Contextual search advertiser allows search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN to place their adverts on other websites. The search engines' technology scans the content of each webpage and automatically places an appropriate advert in it. For example, a page which discusses the merits of search engine optimisation and which ran contextual search engine adverts would likely display adverts for search engine marketing agencies. Each click on the advert would generate revenue for the search engine and commission for the website displaying the advert.
Google has the lion share of the contextual advertising market and AdSense is common throughout the internet. Google owned web properties such as Blogger are harnessed to leverage contextual advertising and the search engine encourages individual bloggers to sign up, begin to earn commission and display contextual adverts on their blogs. A recent study of the contextual search landscape (here) showed Google ahead of nearest competitor Yahoo with influential sites like Digg and YouTube running Google's contextual adverts.
Microsoft adCenter is a new service in the pay-per-click advertising industry. MSN had previously partnered with Yahoo on search marketing. Many search marketers believe that MSN adCenter offers better targeting capabilities than Google's current AdWords platform as PPC campaigns can precisely target different demographics. AdCenter allows search marketers to target those people most likely to respond to the marketing message. Since its release Microsoft's PPC platform has begun to show it can deliver the quality of traffic that many PPC marketers desire many believe it is yet to deliver the quantity of traffic needed.
Contextual traffic is often seen to be a lower quality than search traffic. Adverts powered by search engines in direct response to a search are often shown to users who are actually looking for a service or product whereas contextual ads, those which simply appear on a website, are shown to internet users simply reading a topic related to a service or product. Although contextual traffic can significantly add to the quantity of traffic, of visitors, coming through a search marketing campaign some advertisers choose not to participate.
Microsoft's ContentAds beta program will be limited to primarily Microsoft owned properties such as MSN Money, Real Estate, and others within the www.msn.com portal. Limiting the sites to high value MSN properties will help the search engine measure the effectiveness of the beta and keep the quality of the traffic as high as possible. It is understood that non-MSN websites may also be involved in the American pilot.
Microsoft has said that their demographic targeting functionality will be applicable in the pilot as will incremental bidding and geographic targeting.
