The Legal Examiner
The ease of access to information through an extensive online environment has changed how consumers make decisions – regardless of the product or service. Lawyers and their firms must not only be present but understand the needs of their target audience to engage and influence them. While digital marketing strategies for lawyers are highly effective when done right, integrating online advertising is also essential to get the best results.
Online advertising is highly competitive and can be expensive, especially if it isn’t done right. Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on online advertising globally. Because of the fierce competition to reach their target audience, lawyers need to know what they’re doing to make the most of their budget. Online ads need to be optimized, just like other online content.
But how do lawyers know what type of online ads will be the most effective? Not to mention, where should they show up?
The Legal Examiner uses pull marketing strategies to drive people to our platform to look for specific legal topics and those who need legal services. From there, our credible, timely, and targeted content does the work; we anticipate the questions a specific target audience may have, back up our message with credible links, and provide a direct gateway to additional relevant content.
The Legal Examiner has integrated contextual display ads on our articles and pages, offering law firms the opportunity to gain web traffic and potential leads from content featuring legal topics they specialize in. Whether you know what contextual ads are and have included them in your digital advertising repertoire or not, understanding their value and how best to leverage them is crucial. Keep reading to learn about this beneficial online advertising strategy your firm should be leveraging.
What are Contextual Display Ads?
Contextual advertising is a simple but profoundly important concept. It involves placing ads on pages related to the content, specifically the content topic and context. Contextual ads don’t depend on predicting user behavior from third-party cookies data. Put simply, the focus of contextual ads is to match ad content to page content, ultimately improving the user experience.
It’s an important strategy to use in digital advertising efforts because it’s audience-driven. The user seeks information on a topic, and the contextual ads they get as they read, listen, or watch content are specific to their interest at that moment in time.
For example, say someone developed an illness because of a product they used, such as a recalled Philips CPAP device. They do an internet search and are directed to an article about the recall covering what machines are affected and the possible injuries and illnesses users have complained about. A contextual display ad could be for a defective product lawyer. The ad would be clear: it would tell the user the firm has a specialty in that area of law and may even indicate that they’re already representing clients in similar situations. For lawsuits with a claims deadline, that detail would be another possible message to include in the ad.
You’ve no doubt seen contextual ads many times and in different content formats. Two examples are an ad for tools before a how-to video for home improvements or an ad for a marketing service or platform displaying within a marketing article.
Contextual advertising isn’t new, but it’s becoming increasingly important as third-party cookies are phased out (more on this later). It’s also being recognized as a highly valuable tactic because you’re not guessing what people want to see. Instead, the ad is contextually relevant to the content the user has sought out.
