How brands are leveling up their contextual advertising with content blending tactics

One method integrates the ad into the article’s image but always maintains approximately 40% of the original image. In this sense, the advertiser’s information takes over a sufficient space but always acquires absolute integration with the image without completely covering it, making the advertisement non-intrusive.

The integration in contextual advertising multiplies the benefits that contextual advertising brings to brands. Brands can create more relevant material for each audience because their ads are going to be seamlessly blended with the content in which the audience is interested. This is the most important advantage of the effect: Ads are blended into the content of which they’re a part.

Seamless approaches are reducing ad skips and boosting CTR

One of the biggest frustrations for advertisers comes from audiences abandoning or skipping their video ads. While skippable ads are necessary, it’s essential that brands deliver relevant content to audiences or face the risk of being skipped. Some consumers won’t even look at an ad if they can skip it. However, according to research conducted by MetrixLab in conjunction with Seedtag, when leveraging ads that show contextual videos ads on relevant content, brand favorability increases by as much as 22%. The ads are noticed 3.5 seconds faster and for 3.4 seconds longer, while increasing interest and purchase intent by 3.9 times that of a common video display ad. Videos go from being skipped to enticing new customers — audiences suddenly care about the ad.

With contextual AI technology already working to target highly relevant audiences, brands working to blend content seamlessly are delivering increasingly optimal user experiences, helping them to connect with their audiences. In turn, advertisers improve their audience’s attention by using surprising elements that stray from commonplace or obvious ideas. 

These methods boost the brand association with content, so images and videos are more attractive and retain the user’s attention for longer. This allows brands to communicate their messages effectively and achieve a higher level of ad recall.

Furthermore, in addition to the decreased rate of ad-skipping, the same method mentioned above has resulted in the number of clicks increasing by 118% on average, while the click-through rate (CTR) has risen by more than 0.9%. Furthermore, this effect allows campaigns to achieve more than 22% video completion.

Adapt to demand

The COVID-19 pandemic created a surge in content consumption, particularly in video. With more people stuck at home throughout lockdowns, they turned to their phones to pass the time — playing games, binge-watching TV shows and scrolling through social media. Video has become a vital component of our lives and brands are adapting to those needs.

While marketers may now be addressing an audience that is emerging from a year and more of quarantine, the trends caused by lockdown continue, and this heightened consumption of video is unlikely to go away any time soon. By merging the targeting capabilities of contextual AI with the increased interest that content blending brings, advertisers can optimize their return on investment in the ads they are serving.