and for this we will analyze all the advantages of contextual advertising, tools for analysis, and also learn how to calculate an approximate budget.

How to work with Yandex.Direct and Google Ads in the same account?

• automatic selection of words,
• automatic ad generation,
• "smart" bid management,
• a unique technique for hinting negative keywords.

The system is suitable for professionals and business owners. There is aoff-the-shelf industry solutions.

Shows statistics in real time.For experts - a lot of precise settings.

Advantages

Once again, we will say that the most important advantage of contextual advertising, which ensures a constant influx of new advertisers, is the display of advertising only to really interested users who are located in the region or city where the company operates.

The search engine is a huge hypermarket where the buyer, instead of walking with a cart between the product lines, simply types in the desired query. Your task, if you want to attract him to the site, is to think over what requests he will enter and how to interest him.

1. You pay only if the user made the transition to the site by clicking on the ad.
2. You yourself set the prices that you are willing to pay for the transition of one person. At the same time, for different ads and companies, you can set different cost per click.
3. For each keyword (search query) there is a separate auction for impressions - you can select only the most interested users. But the higher the bid, the higher the ad will be shown.
4. You can cut off unnecessary users and requests (minus), for example, free, download, video, and others.
5. Transparency - you know what you pay for, how many people visit the site and how many new customers appear. During the first week, it will already be noticeable how these indicators change.
6. You can start an advertising campaign very quickly. The first ads can be set up in just a few hours.

PPC metrics

CTR (click through rate)- the percentage of click-through ads and one of key indicators for contextual advertising. A measure of how well an ad engages users. This indicator is calculated automatically by advertising systems as a percentage, as a ratio of clicks to impressions.

Conversion– in order to track conversions (left application on the site, lead), you need to install and configure analytics systems (Yandex.Metrika, Google Analytics), and set goals in them. To track calls, you will need to set up a Call Tracking system, and to track offline conversions, you will need to manually enter data into analytics systems.

Analysis Tools

In order for contextual advertising to be even more effective, you need to track statistics and make changes based on the analysis. Let's see what basic tools for analyzing contextual advertising should be in the arsenal of every Internet marketer.

• , Rush-Analitycs.ru, Serpstat - will help in collecting keywords for advertising companies.
• Reports Yandex.Direct and Google Ads are built-in reports in which you can see for which specific keywords or on which sites ads are displayed.
• , — free analytics tools that help track conversions and user behavior on the site. I need synchronization with advertising systems.

Price

Do you want to calculate the cost of contextual advertising for your company correctly or "like everyone else"? “Like everyone else” is when the owner or marketer says that we can spend 1,000 rubles a day on advertising and, based on this, a budget is laid. The correct approach would be to make a decomposition. For example, you need to sell 200 units of products per month, this will allow you to use all production capacity company and all employees. On our site, the conversion is about 4-5%. At the same time, the conversion from lead to client is 40%. It turns out that in order to attract 200 new customers, we need 500 applications, i.e. about 15 applications every day, for which, based on the conversion of our site, we need 300-350 unique visitors per day. average cost click at the same time 10 rubles. It turns out that our monthly budget for contextual advertising should be at least 90,000 rubles.

Contextual advertising systems

Yandex.Direct

In recent years, Google has selected a significant part of the Yandex 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 great popularity. In addition, Direct is easier to set up.

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

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

Google Ads

More advanced interface, to which Lately Yandex Direct is moving, offers. In addition to the variety of tools for setting up and analyzing the effectiveness of advertising, which also involves more painstaking settings, Google allows you to advertise your site not only in Russia, but throughout the world (except China and North Korea).

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

Wherein for YouTube and Gmail, you can set up ads separately, in the form of a letter or your video, which greatly expands the advertiser's ability to reach their target audience.

Also, you can 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 for a region, country or city, but for a separate area by setting a point in right place on the map and indication of the coverage radius.

Contextual advertising in 2019-2020

If a couple of years ago, it was possible to simply collect a database of relevant keywords, write ad texts and track bids, 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 go to the site. Find your way by testing different approaches and formats. Because there is no longer a single correct approach to setting up ads.

In addition, if earlier 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 a set of tools.

It is worth noting that contextual advertising in 2019 becomes more personalized, expanding the ability to target different audiences. The importance of proper customization for those users who search from mobile devices is growing. There are more ad formats. The possibilities of analytics are increasing.

All this serves as the basis that the contextual advertising market in 2020 will only continue to grow. 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.

While the majority of Russians are in a pre-suicidal state in honor of the first working day after the long New Year holidays, we are already writing an article for those who want to save money on Yandex Direct contextual advertising and Google Adwords, not wanting to pay directologists to "maintain" ads that were already set up.

So, how to automatically change Yandex Direct and Google Adwords bids?

There are many services, but I chose the Elama service. Frankly, I can not say that I chose a long and dreary. I stumbled upon them somehow in the open spaces of another resource of Russian “start-ups”, read several reviews (positive, bad and not) and decided to try.

At the moment I have worked with this service on 10-15 projects (from 2 to 15 advertising campaigns in each account), in general I am satisfied, but let's dwell on what Elama is and what it is eaten with.

Elama's contextual advertising management: user experience

Elama is a free service for automatic management of contextual advertising bids

As a matter of fact, I don’t know anything about how this service works in detail, but I know that it is a partner of Yandex and Google (that’s why it doesn’t take a commission for automatic ad management), a proven service that organizes quite interesting webinars on contextual advertising and analytics , a thing that for half a year of use did not cause me negativity and bad associations.

From the pros:

• really works
• does not make the brain
• clear interface (relatively)
• adequate technical support
• does not take any commission
• offers free and interesting webinars on how to improve your advertising campaigns
• seamlessly integrates with standard Yandex Direct and Google Adwords advertising accounts

Of the minuses:

• one account - one budget: you cannot upload projects with different budgets to one account, you will have to create a bunch of accounts
• thresholds for replenishing the budget of the service itself (from 1,000 rubles) and each contextual advertising service.

How to use Elama - a short and understandable instruction

We register and receive data for the Yandex Direct account. To get data to the Google Adwords account, you will have to make a request and wait a little, but the guys do everything quickly.

We go to the interface by login-password:

Here is the button to replenish the balance, it replenishes the total balance, from which you can scatter on Google and Yandex:

In order to scatter money across accounts, you need to drive the amount into the appropriate field and click “transfer”:

Google immediately withholds 18% VAT, Yandex lays this amount in every click.

To automatically manage bids, click here, there is such a button under each advertising campaign, which gives us the opportunity to configure everything very flexibly, up to the fact that impressions for “fat keys” will go at night, when the bid for them is much lower, and during the day we show ads for low frequencies:

We have a window for managing the display rules.

1. select the days and time of day when the rule will be valid
2. choose what the program should do (where it will place the ad)
3. maximum bid for this rule

If we show ads only during the day, then we create one rule for daytime impressions, the second for turning off impressions at night (point 2). Many, many variations are possible. You can also turn off impressions at a particular time or day.

How best to set up contextual advertising through Elama - my personal opinion

I always use the standard Yandex Direct and Google Adwords advertising accounts to work with the Elama service, although they have their own customizer. The fact is that standard ads always provide much more flexible and wide customization potential, it is much more difficult to implement all sorts of ad extensions, targeted targeting and other features through third-party services.

finalochka

The Elama service is good in the range of activities for which it is intended - the management of contextual advertising rates in automatic mode. Using Elama, you can save on running the advertising campaign itself, because the rates will move depending on the rules that you set, and not on how they are managed by the person you were going to pay to run your advertising campaigns. The main thing is to keep track of the budget and do not forget that any automated process it is worth controlling, we are not business youth ...

Experienced marketers say that properly configured contextual advertising can sell anything. With the help of context, they increase the attendance of "young" projects, hold various promotions and sales, advertise goods and services of sites that are not included in the TOP of search results, and promote resources for additional key queries. But all these advantages can only be given by a competent setting of contextual advertising. Mistakes here are fraught with the loss of a significant part or all of the advertising budget.

Main Consequences of Tuning Mistakes

• no clicks;
• high cost per click;
• low in line;
• high conversion cost;
• low quality of traffic (few purchases, subscriptions, other necessary actions);
• low CTR (percentage of click-through rate compared to the number of impressions).

Unfortunately, it is impossible to increase one of the indicators separately without affecting others. If any parameter changes, then the changes affect all the others, unfortunately, not always in better side. Therefore, it makes sense to talk about a set of works on setting up Yandex and Google contextual advertising.

Preparatory stage: connecting analytics

Everything on the Internet is dynamic, and therefore it is impossible to simply set up contextual advertising and enjoy the results. New projects appear, some of which become your competitors in advertising campaigns. Other projects stop advertising or change their strategy. User requests change, their popularity and, as a result, the cost. And no one is immune from errors that can and should be corrected as they are discovered.

To see the situation in dynamics and track all changes in a timely manner, you need to connect special tools for each of the search engines:

• .Metrics;
• .Analytics.

Connecting a site is easy. Add the url to the "my sites" list, add the counter code to the site with a visible or invisible button at your discretion.

After that, you will have access to numerous tools that allow you to study site traffic and clicks on your contextual ads. Usually there are no problems with connecting statistics tools. Both search engines provide a convenient Russian-language interface and detailed help sections. Let's get back to creating and setting up an advertising campaign.

Collection of search queries

We have already talked about how to produce and compile a SEO core in previous articles. There is a similar tool for selecting keywords based on statistics in Google. They use it a little less often, since the services give almost identical results, and Yandex.Wordstat is traditionally considered simpler and more convenient.

But if you intend to work closely with Google or want to find additional queries that Wordstat does not show, you should look into the AdWords Keyword Planner. Working with it follows the same principle as with Direct - you check the selected phrases for popularity, find additional ones, and make lists.

We create thematic groups (seo core)

All selected by you must be divided into groups according to the type of key phrases. Each of them should contain phrases similar to each other in terms of word composition and meaning. Thus, the phrases “buy a product” and “sell a product” should belong to different groups, since their wording requires a different approach to the text. And the keywords “buy a product cheaply” and “buy a product profitably” can clearly be combined into a common group.

Most likely, you will end up with many groups of 3-5 phrases each. If you have achieved such a result, then you have done a good job.

And these numerous lists will help you fine-tune your contextual advertising.

How to write ads

For each “package” of requests, its own advertisement is written, which you will later modify a little using different key phrases from the group.

What you need to know when writing:

• The text should be as informative as possible. The user must understand what you are offering.
• It is desirable to show Do you have a discount week? Is there an additional warranty from the store? Do you offer gifts? Write about it!
• A formalized title is better. Setting up contextual advertising Yandex Direct and Google AdWords will be more accurate if the title contains a key query.
• The name of the brand and company should be mentioned only if they are known in the market. Otherwise, pay more attention to the product itself.

At the same time, remember about the restrictions from search engines - how many characters can be in the title, how many - in the text. Learn brevity!

Landing pages

It is recommended to create (adapt) your own landing pages for different types of advertisements. The easiest way to fulfill this recommendation is for an online store, where links lead directly to the pages of product cards. And if you sell services or work with a business card site, you will have to be puzzled by the creation of new pages and their textual content. The only exception here is the one-pager created for it.

Why separate pages are needed:

• The user should immediately receive answers to their questions during the transition. If the transition took place according to the phrase “buy a backpack”, he should immediately see the very backpack he was looking for, its price, and purchase options. If it takes 2-3 more clicks to get the information, most likely you will lose a buyer.
• Often the pages of small sites are optimized only for some key phrases. For example, the content would fit perfectly under the phrase “buy a product”, but no one thought about the phrase “sale of a product” when creating the site. When analyzing the correspondence between a page and an ad, search engine bots pay attention to the correspondence of key phrases. If they don't match, your offer will end up at the bottom of the impression queue.

In general, if you are interested in how to set up contextual advertising yourself, you should follow the rule: give the person what he needs, when he needs it. The more your ad and landing page match this rule, the more effective your ad campaign will be.

Bidding and bidding

When setting up Google and Yandex, it is important to understand the basic principle of creating a CPC. Both search engines work here as auctions. That is, when setting up an advertising campaign, you can see the estimated cost of each request, which is based on the price of current impressions. When you select the appropriate phrases, you become a participant in the auction. Whoever offers a higher cost per click will be the first in line for the impression.

This auction is automated so you don't have to sit all day and raise your bids. For each of the requests, you must specify what maximum price you consider acceptable. Further, the system will raise the bet on your behalf up to the maximum specified by you.

Separately, it should be said that for the most important search queries, you can assign a "guaranteed impression", i.e. your ad will be shown for sure if the user enters the desired phrase. But this pleasure costs an order of magnitude higher, and the price is also formed on the basis of an auction. This service is usually used large companies, as it will require a solid advertising budget.

Geography and time of showings

To understand how to properly set up contextual advertising, it is important to learn how to use impression restrictions on various grounds.

1. If your company is ready to serve only certain regions, set up the display for them. You will save money and also avoid the dissatisfaction of customers that you cannot serve.
2. If you work from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., it also makes sense to limit your ads to this time period. Similar restrictions in displaying ads are set on weekends. It is better to advertise when you can give a quick response to the needs of users.

Stop words as an important limiter

When setting up, at one of the stages you will be asked to specify stop words. In Google, this parameter can also be set if desired. What is it and why are they needed?

If you are selling new digital equipment, most likely you will not need inquiries from fans of cheap ads for the sale of used equipment. Also, visitors who are interested in device characteristics and repair instructions will not be targeted for you. When compiling the list of keywords, you most likely deleted clearly inappropriate phrases. But important words included in them, it is always recommended to write out in a separate list - these will be your stop words.

For the given example, the stop words would be: “buy used”, “used”, “repair”, “instruction”, “do it yourself”, etc. Such a list will help not to show the offer to people who are not interested in it . So you will increase the efficiency of impressions and reduce the cost of the buyer.

Monitoring the effectiveness of the "context"

After the initial setup of Google Adwords or Yandex.Direct contextual advertising has been completed, you need to replenish your account in the system and start showings. But the work doesn't stop there. Already after 1-2 days (and sometimes even earlier) you can and should go to the statistics services and analyze the performance.

• Did you notice the non-target “ ” that was followed by transitions? Check the lists of queries and stop words. Something you missed.
• Study user behavior after visiting the site. Are there too many bounces (less than 30 seconds on site)? What phrases and ads are most followed by refuseniks? Disable unsuccessful options and add new ones instead.
• Segment data when analyzing. Evaluate work with different requests separately. Don't be afraid to experiment with woofers and "low expected CRT" keys. Search engines give a hint, but not a solution. Test different ideas.
• Study your competitors. How do they work with context? What keywords are chosen? Why are they shown more often than you? Learn from those who are successful.

Why you need contextual advertising specialists

As you can see, setting up in Yandex and Google is not as difficult as it seems. But the work is extremely laborious, requiring a significant investment of time and attention. At the same time, to obtain the optimal result, it is not enough to adjust, you also need to constantly study the effectiveness and make adjustments.

Otherwise, you run the risk of being among those who spend an advertising budget with extremely low performance, become frustrated with the context and write angry reviews about the "incredibly expensive search engines for business."

If you don’t have the time and desire to deal with a project every day, you don’t have experience in writing selling ads and skills in compiling competent lists of keywords, it’s better to entrust this work to specialists. In addition to all the skills listed above, professionals in their work use specialized programs that allow automating part of the work, which also increases the effectiveness of work. This is especially noticeable at the stage of monitoring and timely introduction of changes. Cooperation with contextual advertising specialists is a solution for those who aspire to be among the leaders.

Sergey Arsentiev

Services for setting up advertising companies in Yandex Direct and Google Adwords

And deservedly so: after all, this is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to get real clients to the website.

You can set up advertising campaigns yourself in the Yandex.Direct and Google.Adwords interface, including using mine, or you can entrust this work to me, then you will save your time and get a guaranteed result.

How search ads work

Every day, millions of people search for information on the Internet using search engines, such as Yandex.ru, Google.com, Mail.ru, Tut.by, etc.

These search queries are used to display ads.
For example, the user entered the query into the search: "setting up Yandex direct is cheap" and he was shown an advertisement, including with my services

The same applies to any type of activity: whether it is advertising construction services, online stores, furniture, cars, various courses, etc. - for any search queries, you can set up an advertising campaign and get customers who are interested in your products or services.

What you need to launch an advertising campaign:

1. Choose the words to show.
2. Create and set up a dedicated ad account.
3. Enable site ads for the selected words.

Everything is simple and effective!

At the same time, you can choose the region and time of impressions, for example, you can show ads only in Minsk or only in Moscow on weekdays from 8.00 to 18.00, or you can run an advertising campaign around the clock in all regions.

I specialize in the most popular contextual advertising systems - Yandex.Direct and Google.AdWords, which together cover almost 100% advertising market Runet and I can offer competent setting your advertising companies in these services.

What do I guarantee

Cost of services for setting up Yandex.Direct and Google.Adwords

I offer the creation of turnkey advertising accounts in search and networks, the client just needs to fill out a simple questionnaire for advertising, then I will select requests, compose ad texts and upload the campaign to Yandex or Google. Next, I will make the basic settings to avoid cost overruns and try to attract the maximum target audience.

To date, the cost of customization services for 1 group of goods or services in one campaign:

Search Yandex

5 000 Russian rub.

for 1 campaign

Google search

6 000 Russian rub.

for 1 campaign

Yandex networks

5 000 Russian rub.

for 1 campaign

6 000 Russian rub.

for 1 campaign

A discount!

One "Repair and decoration services" campaign in search and Yandex networks:
Inside the campaign Group 1 = "Apartment renovation" = 200 words
Inside Campaign Group 2 = "Repair Offices" = 100 words
Inside the campaign Group 3 = "Renovation of cottages and dachas" = 150 words
Inside Campaign Group 4 = "Bath Repair" = 50 words
Inside Campaign Group 5 = "Garage Repair" = 100 words

Total: 5000r (Yandex search) + 5000r (Yandex networks) = 10000r for turnkey setup.

If you need to set up a separate campaign in Google, then consider using Google's rates.

Pay for creating a campaign only once.
No subscription fees or hidden fees.
Full account access.
I do not receive % from your budget, so I try to save it, and not spend too much

You yourself can further replenish balances (for example, using Yandex.Money, WebMoney, Visa / Mastercard cards) and do not depend on intermediaries or agencies. However, you always have the opportunity to start working with an already configured account through any agency and replenish the balance from the current account.

Important information!

If you have many diverse areas (foreign language courses, programming courses, summer camps for children, etc.), then you will have to do your own advertising campaign, with your queries, negative keywords, settings, sitelinks, etc. Multiply the cost of setting up one campaign by the quantity to get the final price. If there are many campaigns, additional discounts are possible.

I accept electronic payments all over the world (Visa/Mastercard, WebMoney, Yandex.Money, Priorbank, Belswissbank, Sberbank, Alfabank, payment terminals, etc.).

Yandex automatically sends a receipt by e-mail after payment.

Promo code!

You can get a promo code that gives 5% discount from the cost of setting up advertising in Yandex and Google.

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