By Laia Cardona, on 20 August 2015
One of the best-known commandments of marketing is "know your customer". When designing products and advertising, brands usually have in mind the ideal client and can describe in detail their sex and age, where you live and what your tastes and hobbies are (Personal Buyer Inbound Marketing). But Contextual marketing takes us one step further and not only knows who our client is, but also where they are, what they are doing and what they will do next.
Contextual marketing is based on combining data in context to deliver the right message at the right time. For example, suppose Marta searches for red party dresses on Google. Then she goes on Facebook and sees an ad of this type of clothing, which she clicks to take a look at the latest models. The next day, Marta is walking and her cell phone shows her the latest offers in red gowns at a nearby store. The possibility that this advertisement gets Martha to buy one of the dresses is very high, thanks to the right timing and context of the ad.
By showing the ads and most interesting products for each consumer, Contextual marketing gets:
- Reduced fatigue and consumer rejection before the advertisements.
- Eliminate less profitable ads, reducing advertising spending.
- Increase the number of ad clicks.
- Increase the number of conversions.
Contextual ads can be placed in many different channels: social networks, search ads, video ads, web pages, applications and even outdoor advertising. The idea is that all channels are integrated and each user interaction allows us to know more about him or her in order to offer more and better ads.
Therefore, to introduce contextual marketing in your marketing 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 can find a system to collect information from consumers about your brand, consider the best way to optimize your ad and automate the entire workflow.
In short, contextual marketing is a new way of looking at advertising based on the wealth of information at our disposal. To use this tool successfully, it is essential that marketing teams work with experts in information technology to apply the scientific method to marketing and exploit the full potential of the data. The result will be a much more effective advertising and very satisfied consumers.
