CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISING: The PPC Guy Who Saw The Credit Crunch Coming In September 2007

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.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The PPC Guy Who Saw The Credit Crunch Coming In September 2007

I remember the world of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) for keywords like “bad credit remortgage”, “loans for people with CCJs” and “IVA” about a year ago. I was the Account Manager at Click Consult who specialised in PPC campaigns for debt help companies. Back then, there was always some guy with a bit of money and a shoddy website who wanted to a PPC campaign to capture leads from people with poor credit.

As I wrote on the 25th of September 2007 …

It takes an average cost per click (CPC) of £2.56 to £3.84 to be in position 1 to 3 for the keyword “mortgages”. Add two letters to this word – “Re” – and you are going to need deeper pockets. For the keyword “Remortgages”, it takes an average CPC of £9.71 to £14.57 to get your ads in positions 1 to 3. Add two words in front of “Remortgages” and your wallet will really feel the strain. For the keyword “Bad Credit Remortgages”, average cost per clicks for the top three ads are between £17.28 to £25.93.

I also mused …

Could “IVA” be the most costly keyword in the UK? IVA is an abbreviation for Individual Voluntary Arrangement and is nothing more complicated than a person offering their creditors a repayment proposal that would enable the creditors to recover more money than if they chose to petition for bankruptcy. On the August 20th 2007, a click on the keyword “IVAs” with an ‘OK’ quality score rating cost £33.88 to be in an average position of 9.3 on Google.co.uk.

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At the time, I just couldn’t understand it. There was no logic to it. The more debt you were in; the more financial service companies were willing to pay for your clicks. To qualify for an IVA, you need to be in at least £15,000 worth of debt – and ‘IVA’ was the most expensive keyword of all! The more flimsy and precarious your mortgage plan, the higher the CPCs went. No one was interested in Google browsers with a steady income and a sound credit history, but rather everyone was clamouring for clicks from the irresponsible subprime crowd – deep in the red individuals on their third remortgage and with enough credit cards to play solitaire.

So as the credit crunch bites and the banking crisis spreads to the rest of the world economy, I think back to those clients – long gone now – who jumped on the “I want bad credit leads!” bandwagon. It’s simple common sense. Why did they throw so much money at people who had no money? What other outcome could they have possibly expected? Of course, at the time they were motivated by greed and the promise of riches from making poor people suffer as they struggled to pay astronomical interest rates. And now, through a recession … through rising unemployment … through higher taxes to fund billion pound bank bail outs … we are all suffering for their greed.

Source : ClickConsult