CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISING: Email Marketing is the Less Expensive Alternative

Contextual Advertising

Contextual Advertising is a relatively new form of advertising on the web that will consider the context of the site, a page or a search query, to display ads from advertisers that correspond to the topic. Its usual form is text-based, using regular hyperlinks, sometimes small graphics and brief descriptions to attract users that may be interested. It is usually highly targetted and is better accepted by users because it is less obstrusive, less bandwith hungry and more relevant than the classic graphical banners. For example, a web page about photography will automatically draw advertisers selling cameras and other photo related accessories. It also has the benefits of making the job of a web publisher easier to find sponsors, as the contextual advertising company acts as an automatic middle man between publishers and advertisers, who bid for specific keywords using an auction system. The same can be said for advertisers, since they now have access to thousands of possible web sites to automatically advertise on. It usually works as Pay per Click, meaning the publisher only generate revenues when a user actively click on an ad, as opposed to Pay per Impressions, an older system that generates revenue based on the number of time the ad is displayed.

Google was on the forefront of this innovation when they created Google Adsense, the first major contextual advertising program. In the beginning, these new ads appeared with their search engine, but they soon expanded it to include webmasters and their web sites, which they named their "Content Network". Using a few ligns of Javascript code, publishers could insert Adsense on their web pages and it would then automatically serve relevant ads using Google's search algorithm. Google also considers other factors such as the geographical location of visitors and their languages, so ads can actually be different for each visitor. Other companies followed with similar programs, but they lacked the sophistication of Adsense since they demanded specific keywords from webmasters instead of detecting them on their pages. Other big players on the web are now slowly embracing this terrific new marketing technology, such as the Yahoo! Publisher Network and MSN adCenter. Contextual Advertising is making it now possible for smaller webmasters and publishers who own small hobby sites to monetize their efforts without spending all their time dealing with appropriate sponsors that may not necessarly be interested with smaller sites when taken on an individual level.

Contextual advertising programs and Google Adsense Alternatives

Here we list companies that offer this marketing solution to webmasters. Google Adsense is often considered the prime choice, but they do have restrictions and some people may be refused to their program.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Email Marketing is the Less Expensive Alternative

Expense is not only measured in pounds and pence, other factors like time and effort plays a part too. Email marketing is a very cost effective marketing tool as it means that you can interact with users who actually prefer this method of communication over other traditional methods like call centres.

As it gives them the ability to peruse your product when and where it suits them, it cuts down the necessity of having teams of people, and people require overheads like money, training and a place from which to operate from.

The time needed for an agent to contact only one potential subscriber is counted in minutes, whereas the time taken for an email campaign to be sent to thousands of people is counted in seconds. Straight away you can see that the cost to your company in the form of both time and pounds is not even comparable.

Cyberspace or not

The costs of designing an email campaign are low compared to the alternative of having to send, or advertise printed matter. Both email and printed campaigns do involve initial set up costs in the form of design and layout. From there on email campaigns involve ‘sending’ costs only as a template can be used, whereas printed campaigns entail recurring printing and posting costs.

The costs to your company in being able to actively keep your database updated are beyond measure. Using the traditional methods of advertising will not be able to tell you who opened your letter or who looked at your flyer. In order to do this you would need to hire a professional marketing firm who would conduct a survey on your product in order to ascertain who amongst the public is interested.

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