Sharona Meushar, Author at CodeFuel

The Complete Guide to Contextual Targeting: How it Works and Why It is The Solution for a Cookie-less Marketing

by Sharona Meushar | Nov 23, 2021 | Contextual Advertising, Monetization

Contextual Targeting Guide – Contextual vs. Behavioral Examples. Every marketer wants to produce ads that will reach the right customer at the right time. Contextual targeting has been making waves as the next solution for achieving that.

This post cover essential details of contextual targeting, from what it is to why it is important. Additionally, we feature best practices and the top platforms you can use.

In this post

What Is Contextual Targeting?

The definition of contextual targeting is an advertising method that involves display ads relevant to the user by considering the context of the website and the user’s interests. It differs from behavioral advertising techniques, which target specific users based on browser history.

What Is Contextual Targeting in Advertising?

Contextual targeting is a targeted and automated form of digital advertising. It allows advertisers to display ads that are relevant to the website’s content instead of using visitors’ data.

The idea has been around quite some time, for example, the half-page baby carrier ads next to an article about newborns in a parenting magazine. Contextual ads for digital advertising work similarly by targeting the content on the site instead of the user’s data.

In the decades before digital advertising, editors and designers spent a lot of time assembling and curating the ads to go with the content. Today, this process is entirely automated. Since the early days of the internet, advertising technologies have enabled advertisers to segment and target their audiences according to their behavior and interests.

These days, with privacy regulations becoming more strict, contextual targeting is gaining popularity because it relies on context, and not on personal data.

Types of targeting

Understanding contextual targeting is helpful if we compare it with other methods. There are many types of ad targeting for ad campaigns. Let’s review the five most popular practices of targeting.

Behavioral targeting

An example of behavioral targeting is retargeting ads. This practice segments customers based on their browsing behavior. The segmentation may include the pages the user visited, the searches they performed, what links they clicked on, and which products they purchased. Some platforms also consider location and in-store purchases—the system groups visitors with similar behaviors into audience segments. An example of behavioral targeting is retargeting ads.

Contextual targeting

This method involves displaying ads based on a website’s content. For example, you are placing an ad for running shoes on a forum for runners. Contextual targeting works by assuming someone visiting a site about running will probably be interested in buying other types of utility shoes.

Search retargeting

Search retargeting comprises serving to display ads to users when browsing the web, according to their keyword search behavior. When you set up a search ads campaign, you choose the keywords that apply to your business or products. For example, a company selling women’s shoes serves ads to searchers looking for “women’s boots” or “black heel evening shoes.”

Site retargeting

The most common form of retargeting consists of showing ads to users who visited your website but left without completing a purchase or taking action. Because it targets brand recognition, this method can bring a high ROI by targeting the bottom part of the funnel.

Predictive targeting

Predictive targeting uses data collected by behavioral targeting, adds a bit of 3rd party data into the mix, and analyzes and predicts buying patterns with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The artificial intelligence feature can detect behavior patterns, identify products to upsell and cross-sell, and target which shoppers are most likely to convert.

Behavioral Targeting vs. Contextual Targeting

The differences between contextual and behavioral targeting reside in what method considers to select the ads that will be displayed:

Contextual targeting selects the ads to serve according to the website’s context and content. Its goal is to increase the ads’ relevance to the user.
Behavioral targeting selects the ads according to the user’s historical browsing data Behavioral targeting relies heavily on data analytics and data processing. Its goal is to achieve personalized behavioral targeting.

Let’s review the main differences between contextual and behavioral targeting.

Contextual targeting

Relies on the context of a user’s search to display relevant ads

It doesn’t require cookies, so it is not subject to its regulations.

The ads align with the page content. Therefore, they are relevant to what the user is looking for.

It doesn’t lose relevance because the ads are based on what the user is searching for in real-time.

Behavioral targeting

Relies on historical search data. For instance, which sites they spent more time on.

Often uses cookies so that it can be affected by cookie regulations.

It doesn’t offer control to advertisers over which website the ads appear.

Using historical data may not be relevant to the user’s current needs.

So, which one should you use? Marketers usually use a mix of both to target their audience effectively.

Marketers usually combine different audience targeting methods to gain the user’s attention. Contextual and behavioral targeting are two of the most popular methods. These terms are also referred to as contextual and behavioral advertising.

Both contextual and behavioral targeting have the same goal: ensuring that the right ad is placed in front of the user who is most likely to purchase. The issue with behavioral targeting is that technique is based on past consumer behavior to predict future actions. On the other side, contextual targeting targets campaigns by placing ads on the website the buyer may end.

How Does Contextual Targeting Work?

Automation gives contextual targeting the efficiency it needs to address digital advertising. Let’s check how it works:

Contextual targeting solutions use a web crawler to scan the website URLs and categorize the content. The goal of this is to understand the site and how it may respond to visitor queries. When a user visits a website page, the information collected by the crawler is passed in the request to the ad server. The ad server matches relevant campaigns to the topic categories, keywords, and more.

Unlike behavioral targeting, in contextual targeting, the publisher’s ad server fetches page-level data, querying the URL and placement IDs, and passes it to AdTech platforms. These platforms then select suitable ads that match the context of the page. Since users get to the page driven by their answers, contextual ads enhance their experience.

So, what are the steps for setting up contextual targeting?

Before starting, you should tell the system which factors to consider when choosing where to place your ads.

1. Choose a topic and a keyword.

The first step is to choose the topic of your campaign and what keywords it will use.

What’s a topic?

A topic is a broad category for your campaign, such as fashion, business, technology, house, garden, etc. When you elect one of them, your ad can run on Google’s Display Network’s sites related to this topic.

For example, you can start broad, like “Fashion,” then refine it into “Shoes.”

What is a keyword?

Keywords are words that help the network match your ads to website content. A keyword can be a single word or a short phrase. Google recomemnds each campaign should use between 5 to 50 keywords.

For example, int he case of our shoes campaigns you can include words about the shoe styles you want to promote, like “open toed sandal”, “hiking boots”, and also phrases customers would use when looking for shoes online, such a “shoes for weddings”.

2. Choose your contextual audiences

You can refine your ads setup by selecting the audience you want your ads to be served. Filter by location, and other demographic factors to ensure your ads get to the right users.

3. Place your Ads on Google.

Once you finish setting up your preferences and keywords, you can place your ads in Google. The ad network will search among the registered web pages to see if the content on any of them matches your keyword and topics, then display the ads on relevant webpages.

WHAT SHOULD YOU BE CAREFUL OF? A WORD TO ADVERTISERS

As an advertiser, you should be careful when you place your order on your ad network. For instance, when you order with Google Ads, the platform analyzes the content on every page on their network to find the most relevant content for your ad. It will analyze the written content, page structure, link structure, and keywords, among other factors.

The network uses the keywords and topics of your ad groups to select where to show your ads. The network will look at the keywords first before considering other factors. Therefore, the ads will appear only on pages related to your keywords.

Another factor you need to consider is the reach you want to achieve with your ad. If you set your display network setting to broad reach, the network will first place the ad according to your topic. If you choose a specific reach, the system will rely on your keywords and targeted topics to select a match for your ad.

What is keyword contextual targeting?

Ad networks like the Google Display Network use keyword targeting to match keyword-targeted ads to sites. Keyword targeting is a form of contextual targeting that is better for advertisers looking for performance.

How does keyword targeting work? The platform serves the ads according to keywords previously set by you on your campaign setup. When users search for topics related to those keywords, they get relevant ads.

You can learn more about how this works for Google Display Network here.

Contextual Ads Examples

Let’s go through the process of placing a contextual ad by giving an example:

First, you should choose keywords and topics.

Example of setting up an ad group by keyword:

Let’s say you create an ad group to advertise your animal shelter, and you include keywords like dogs, pets, and cats. The system will suggest names for the ad group according to relevant keywords — see screenshot below—

Source

You can filter the settings by location and language

If you want, you can expand a group by clicking the + button, thus creating a sub-group based on one of the topics of the initial group.

2. The system analyzes web pages according to those keywords and topics

Click the (…) in the group you want from figure 1 to see a list of predicted placements (where the platform will probably display your ads). Take your opportunity and remove any unwanted websites.

3. The platform displays the ads on relevant webpages.

Which Platforms of Contextual Targeting Should You Choose?

Contextual advertising is available from well-known advertising platforms and ad networks. Here are a few examples:

CodeFuel

This complete monetization platform uses contextual targeting to deliver highly relevant ads to high-intent users.

Key features

Uses an intent-based search to monetize digital properties such as apps, extensions, and websites.
Provides search mediation via optimized landing pages for media campaigns.
Supports multiple media buys such as Facebook, Google, Taboola, and Outbrain).
Presents shopping ads with high relevance to drive high-intent users into conversion.
Leverages search ads with customized search results pages.

Pros

Flexibility
Centralized dashboard
All-in-one solution
Multiple integrations.

Cons

Requires a mid-sized audience to find high-intent users.

Google Ads

This popular platform offers an extensive reach, serving ads based on searches and keywords. Google Ads allows publishers to monetize websites by presenting ads related to keyword searches.

Key features

Analyzes your website and places ads based on the layout, content, and if you already have other Google ads.
Automatically adapts the size of the ad to the user’s screen.

Pros

Simple to use: you just need a Google Account and website
Easy to use: you add the same line of code to each page you want to show ads.
Responsive: adapts the ads automatically to mobile.

Cons

Too wide a reach
Restricts working with other ad networks. Use CodeFuel to access the premium Google ad network.

Yahoo! Bing Network

Bing provides contextual ads intending to help publishers to earn advertising revenue.

Key features

Keyword-targeted advertisement
High intent targeting
Automatically generated ad units
Mobile ads

Pros

Ads are targeted to individual pages
Customizable ads
Additional control allows you to influence audience targeting, block ad topics, and filter advertisers.

Cons

Requires a lot of traffic from top-tier countries
Only offers payment in USD.

Contextual Targeting Examples

Contextual targeting is a very clever way of targeting viewers because it is tied to their interests. Let’s review some examples, so you have a clearer idea of how this works:

1. Ads about Dutch Ovens inside an article about Dutch Ovens

Epicurious is a well-known site for amateur cooks and features product reviews and comparisons regularly. This article was geared to inform the consumer how to choose a Dutch Oven. The piece features ads at the bottom with several options from well-known brands. The reader can buy with a quick link to the ad.

Source: Epicurious

2. Swimsuit ads besides workout and fitness content

Source: Fitness Blender

What isn’t clever about adding swimsuit ads on a fitness website?. While the consumers choose which workout to do, they can choose a swimsuit to go with their new fit body.

Makeup ads when looking for makeup tutorials

When you search for a topic on YouTube, the platform presents you with a dynamic lineup, which offers ads to customers watching videos. It helps brands scale up by serving ads that enhance what they are viewing.

Difference Between Contextual and Behavioral Targeting

Until now, many marketers were comfortable relying on techniques like behavioral targeting. But with the phasing out of third-party cookies by 2022, marketers are looking for new ways of reaching their target audience.

Both contextual and behavioral targeting have the same goal: ensuring that the right ad is placed in front of the user who is most likely to purchase. The issue with behavioral targeting is that technique is based on past consumer behavior to predict future actions. On the other side, contextual targeting targets campaigns by placing ads on the website the buyer may end.

Contextual Targeting Pros and Cons

Now that we know more about contextual targeting, let’s explore the pros and cons. While it is more effective than other targeting methods, it has its challenges. Here is a summary of its benefits and challenges.

The pros of contextual targeting

Keeps you compliant with regulations. Because it relies very little on personal data, contextual targeting helps align with regulations like GDPR with ease. Moreover, if you don’t collect personal data but only information about the website, then the targeting is outside the terms of the GDPR, and regulation doesn’t apply.
Complement content. When done right, contextual ads enhance the user experience by adding timely information to the content. Some studies show contextual targeting may increase purchase intent by 63%.
Are based in the interest of the user. For example, contextual ads in review sites increase the chance of getting clicked.

The cons of contextual targeting

It requires attention. When setting up your ad campaign, you need to be careful, so the context is not too broad.
There can be problems with frequency capping. Limiting how frequently a visitor to a website is shown a particular ad.

Why Is Contextual Targeting Now Popular Again?

You can use several methods to target your audience. Methods like personalized advertising or retargeting rely strongly on user data. Because of new regulations like GDPR, it is going to be difficult for advertisers. Both advertisers and publishers need to get consent from users to collect their data for audience targeting, which can be tricky.

Also, with third-party cookies disappearing in 2022, there is a bigger understanding of how contextual ad targeting can help without creating issues with data protection.

How does Contextual Targeting work in Social Media

Social media channels are full of ads, and it seems that the more businesses compete for attention, the more users filter out ads. That’s why context is so essential to create a better brand effect.

Social media contextual advertising is a model where users are targeted according to their browsing behavior. Ad networks extract content from social media websites and use artificial intelligence to analyze the audience and display relevant advertisements.

Social contextual marketing is growing thanks to the popularity of mobile social networks. The monetization of mobile social networks like Instagram is becoming a trend followed by other networks. Chat applications like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger are not yet monetized. We Chat is the only application monetized so far.

Why is contextual targeting effective for social media? Because in social media, users naturally self-segment to participate on the platforms. That makes contextual advertising even more effective in reaching customers. The ever-increasing numbers of social media users are reason enough to start applying contextual targeting in your social media channels.

Best Practices for Digital Marketers

The goal of contextual targeting is to deliver highly personalized ads to users. The personalization factor of this marketing strategy is what makes contextual targeting so effective.

So, if you are looking to start with contextual targeting, look no further. Here are four best practices you can start implementing now.

1. The more you segment, the better

Create separate ad groups for each ad placed. That way, you can personalize the ads, targeting more people. Analyze your audience data so you can understand your target audience, segmenting them into smaller defined groups.

2. Use an array of ad types.

When you use various ad types for your contextual targeting campaign, you have more chances to deliver the right message to the user. Use a mix of video, native and behavioral ads for optimal results.

Video ads: one of the best ways to engage your audience. When combined with contextual targeting, video ads are a powerful tool. If a YouTube user clicks on a video about applying makeup, they may receive an ad for makeup brands on that page or video.
Native ads: these are the most popular type of ads present on contextual targeting. Native ads are designed, so they look like part of the page. They seem more relatable and increase the engagement of the user with your campaign.
Behavioral ads: behavioral ads are tailored to a specific user based on their interests and online behaviors. Combining behavioral ads with contextual targeting helps you reach the right user with the right message at the right time.

3. Include a call to action

Make sure the user that sees the ad knows what action they should take. For instance,” shop now,” “click to learn more,” and so on. When the user can identify what is the next step when viewing the ad, they are more likely to take that action. Conversions are more likely when the ad copy relates closely to what they are looking to purchase.

4. Build an effective landing page

Relevance is the name of the game when it comes to contextual targeting. If you want to keep your campaign relevant, each ad should have its landing page. A unique landing page helps your users engage with your brand and encourage them to take action.

How Effective is Contextual Targeting?

According to a study, a lot. The research, conducted by neuro analytics company SPARK Neuro, aims to demonstrate how modern contextual advertising, with its components of machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), is a highly effective method for ad targeting.

The study showed users ads with different contextual relevance and measured their neuro activity, and looked on the page when reading the content. They found the contextually relevant ads generated 43% more engagement and two times more ad recall.

Another study that appeared in the International Journal of Advertising says that

“The results demonstrate that the internet contextual advertising enhances brand recognition and induces favorable attitudes towards the ad. (Are contextual advertisements effective?, IJA)

Contextual Targeting Statistics

The phasing out of third-party cookies is a crucial challenge for US digital media professionals.

Source: emarketer

49% of US marketers surveyed are using contextual marketing today.
In the UK, 32% of marketers use contextual marketing, while 36% use demographic targeting.
44% of marketing execs rated the contextual value.
31% of brands surveyed said they plan to increase their spending on contextual ads in 2022.

Source

Why Contextual Targeting is the best solution for a Cookie-less Ad Market

Using contextual targeting with digital advertising (especially with display advertising) has several advantages;

1. It is highly relevant

Contextual targeting means that the person viewing your ads will be more interested in them because of the context of the page they are visiting. However, when ad creatives are not relevant, users can get tired. Advertisers then need to enhance the user experience with more relevant ads.

2. Prevents ad fatigue

An ad close to the right content can enhance the content and prevent getting tired of ads. The user doesn’t see them as sales but as helpful.

3. Privacy regulations friendly

Contextual targeting doesn’t interfere with user behavior; it is only about the page where the ad is placed. They don’t collect data on the viewer. Contextual targeting only uses the information on the content of the webpage.

Future Trends of Contextual Advertising

Contextual advertising may be around for a long time but is by no means static. Here are the top trends about contextual advertising that can help you stay informed:

1. Advances in relevance software

Developers wanting to improve the relevance of targeted ads just need to insert a JavaScript code into the webpage.

2. In-text video contextual advertising

New technologies allow placing in-video text advertisements on YouTube. Video-on-video ads are possible as well, with platforms working similarly to AdSense. They scan the video for content and propose advertising based on the content.

3. In-game contextual ads.

Developers tried with various degrees of success to insert contextual advertising in video games. When they would appear in the middle of a game it was very annoying for gamers. Inserting the ads before or after the games is more effective and less disruptive. Still, app developers need to monetize their applications. Therefore, developers are trying different ways to integrate contextual advertising without interfering with the user experience. For example, the game AdRacer, created by the University of Luxemburg presents ads on roadside virtual “billboards” as the player is driving.

FAQ’s About Contextual Targeting

How will contextual targeting look when cookies are phased out?

It has been argued that contextual targeting is the next step in digital advertising, answering the end of third-party cookies. Marketers will focus again on context marketing, which puts contextual targeting as an ideal approach. Leveraging context to deliver highly targeted advertisements can impulse contextual targeting to new popularity.

How can publishers maintain control of contextual advertising?

In a way, contextual advertising provides a lot of control for publishers. Publishers can tap on their high-quality content to monetize it accordingly. By leveraging an ad network or monetization platform that focuses on contextual advertising, publishers can regain value. By using contextual targeting, publishers enhance the user experience, better align ads to the page and increase engagement.

How do you build a contextually targeted campaign in Google Ads?

Google Ads uses contextual targeting to match keyword-targeted ads to sites in the Google Display Network. If you want to build a contextually targeted campaign in Google Ads here are a few pointers:

1. Define a specific theme for your ad group: each ad group should have its theme. Start with the theme that describes the product or service, and include branded keywords.

2. Be sure to include enough and relevant keywords: you can add between 5 and 50 keywords but be careful not to repeat keywords in the same ad group. Keep keywords relevant to the ad group theme.

3. Set the bids: the Display Network bid should be at the same level as your search bid.

4. Be efficient with negative keywords: this will prevent your ad from appearing on irrelevant sites, saving you money.

How CodeFuel uses Contextual Targeting to Increase Conversions

When contextual targeting is done right, it enables brands to reach their audiences in the right environment at the right time. CodeFuel solution offers contextual targeting capabilities that go beyond keyword or URL-based targeting. By leveraging AI, CodeFuel delivers high yields for publishers with an intent-based journey. It is easy to deploy, use and analyze results.

CodeFuel is a complete monetization platform geared to maximize publisher’s yield by delivering the highest relevance based on intent and advanced analytics. Start monetizing your digital property today. Sign up now.

Top 10 CPM Ad Networks for Publishers (2025 Edition)

by Sharona Meushar | Nov 22, 2021 | Search, search monetization

Ad networks are not only geared for advertisers. Publishers can increase their revenue and monetize their properties by leveraging Ad Network technologies. There are a lot of ad networks out there, how do you know which one is the right for you? In this post, we’ll guide you through our pick of the best CPM Ad Networks for Publishers.

Short in Time? These Are Our Top 4 CPM Ad Networks

Position

Ad Network

Overview

CodeFuel
Start Now!

A complete holistic solution for publishers, enabling them to leverage search, ads, and news monetization options while improving the UX.

Google
AdSense

This is the most widely adopted ad network, serving ads on publisher’s sites to help her with monetization.

Propeller
Ads

A self-serve CPM platform serving multiple ad formats. Includes a simplified ad creator.

Taboola

Works well with niches. Presents content in a newsfeed format and matches campaigns to specific publishers.

In this post

What’s a CPM Ad Network and Why it’s Important

Ad networks work as intermediaries connecting the publishers and advertisers. A CPM ad network sells the publisher’s inventory by using a Cost-Per-Mille model. Publishers can work with different ad networks. You can use an ad network to sell your main or remnant inventory.

How Do You Choose the Best CPM Ad Network?

There are numerous advertising networks offering a wide range of ad formats and rates. Before diving into the list, let’s explore a bit what you need to take into account when choosing a CPM network for your business.

Consider your target audience, who are your potential users? Do your product or service caters to B2B or B2C? Take into account the demographics: age, location, gender, interests, income level. The niche where your company moves is also important. If you are in a generic market, you should choose an ad network that has a large reach.

How To Calculate CPM

Here is the formula:

CPM = (cost of the campaign/ number of total impressions) * 1000

Let’s explore with an example:

The advertiser has an ad budget of $2000. The CPM campaign got 10,000 impressions on the ad. Let’s apply the formula:

CPM = ($2000/10,000) * 1000 = $200

That means you will get $200 for the thousand impressions.

Stats and Factors Affecting the CPM

Many factors can influence the CPM, the advertiser can control some of them, and some94- cannot. Here are six factors that can affect your CPM as an advertiser or a publisher:

The demand and supply of publishing space: If there is not a lot of demand from advertisers for your publishing space, your CPM rates will need to be lower. You can raise your rates if your website or app is in a popular niche. Advertisers want to place their products on a popular website with their customers. Also, their competitors. Therefore, the more advertisers bid on the same inventory, the more expensive it will be.

The advertising platform you use: For advertisers, the social platform or ad network they choose to place their ad on can influence the CPM. Using an ad network to post on websites will have different rates than social media platforms.

The size of your audience: Sites that target a general audience may have low CPM rates, but on the other side, you risk low conversions and sales rates. The more niche and precise the targeting, the higher the CPM. Targeting criteria, such as geolocation, age, and other demographics, can affect the CPM rates.

Seasonality: As the demand for the product increases, so does advertising res such as CPM. Advertisers bid hard around special dates, like major holidays, Prime day, Mother/Father’s day, etc. Also, during the winter and summer sales, advertisers bid more on their campaigns.

Your campaign goals: Top-of-the-funnel campaigns tend to have lower CPMs, while the rate increases as we go to the bottom of the funnel.

Ad format: Different ad formats will have different CPMs. For example, video ads catch more of the attention of the user. So, usually, they have a higher CPM rate than static ads.

So, what’s the average CPM rate? Here are some recent statistics:

In October 2021, Pinterest had the highest CPM rate on social media platforms, and Twitter had the lowest. (Source: Statista)

In Google

In Google AdSense, the CPM can range between $030 to $2. For link ads, the CPM rate can be as high as $5.

How Do You Choose the Best CPM Ad Network?

Many advertising networks are offering a wide range of ad formats and rates. Before diving into the list, let’s explore a bit of what you need to consider when choosing a CPM network for your business.

Consider your target audience; who are your potential users? Do your product or service caters to B2B or B2C? Take into account the demographics: age, location, gender, interests, and income level. The niche where your company moves is also important. If you are in a generic market, you should choose an ad network with a large reach.

Challenges and Advantages of CPM Ads?

Regardless of the type of digital property you have, it is important to keep an eye on analytics and reports to ensure you are maximizing your earnings. Here are some pros and cons of signing up to a CPM network for your web business:

Pros

Don’t need to find advertisers yourself

No need to chase payments

No need to A/B test ads

An ad network simplifies looking for and selecting advertisers for your site. You won’t need to manage ad placements, you just have to place a line of code and CodeFuel will serve advertisers on your site.

The ad network saves you from having to deal with managing payments from advertisers. Instead, you will get a check (or transfer) at the end of the month from each of your ad serving networks.

An ad network can help you from having to go through the effort of placing ads, testing them from performance, rinse and repeat. The network displays the best advertisements for your website, rotating them and ensuring you’ll always have high-performing ads.

Cons

Lower payout

You cannot select the advertiser

Using an ad network instead of marketing ad space directly as a publisher can result in a lower payout. However, programmatic bidding ensures you get he highest bid on the ad placement.

Most ad networks run automated bidding, where publishers cannot control which advertiser will get the ad space.

Best CPM Ad Networks for Publishers

1. CodeFuel

Codefuel is a complete and versatile monetization platform designed to help publishers maximize their yield. It offers intent-based search advertising and contextual advertising solutions for websites, extensions, and applications.

Features

Website monetization: delivers relevant text ads to drive high-intent users and increase conversions.
Customized search results page (SERP): leverages search intent by serving search sponsored text ads on a custom search page.
App monetization: provides intent-based search and monetization with in-app ads for applications or browser extensions.
Search mediation: provides custom and optimized landing pages for media campaigns. Supports multiple media platforms ( Facebook, Google, Taboola, Outbrain). Deploy monetization pages on your own site.
Contextual advertising: an intent discovery platform that generates dynamic and contextual ad units to serve relevant ads at the right moment on the website.
News feed: Premium news feed that enhances the user experience.

Pros	Cons
All-in-one: it allows you to leverage search, ads, shopping, and news for monetization.	Not suitable for small publishers. For the system to yield maximum returns, it requires a mid-sized audience.
Tracking and analytics
Central management and visibility
Multiple integrations: integrates with MSN, Bing, Yahoo, and more than a thousand quality publishers.
Visibility: a central dashboard provides visibility and insights into your monetization efforts.
High-quality traffic
Easy to use interface
Multiple targeting options
Cross-platform integration: mobile and desktop.

2. Bing for Partners

Bing for Partners is the Microsoft ad network for publishers. It provides premium inventory and reaches all Windows systems.

Features

Search ads: provides customer search on Bing and partners and the user gets served ads according to the search input.
Multiple integrations: Yahoo, AOL, and partner sites.
Google AdWords compatible: you can import existing AdWords campaigns into Bing Ads.
Syndication: This feature enables publishers to get paid to show Bing Ads on the website. The ads are tailored to your audience and content.
Supports multiple devices: search results and ads for PC, mobile, and tablet.

Pros	Cons
Provides a range of premium users. Bing is the second largest search engine with growth potential.	It doesn’t have a wide reach
Owned by Microsoft, it receives a lot of traffic through Cortana.	According to reviews, the overall reach is more limited than other solutions.
Support PC, mobile, or tablet.
Large base of premium publishers.
The average click-through rate (CTR) of Bing Ads is higher than for Google Ads.

3. Google Adsense

Google Adsense is the most popular ad network with a massive reach. However, this same reach makes it less suitable for niche publishers.

Features

Automated text, image, and video ads: Automatically serve ads according to search terms and relevant content on websites.
Ad size optimization: Adapts the size of the ad to the user screen and layout, maximizing the yield.
Analytics Data shows analytics to track performance.
Search ads: serves text and image ads Provides analytics for search campaigns

Pros	Cons
Custom report generation.	Approval and verification is lengthy process.
Analytics track traffic and income.	High traffic requirements.
Easy to implement.	It doesn’t integrate with specific platforms like Squarespace.
	Cost-Per-Click is very low compared to other ad networks.

4. Propeller Ads

Propeller ads has become a popular option for publishers. It is highly focused on maximizing ad performance. Still, it lacks basic features like header bidding.

Features

Clean ads
Compatible with AdSense
Wide coverage
AdBlock workaround

Pros	Cons
There is no minimum traffic requirement.	Although the platform supports non-English sites, the revenue is lower.
Offers a wide range of payment options, including PayPal, WebMoney, Payoneer.	Lower CPM for low-quality websites.
	Doesn’t offer header bidding.

5. Taboola

Taboola is an ad network that works by delivering curated sponsored content. It has high customization.

Taboola

Features

Presents the content in a newsfeed format.
Offers publishers A/B testing and editorial insights to improve the quality of their content.
Allow publishers to receive more traffic by exchanging existing traffic with third-party sites.
Publishers can see post-click behavior, embed their own videos, and customize their website.
Supports sponsored content and in-feed videos.

Pros	Cons
Offers templates for mobile web monetization	No free trial
The publisher can track traffic and conversions.	Only offers one payment method
Analytics and reporting	The user interface is confusing and disorganized.

6. Outbrain

Outbrain is an ad network that focuses on sponsored content, specifically video. Similar to Taboola, presents the content in newsfeed format, leveraging sponsored and ads.

Features

Native out-stream video with varied video lengths from 6 to 120 seconds.
Personalized feed with editorial, video, and sponsored content.
Optimization engine.
Ad server

Pros	Cons
Proprietary monetization method	Low earnings
Easy to install and user interface	Delayed reporting
Quality traffic	Native formats only
Good customer service
Compatible with Google Adsense.

7. Adcash

An ad network that caters to publishers and advertisers. On the publisher side, they partner with SSPs to deliver targeted ads.

Features

Global coverage in more than 190 countries. All types of traffic can be monetized.
Multiple ad formats.
Real-time analytics.
Anti Adblock
Accepts multiple payment methods.

Pros	Cons
No additional charges for processing transactions	It doesn’t have a referral program for publishers.
Several ad formats	Lower CPM rates than the market.
Multiple payment options
Accepts all kinds of traffic.

8. Conversant Media

It is an ad platform for publishers and advertisers that specializes in personalized ads. Conversant media also offers an affiliate network.

Features

Formerly known as Epsilon it has publishers in a range of verticals, from telecom to retail.
Low traffic requirements.
Low cashing requirements.
Accepts only Paypal.

Pros	Cons
Broad reach across different industries.	Slow and clunky.
Easy to qualify.	Difficult to use interface.
A quality pool of advertisers.	No brand safety measure for campaigns.
Easy user interface.	Doesn’t give an in-depth analysis.
Real-time data.
Advanced reporting.

9. Revcontent

Is a content marketing platform, focused on connecting advertisers with their target audiences. It works primarily as a demand-side platform but has some services for suppliers.

Features

Native and display ads.
Audience insight feature.
Invitation-based network

Pros

Pros	Cons
Offers a high CPM rate.	Difficult to get approved.
Real-time reporting dashboard.	Not suitable for small publishers.

10. BuySellAds

Buysell ads offer advertising solutions for publishers and advertisers. They are focused on the tech niche.

Features

Control panel with an intuitive user interface.
Reportings filtered by date range and ad zone.
Multiple payment methods (Check, Paypal, Wire)
Good support with a Knowledge Base.
Focused on the tech, freelancer, web design niche.

Pros	Cons
Offers website display ads, mobile app display ads, desktop, RSS.	You can only get payments twice a month.
Gives publishers the 75% of the revenue they get from advertisers.	Limited niche.
Google Adsense compatible.
No minimum traffic requirements.

11. Exponential

It is a provider of digital solutions for the advertising industry. For publishers, it offers access to premium advertisers.

Features

High impact ads
Pre-roll ads
Gives you 55% of the revenue.
Direct, first-look inventory.

Pros	Cons
Lucrative rates for CPM ads.	Strict entry requirements make it a hard ad network to get into. You need a minimum of 500,000 monthly views and 5000 daily unique visitors.
Multiple ad types.	Limited reach with only 22 countries on their network.
Premium inventory.

Key metrics: What is CPM?

CPM or Cost-per-Mille is the amount advertisers pay publishers per every thousand impressions of an ad.

CPM vs CPC

Some ad networks use a CPC model instead. In this section, we’ll explore what CPC is and the differences with CPM for publishers.

CPC is the amount a publisher gets paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad on their website.

CPC = (Total cost of clicks / Total measured clicks)

How does it work? Let’s explore this with an example. If the campaign generates 1000 clicks and the budget is $100 you’ll get paid $0.1 per click.

CPC = 100 /1000 = $0.1

What is better for publishers?

CPM refers to how many times the ad appears on a website. Therefore, advertisers pay for impressions regardless of the clicks they get. This makes it the safest option for publishers to get revenue. Advertisers may also benefit from CPM because they can get more clicks from generated impressions. Additionally, a CPM ad network that serves highly targeted ads may achieve more for advertisers.

What Are the Benefits of CPM Ad Networks for Small and Medium Publishers?

Publisher ad networks based on CPM (cost per mille) are beneficial because instead of paying for a fixed number of clicks, advertisers get more exposure. That’s why it is used for brand awareness campaigns.

CPM networks are good for small and medium businesses since they represent a lower cost for advertising campaigns. Other benefits for companies include:

It is easy to track ad performance.
Payment is transferred to the publisher when the page is loaded.
CPM ad networks usually have a low traffic requirement for eligibility.

How to Calculate CPM

Here is the formula:

CPM = (Cost of the campaign/ Number of total impressions) * 1000

Let’s explore with an example:

The advertiser has an ad budget of $2000. The CPM campaign got 10,000 impressions on the ad. Let’s apply the formula:

CPM = ($2000/10,000) * 1000 = $200

That means you will get $200 for the thousand impressions.

What is a good CPM in advertising?

According to a study by the average CPM costs for every platform is as follows:

Average CPM for Google: Google maintains the biggest market share in online advertising. The CPM for search and display ads is strikingly different, with search ads paying ten times more than display ads.

Google search ads = $38.40
Google display as = $3.12

Average CPM for Social Media ads

For Facebook ads = $ 8.60
For Instagram ads = $ 8,96
Twitter ads = $0.38
Linkedin ads = $6,59
Pinterest ads = $30

Which ad network has the highest CPM?

As a rule of thumb, the larger the reach of the ad network, the lower it pays. And the fewer requirements it needs to enter, the lower the CPM. Here are some examples:

Google Adsense: From $0.71
Appnexus: From $0.51 to $20
33 Across: From $5 to $15.

The average range of payment for the top ad networks goes from $0.44 to $20. However, there are many factors besides CPM rates that can determine which ad network is right for you. CodeFuel offers a high yield based on our strong relationship with premium search providers like Bing partners. Having long-standing partnerships with top engines ensures your website brand awareness can grow, providing better exposure and conversions for your advertisers.

Is a CPM Ad Network right for you?

CPM advertising can benefit publishers greatly since its revenue does not depend on users interacting or clicking on the ad. Publishers still need to focus on increasing traffic to their sites when opting for a CPM ad network. Since the advertiser’s satisfaction and the outcome will depend on brand exposure.

Mobile apps and games publishers can use CPM to calculate the revenue made by placing advertisements in their apps. For instance, calculating an average number of served impressions and how many daily active users they have, can be combined with CPM and eCPM to calculate expected profit.

New websites, apps, and bloggers can make use of a CPM network and make a profit. There are a number of networks with low or no entry requirements for approval.

Challenges and Advantages of CPM Ads?

Pros

Don’t need to find advertisers yourself: an ad network simplifies looking for and selecting advertisers for your site. You won’t need to manage ad placements, you just have to place a line of code and CodeFuel will serve advertisers on your site.
No need to chase payments: the ad network saves you from having to deal with managing payments from advertisers. Instead, you will get a check (or transfer) at the end of the month from each of your ad serving networks.
No need to A/B test ads: an ad network can help you from having to go through the effort of placing ads, testing them from performance, rinsing, and repeating. The network displays the best advertisements for your website, rotating them and ensuring you’ll always have high-performing ads.

Cons

Lower payout
You cannot select the advertiser

Why a monetization platform ensures the maximum yield for publishers

A complete monetization platform can be your best option as a publisher. It allows you to maximize revenue and some of the benefits include:

Enhances the user experience: ad networks with contextual advertising improve the user experience by delivering the most relevant ads according to the user intent. The network prioritizes ads according to the users, their journey, and their preferences.
Improve operational efficiency: an ad network can greatly simplify the management of advertisements for web publishers. By saving you time from dealing with advertisers, payments, and placements, it let you focus on improving the website or app, attracting more traffic, and producing better quality content, products, and services.
Maximizes yield: an ad network ensures you get the best paying advertisers for your website or app.

FAQ’s

Is low CPM good or bad?

A low CPM is not always a positive indicator for advertisers, indicating low traffic instead. Publishers may find a high CPM doesn’t result in higher earnings, because some of the inventory may remain unsold.

How much can you make with CPM ads?

The amount you can make from a CPM ad depends greatly on the advertiser and the publisher. For instance, if an ad has a $2 CPM and the site gets 10,000 views, the page earns $20 from that banner a month.

What is a good CPM for display ads?

Display campaigns average $0.50 – $4 CPM, with an average of $3.

How CodeFuel can Help

Codefuel is a full monetization solution that takes the hassle of managing advertisements for digital properties. It helps you maximize revenue by leveraging contextual advertising and intent to display the most relevant ads for the user.

What Is User Engagement? – The Ultimate Guide

by Sharona Meushar | Nov 16, 2021 | User Engagement

User engagement measures how frequently and for how long users interact with your website or application. This metric shows if your audience finds value in your offers, be it a product or service. Companies measure engagement by tracking user interactions like clicks, downloads, and shares.

In this post

Engagement is analyzed through analytic tools and metrics. A website, for instance, may analyze the number of page views or the time a user spends on the pages. Companies strive to improve user engagement since it affects the bottom line.

If you wondered what user engagement is and how to improve it, we’ve got you covered. Our team at CodeFuel prepared this guide with useful tips and steps to help you.

Why Is User Engagement So Important?

This metric matters simply because people engage with what interests them. The more time a person spends engaged with a product, it means the more invested they are in that product.

Having your visitors invested in your product or service increases the user’s recognition and connection with your brand, ultimately producing more monetization opportunities. User engagement is a measure that correlates to a product or service’s success or failure.

To put it simply: If users value your product and engage with it, they will likely purchase and recommend your product to others.

User Engagement Models

The user engagement model you use needs to adjust the metrics according to the type of website you have. Once you define which engagement model is the most appropriate to your website, you can define which metrics you should use.

Content-rich websites

If your website is rich in content, like a media outlet, news site, or publishers, should focus on user activity and loyalty. Specifically, improving the time spent on-site, the number of pages the user views, and the return rate. These metrics can be useful to track on content-rich websites, in order to keep users on their sites as long and often as possible.

E-commerce sites

On the other hand, commerce sites should focus on pushing users through their on-site sales funnel. Measure the usability data, for instance, the shopping cart abandonment rate and page view statistics. Check if users can find what they are looking for, or if they abandon at a point in the sales cycle.

Specialized sales sites

If you specialize in selling a specific product, focus on the conversion. When a visitor comes, your engagement efforts should center around pushing conversions. Check the time on site and conversion rates to see if you are on track.

How Do You Track and Improve User Engagement

To track user engagement you need to start by knowing which metrics to use. Application developers and website owners use different metrics to track user engagement. Nevertheless, it would be useful to review the most common metrics, we’ve prepared a list with the essential definitions, formula, and examples:

Bounce rate

Definition: Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors to a website that leaves after visiting only one page. A high bounce rate means your website is annoying or boring visitors.

What’s a good bounce rate?

Typically, the lower the bounce rate, the better. Since it is practically impossible that no visitors leave your site, a good rule of thumb would be aiming for a bounce rate under 40%.

Between 40% and 55% is an average rate
Between 55%- 65% means you need to improve your site quickly
Above 65% needs significant improvements as you’re losing more visitors than you’re gaining.

How do you calculate the bounce rate?

Bounce Rate Formula

The percentage of website visitors that arrive, didn’t complete any interaction and left

Bounce Rate = (Total visitors to the webpage that leave without interactions) x100

Total visitors to the webpage

Conversion rate/ goal conversion rate

Definition: Conversion rate measures when the user completes the action we want them to take. For instance, subscribing to an email list, purchasing from the website, or downloading the app. It refers to the number of conversions divided by the total number of visitors.

What’s a good conversion rate?

A good conversion rate will vary according to the industry. Generally speaking, e-commerce conversion rates are an average of 3%, while across other industries can range from 2% to 5%.

How do you calculate the conversion rate?

Conversion Rate Formula

How frequently a click or a visit results in a user conversion into a client.

Conversion Rate = (Total attributed conversions ) x100

Total Nr. of Clicks or Visits

Click-through-rate

Definition: It refers to the percentage of people that click on an ad or a specific link of the total visitors of a page, email or advertisement.

What’s a good click-through- rate?

The average click-through rate on AdWords is about 2%, so if your CTR is above 2% it can be considered high. The benchmark is different according to the industry the type of ads and the advertising platform.

Median CTR in 2020 for ads on Google search decreased to 1.55%. For display ads decreased also in 2020. In 2021, the rates remained at 0.8% on average for Shopping ads on Google and 1.2% on average for Shopping ads on Bing.

For display ads, the rates are under 1%. And as for search ads, the highest rate is for dining search ads on Google with an 11.7% CTR and 6.93% on Bing.

How do you calculate the CTR?

CTR Formula

How frequently do people click on an ad or link

Click-through Rate = ( Total measured clicks ) x100

Total measured impressions

Abandonment rate

Definition: It refers to the percentage of visitors that abandon a shopping cart or complete the intended action. Online retailers measure abandon rates to track the success of marketing efforts.

What’s a good abandonment rate?

There surely be visitors that don’t complete the purchase or task you want from them. However, how much is too much? Aim for a rate of under 40%. A rate of about 20% is considered great. Visitors will still drop or due to payment issues, research, and browsing.

How do you calculate the abandonment rate?

Abandonment Rate Formula

The number of people that abandon the site before completing the purchase or intended task.

Abandonment rate = ( Transactions completed ) x100

Transactions initiated

Returning visitor rate

Definition: Google defines them as the number of users who visited your website before and does it again within a specific period of time. It measures how often a user returns after an initial visit.

What’s a good return/ revisit rate?

It depends on the industry you are in, but generally speaking, a good returning visitor rate is between 30% and 50%. More than that and you are in a very good place. An RVR under 25% is not good and you should find out what is causing your visitors to stay away.

How do you calculate the returning visitors rate?

Returning Visitors Formula

How often do visitors return to your site

Returning Visitors = ( Total repeat visitors ) x100

Total unique visitors

Time on site

Definition: The average time on site is simply how long a visitor stays viewing your site during their session.

What’s a good time-on-site rate?

For a good average time on site, the standard is about 2-3 minutes. This is enough time for users to read some contact and interact with your website.

How do you calculate the time on site?

Time on Site Formula

How long visitors stay on your page

Click-through Rate = ( Total time on site for multiple visitors ) x100

Total number of visitors – Total number of exits

Session length

Definition: Session-duration is the time where visitors are actually having interactions with your site. Some sites have a defined time duration (30 minutes) for example when if it doesn’t register activities it times-out the session.

What’s a good session-duration rate?

Obviously the longer the better, but on average, a good benchmark would be anything above three minutes.

How do you calculate the session duration?

Sesion duration Formula

How frequently do people click on an ad or link

Click-through Rate = ( Total time on site for multiple visitors ) x100

Total number of visitors

Time on page

Definition: this rate measures the actual time your visitors spend on a single page on your website.

What’s a good time on page?

Is calculated by measuring the time difference between the time the visitor landed on the page and when they move on to the next one. If the person exits the website without clicking on another page, the time-on-page is zero.

According to Google Analytics, a good time on page is no less than 2 minutes. Of course, the longer the user stays on the page, the better the engagement.

How do you calculate the time on page?

Time on page Formula

How frequently do people click on an ad or link

Click-through Rate = ( Total time-in-page for multiple visitors ) x100

Total number of visitors – Total number of exits

Pages per visit

Definition: It indicates the number of pages a user views on each visit to the site. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of page views by the total number of sessions. For example, if a user has an average of pages per session 2, it means on average, users visit two pages before leaving the website.

What’re the good pages per session rate?

The average industry standard is 2 pages per session. This means the user goes further from the home page and visits an extra page.

How do you calculate pages-per-session?

Pages per session Formula

Pages per Session = ( Number of page views ) x100

Total number of sessions

Number of sessions per user

Definition: It is the number of sessions users started per day/ week or month. It records the number of times a user visits the website within a given timeframe.

How do you calculate the session count?

Since in Google Analytics, for instance, the default session expires 30 minutes after starting. And sessions are counted in 30 minutes increments. Therefore if a user starts a session, finishes, and then starts again, it could be counted as a single session. On the other hand, if the second session starts after 30 minutes, it will be counted as two different sessions.

Number of actions/events/ per session

Definition: Is the number of desired events or actions a user conducts on their session. For example, hover-over, or clicks.

What’s a good events/session rate?

It will depend on the specific action or event you want to measure. This will determine what’s a good rate for your site. The higher the number of events per session, it could indicate more engagement.

How do you calculate the average events/session?

Events/Session Formula

How frequently do people click on an ad or link

Click-through Rate = ( Total events ) x100

Total sessions

Retention rate

Definition: This metric measures how many customers you keep once they come to your website. Customer retention is important since keeping existing customers is less expensive than investing in customer acquisition.

What’s a good retention rate?

Apps, for instance, have an average retention rate of 42% at 30 days and a 25% retention rate by 90 days. Higher-performing apps can reach 66%.

How do you calculate the retention rate?

Retention Rate Formula

Aggregate Retention Rate = ( Monthly active users ) x100

Installs

Companies can also calculate the retention rate at the end of a time period if they want to measure a specific cohort.

How to Calculate User Engagement

According to the nature of your product, is the metrics you need to use to improve user engagement. Generally, companies measure the number of active users by a set period of time (daily, monthly or quarterly).

If you have an eCommerce website, you should focus on measuring engagement with metrics related to the shopping experience. For instance, website usability, abandonment rates.

A blog, on the other hand, may monetize the site via ads or affiliate links. Therefore, the longer the visitors spend on the site, the higher the opportunity for monetization. Thus, blogs and news sites, need to focus on metrics like time on site or pages per session.

Applications typically measure engagement according to the number of apps installed, the time the users spend on the app, and the events per session the user completes inside the app.

Social media apps, on the other hand, require checking statuses or posting updates. Users have a short span of engagement with social media apps. Thus, these types of apps need to measure user activity, events per session, number of installs, and similar metrics.

Key Mistakes in Measuring Engagement

Sometimes, you want to measure engagement but you reach different metrics than what you need. Let’s see some examples.

Mistake #1: Confusing reach with engagement

You may think you are measuring engagement when in reality you are measuring reach. If you are measuring the number of people that see your content, beware it can be easily manipulated. Think about all the clickbait headlines you get on your feed every day. For instance this one from BuzzFeed:

But, having people that visit your site, is not the same as having engaged users. This creates short session times and high bounce rates. Also, the reach can be manipulated by paid ads.

Instead: track conversions, or events per session.

Mistake #2: Relying too much on Time-on-page

Is it good when visitors spend time on your page, right? Well, it depends. Sometimes people open a tab and then go away from the screen. Then you will have a user that in theory spent half an hour on your page, but in reality, didn’t. How can you ensure you are tracking engagement?

Instead: combine time-on-page with measuring scroll-depth. This metric tells you how far a user goes on your page. Another way you can check if you’re on target is to use a heat map. This tool will tell you where visitors click, scroll or ignore.

Source

Mistake #3: Not optimizing your session duration

You want people to spend a lot of time on your website or application. However, sometimes more isn’t always better. Different products can have different “ideal session times”. Most apps have users engaging between 3 to 10 minutes per session. But other apps require less time, for instance, productivity timers.

Instead: find how long is the ideal session duration for your specific product and optimize the analytics for that number. Use that as a benchmark and measure against it.

Mistake #4: Using too many metrics

You don’t have to use every metric available out there, or even all the metrics in your stack. When you measure everything all the time it makes it difficult to focus on the goal. Every app and website engagement effort should follow a clear strategy. Do you want to create more engagement? Optimize your conversions?

Instead: Find the most critical metric and start by that one.

Principles of User Engagement

Now that we went over the basic metrics, how to use them and how not, it is time to think about the engagement strategy. There are a few key principles to follow if you want to succeed at user engagement.

Usability and engagement

If your site or app is not easy to use, visitors won’t want to use it or spend time on it. Therefore, if you want to drive engagement, first, check the usability of your product. Verify that your site is easy to navigate and clean from the clutter that may annoy the user. Check that your app is easy to use and gives a good user experience.

Focus on the user experience

To increase engagement, you should focus on the user experience. Aim for a user-centered app or site. Here are a few pointers:

Help users achieve their goals
Create responsive user interfaces
Create content and ads that are relevant and personalized.
Develop content that is visually rich and interactive.

Add value to your users

Ultimately, your goal should be to add value to your users. The more relevance and value they get from your app or website, the more they will stay engaged.

User Engagement vs User Experience

If you are an online marketer, website, or app owner, chances are you hear about user engagement often. Increasing your user engagement encourages customer loyalty, gets more brand recognition and more sales.

Often, people confuse user engagement with user experience. Still, user experience is not the same as user engagement. To put it simply:

User experience is one of the factors that impact user engagement.

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Let’s review the differences:

User experience

It refers to the way you feel when you visit a site.

Do you find the site easy to use? It is attractive and useful? You can easily complete what you want to accomplish from it? All of these elements form your user experience. Nowadays, with most people using their mobiles for daily tasks, user experience is a critical part of the success of an application.

Some of the elements of the user experience include utility, usability, and design. Is your website useful? Does it provide the answers your audience is looking for? Usability refers to the ease of use and navigation. Finally, the appeal of the design is also important. The design of the website or app should be pleasing, clean, and help direct the user to their goal.

User engagement

User engagement refers to the user behavior towards the app or website. The difference between user experience and engagement is like going for the trial session at the gym (user experience) and signing up for a membership afterward (user engagement).

User engagement represents the actions the user takes after experiencing or interacting with the website, product, or application. It is the link between catching the attention of the user and inspiring them to act. The more engaged a user is, the more likely they are to return to the site or use your application.

How to Engage Customers Emotionally

What Is Emotional Engagement

Emotional engagement refers to targeting the emotions of the customer. The more you tap onto your audience’s emotions, the higher the engagement. In fact, according to a study, websites that have a stronger emotional impact cause a greater purchase intention.

When you appeal to your customer’s emotions, you generate a connection with them. That is one of the reasons emotional campaigns perform better. According to the Neuromarketing Institute, campaigns with purely emotional content perform twice as well as the ones with only rational content.

That is why you always remember those emotional SuperBowl ads or the ones with cute puppies.

Tips to Engage your Customers Emotionally:

Find your audience emotional triggers:

Every audience is different. Therefore, find out what makes your customers feel the emotion you are looking for with your content or application. Here are some psychological triggers identified by marketers:

Bring authority figures: People trust authority figures. If you establish your brand as an authority, you will improve your sales.
Tap onto the FOMO: Fear of missing out is a powerful trigger. Tapping into this fear can help you drive your customers to your product or service.
Put your foot in the door: Getting your customers to agree to a minor request (for instance, a free download, or a trial period) makes them more open to further requests.
Bring social proof: People trust the opinion of others. That’s what prompts you to search for reviews, stars, online scores before buying something online. Add testimonials and reviews to your content.
Create anticipation: Announce the release of a new feature, event, or launch with enough time and support campaigns that create a sense of anticipation in the user.
Create controversy: Sometimes, it is good to rock the boat and create a controversial social media campaign or content. Controversy is a powerful way to draw people in.
Create a community: Your customers will be more engaged if they feel part of a community of users. How does your content, product/service, or application make customers feel like they are part of a community?

Besides tapping on these emotional triggers, you can tap into humor, tell a story, appeal to empathy and compassion to emotionally engage your customers.

Create Your Own User Engagement Model

Experts agree that user engagement should be centered around key concepts:

Key concepts

User experience: This is essential to every service and product. If you want to monetize a website, develop an app, the user experience must be the center of your marketing, monetization, and design efforts.
Cognitive engagement: This measures how intellectually connected the users are to the experience. You can measure this through heat maps, eye-tracking studies, and neuromarketing research.
Interaction engagement: Interactions are the base of engagement, showing how the user perceives the overall value.
Sensorial engagement: It refers to the user’s physiological responses to an experience, that reflect their overall engagement. You can monitor the heart rate, pupil dilation, and similar, to measure how effective is the design and user interface.

7 Rules of User Engagement for a Website

You know what makes your user trigger, and want to start building your user engagement strategy. Here are 7 rules you should follow to drive successful engagement to your website.

1. Personalize the content:

Personalized marketing always performs better than impersonal and untargeted content. Use user tracking and analytics to give you the insights you need to improve your content and thus increase engagement.

2. Try to keep users onsite

You should use every trick on the book to try to keep your users longer on your website. For instance, use internal links on your pages. This will keep your users reading your content, extending the time on site and decreasing the bounce rate. Also, you can add a content recommendation engine to deliver relevant content with the goal to keep people onsite longer and decrease bounce rates.

3. Ensure your site loads fast

This is basic website 101. Every second your website takes to load, the bounce rate increases dramatically. There is a widely known study that shows that as little as a 1-second delay in page loading speed decreases conversions up to 7%.

4. User experience first

We already talked a lot about the critical role of user experience. There are a couple more pointers though:

Make sure your site is responsive: Those days, if your site is not responsive is like it doesn’t exist. Users don’t have the patience to zoom in or are fickle with the mobile screen trying to read your site. They expect the same easy-to-use interface on whichever device they use.
Incorporate dynamic and visual content: Visual content is a must as it attracts more attention.

5. Test and analyze your content

It is not enough to apply the metrics, you need to test your strategy constantly to refine your strategy. Analyze comments, feedback, analytics, and other communications to learn what users think of your site or app.

6. Pull users through your funnel

Besides engaging your users, your site or app ultimately needs to pull users through your funnel. Ensure your content or application solves the user’s problem or fills their needs. That way it would pull your users through your sales cycle. Content-based sites should encourage users to opt into email lists or follow social media channels.

Examples of User Engagement Models

We covered the basics of user engagement and what do you need for your strategy, but how do you choose the right engagement model for your business? It will be determined by your product and your audience. Let’s take a look at some examples:

Omnichannel customer engagement: combine all the channels users utilize to connect to your company including live chat, email marketing, social media, to drive engagement. You can reach out to clients with proactive messages, or automate client onboarding.
Send welcome messages: as soon as a person downloads your app or buys from your website, send them an onboarding message. This can improve their customer experience. According to studies, welcome messages have the highest open and engagement rate.
Design a loyalty program: A rewards or loyalty program can help retain existing customers. See this example of Nike. The Nike Plus Membership offers plenty of benefits for the users, such as personalized promotions, discounts, rewards for workouts.
Add gamification: This is one of the latest trends, gaining momentum in the last year. You can run a contest, create a quiz, or a short game, to bring a fun experience for your users.

The Top 3 Strategies to Increase Your Website User Engagement

Mastering user engagement may seem straightforward, but it can be tricky. Follow these 3 essential strategies to increase your website user engagement.

Data-driven research

Research forms the base of your knowledge. Make sure you research your audience, industry, and your vendors. Whatever you learn about your audience and their needs can be useful to discover how your product or solution solves that need.

Use content monitoring and to learn about the industry, don’t miss the trends on your marketplace. This will allow you to exploit popularity spikes. You can also use these tools to monitor competitors and new vendors on the market.

Improve your content

Invest in an accurate SEO strategy. If users can find easily your site, they can engage with it. That simple. The right content also helps drive engagement. The content grabs the user’s attention and retains it.

Based on your audience research, design the right content that fits your marketing and your product. The key is to offer the right answers to your audience’s queries. Be sure to mix content formats, including visuals and media.

Optimize your engagement rates

Once you have your research, established your user-engagement model, and planned out your monetization, you can optimize your engagement rates. Some tips:

Refine your content strategy with analytics. Constantly monitoring and using the analytics insights helps you refine your content strategy.
Implement user testing and split testing. Split testing can help you see which strategy is the best.
Find a content monetization platform that adds value. One of the things that disrupt the user experience is interruption advertising. Therefore, find platforms that monetize while adding value. Therefore, your monetization efforts won’t ruin your engagement efforts.

Optimize your User Engagement with CodeFuel

Regardless of your product or service, whether it’s a website, an app, or a video game, you’ll need to improve user engagement to stay competitive in today’s digital marketplace. To do that, focus on adding value and optimizing the end user’s experience. Adding a monetization platform that improves the user experience is critical for your success.

CodeFuel delivers relevant search results and ads transforming your site experience into a native and easy to use. Start monetizing smartly with CodeFuel today.

Read Glossary Related Content:

What Are In-Feed Social Media Ads? – All You Need To Know To Start Monetizing

by Sharona Meushar | Nov 1, 2021 | Advertising

In-feed ads are a highly effective method of native advertising. These ads are inserted seamlessly into the feed of an app or e-commerce site, taking the appearance of posts without disrupting the user experience. The result? Engaged users and higher conversions.

There are many types of in-feed ads and a bit of confusion about how to use them right. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into today’s in-feed advertising. We’ll explore the main-feed ad types of the leading e-commerce platforms and address common misconceptions about this versatile ad type. Let’s start.

In this post

What are In-feed ads?

In-feed is a type of ad format you place inside your feed to monetize your site and enhance your visitor’s user experience. It is one of the methods of native advertising that delivers branded content among other content on a digital property.

What makes an in-feed ad?

The ad is delivered as part of the user experience.
It matches the format and aesthetics of the ad to the publisher’s content.
Discloses the ad as sponsored or promoted content.

What is a feed?

There are different types of feeds:

CONTENT FEEDS	PRODUCT FEEDS	SOCIAL FEEDS
Content sites and news aggregations like Forbes, Yahoo, CNN.	Ecommerce sites and app listings like Amazon and eBay.	Social networking and media apps like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.

You can place an in-feed in a news site or related to a product listing on an e-commerce site. This type of ad is native thus customizable to match the aesthetics of your content. Usually, you would want to place the in-feed ad between two content units on your feed or at the beginning or end.

When visitors scroll through the feed, they see the ad, but their experience is not interrupted by it. Therefore, in-feed ads don’t break the user flow and complement the content.

Source

Types of in-feed ads

In-feed ads are often placed between content that appears on news sites and social media that use the infinite scroll format. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) explains in-feed ads according to the type of feed.

In the Native Advertising Playbook, the IAB defined the different types of in-feed native ads. Here are the two most common:

A summary of the sponsored content

These ads are placed in a normal content feed, written in partnership with the publisher’s team to match the rest. The performance of this sponsored content is measured on brand metrics. Since the ad is inside the publisher’s site, the user remains on the website.

Source

Static in-feed ads

Static ads link to the website of the brand being promoted. Therefore, static in-feed ads take the user off-site to a brand’s landing page. The performance of this type of ad is measured in click-through rate and conversions.

Source

The IAB mentions four critical types of ads that can be served in-feed:

The story ads: these are written ads inside editorial content pieces,

App install ads: these type of ads directs you to download a mobile app.

Product ad: this in-feed ad links to a landing page for a product on an e-commerce site.

Video ads: these ads direct the user to video, which can be in short or long format, Vimeo or GIF.

Examples of In-feed Ads:

As you are indeed noticing, in-feed ads are more diverse and versatile than we thought. Here are two examples of how in-feed advertising can be different in terms of integration and function.

British airways in Mashable

Sites like BuzzFeed, Forbes, and Mashable serve in-feed ads that blend into the content. This type of ad mimics page content behavior appearing like part of the content.

Take this example of British Airways ads as a sponsored content piece inside Mashable:

Image source

When a user clicks on the link, it takes them to an article written by the British Airways team with an ad reminding users that British Airways has a direct flight from London to Silicon Valley.

In-feed promoted post in LinkedIn

Here we have an example of a good match. LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B advertising. So, with most decision-makers in there, an ad for a cybersecurity platform appears natural. When the viewer clicks on the ad, it leads to a landing page for the product. The disclosure appears right below the company name.

Are In-feed Ads a Type of Native Advertising?

Native ads are paid advertisements. that match the look, function, and aesthetics of the page or app where they appear. They are usually found in social media feeds or as sponsored content on a web page. As you may see below, the IAB includes in-feed ads in the main types of native ads.

The thing with native ads is that they don’t look like ads. They look like part of the content on the page they are to prevent disrupting the user experience.

4 Types of Native Ads

In-feed ads

As we mentioned before, ads appear in your feed, such as news, social, or e-commerce.

Paid search

Search ads are listing that appear primarily at the top of your Google search results or in the sidebar. They can be text or include images and product descriptions.

Recommendation widgets

Content pieces, such as recommended articles, sponsored posts, usually appear on the screen after the article the user is reading.

Promoted listings

This type of paid content typically appears in e-commerce platforms, such as eBay. Promoted listings are served with priority in front of more and higher intent buyers, increasing the likelihood of a purchase.

In-feed Ads in E-Commerce Platforms

The global retail e-commerce market has grown exponentially in 2020, a whopping $4.28 trillion, according to eMarketer.

Ecommerce platforms can enhance their visitors’ experience by implementing in-feed ads. For example, adding “articles you may like” or “recommended products” paid content. This type of sponsored content doesn’t appear like an ad, but a recommendation, so the user is more likely to click on it.

Today, with the help of adtech, in-feed ads include video, carousel catalogs, and mobile in-feed ads.

This ad appears on the side of a product page for a set of pots and pans. When you scroll down, you find “similar items to consider” and the sponsored ad. Notice how it blends seamlessly with the aesthetics of the page.

In-feed advertising can greatly support e-commerce platforms. Why? Because in-feed ads meet the main goal of an e-commerce site: keep consumers engaged as they go down the funnel of their customer journey.

In-feed ads are flexible and can meet every stage of the journey.

Advantages of in-feed ads

There are many benefits both for publishers and advertisers implementing in-feed ads. Let’s review a few.

Improved user experience

In-feed ads give users a better, non-disruptive user experience. Since they are part of the user’s flow, they don’t interrupt the journey or alter the look and feel of the website.

Better monetization

In-feed ads provide publishers the opportunity to monetize new spaces in their pages, inside their feeds.

Great for mobile

In-feed ads are ideal for mobile because they help monetize small screen spaces such as mobile devices.

Better reach

For advertisers, in-feed ads offer an opportunity for reaching highly engaged audiences.

In-feed vs. standard ads

Standard ads, such as display, banner, or the like, are placed around the website content. In the case of pop-up ads, they spring right in the center of the screen. They disrupt the customer experience, and their customization is limited.

In-feed ads, on the other hand, are part of the user’s flow. They are also highly customizable and geared to high intent users.

How CodeFuel Drives Engagement with In-Feed Contextual Ads

CodeFuel uses in-feed ads to deliver a seamless user experience that meets the intent of the consumer. The user engages with the ad because it provides an added value to the ad content and answers the user’s queries.

CodeFuel leverages AI and machine learning capabilities to offer intent-based advertisements that match the user requests every time. Our complete monetization platform thus drives engagement and maximizes the publisher’s yield.

Start delivering the best user experience with intent-based ads. Sign up here.

How to Create the Perfect Social Media Strategy with Social Media Statistics and Trends You Cannot Miss in 2025

by Sharona Meushar | Oct 27, 2021 | Marketing, Social Media

Creating your social media strategy is key to ensuring you will reach and engage your users. There are many factors involved in creating the perfect strategy and knowing the trends and statistics of your niche is critical for success.

If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry. In this guide, we’ll bring you to step by step on how to create a perfect social media strategy with the statistics and trends you need to know in 2025.

What Is a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

A social media strategy is a document that details the framework, stages, and steps you will take to achieve your social media goals. It includes the tactics you will use to achieve your objectives and how you will measure progress.

What should be in your social media strategy?

Your business goals
Your social media goals
The social media channels you are currently using and the ones you projected to add.
The goals for each channel and account.
The roles and responsibilities of the team and how often you will do reporting.

Why do you need a Social media Marketing Strategy?

To build a brand on social media without a strategy is at least inefficient, and at most, a loss of money. Here are some reasons you need a social media strategy:

Build an organic social media presence: the main goal of a social media strategy is to build an organic presence online. For your account to grow in followers and reach, stick to the golden rule of social media: post interesting content consistently.

Target your audience more effectively: a social media strategy simplifies social media management and saves time. Creating a social media calendar and content bank, scheduling the posts for the next week or month will save the time you spend posting.

Create a brand message aligned with your business goals

When you have a social media strategy in place ensure that your efforts are more effective by aligning the strategy to your business goals.

Better user experience

Social media enables you to offer a personalized experience to your audience. Social media tools enable you to use analytics to create highly targeted social campaigns that influence purchase decisions with personalized offers.

How many social media users are in 2022?

There are currently 4.48 billion social media users up to July 2022. That means 9 in 10 Internet users are on social media. The numbers surged as a result of the pandemic, with 520 million new users from 2020. This amounts to more than 70% of the eligible global population.

Most popular social media in 2025

Facebook is still the world’s most used social media platform. Still, there are five social media platforms with more than one billion monthly active users. Four of those five are owned by Facebook.

Facebook = 2.8 billion monthly active users.
YouTube = 2,29 billion
WhatsApp = 2 billion
Instagram = 1.38 billion
WeChat = 1.24 billion

Who are the social media users?

Most social media platform audiences overlap, as people will use more than one social media at a time.

The age distribution of social media users is as follows:

84% of the 18-19-year-olds.
81% of the 30-49 population.
73% of the 50 -64-year-olds.
45% of the 65 plus.

How much time do users spend on social media?

The average user spends 2.5 hours a day on social networks and messaging. (DataReportal, 2021)

Users go to social media not only for entertainment and communication with others but for information, business, and shopping. More than half of social browsers use social media to research products for shopping. That makes social media a go-to tool for many purposes.

How to create the perfect social media strategy in 9 Steps

What is the goal of your social media marketing strategy?

You cannot succeed with a strategy if you don’t know what you want to achieve. Without goals in place, you won’t know if you are meeting the ROI expectations.

Decide on what you want to achieve with the social media campaigns. Do you want to have more brand exposure? Do you want to engage your audience?

A good practice is to use the S.M.A.R.T goals framework. This is an acronym that reminds you to define goals that are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Timely

When writing your goals, keep in mind those attributes. An example of a SMART goal would be:

“Use Facebook to send news about next promotions and increase visits to the site by 20% by the end of the quarter”

Use the right metrics

You can track the number of followers or likes, but they won’t give you an accurate idea about the impact of the campaign on your bottom line. Instead, track metrics like conversion rates, click-though, and engagement.

Not sure what you need to track? Look at the channels you are currently using. For instance, if you use Facebook to drive traffic to your site, you should measure the click-through rate.

Know your Audience

If knowing who is your audience is key for marketing in general, social media is critical. Creating a strategy without knowing who your target viewer is like shooting in the dark in a game of paintball.

Learn as much as possible about your audience and what they like to see on social media. This will help you create content they will engage with, like, comment and share. How do you learn about your audience?

Start by basic demographics like:

Age
Location
Income
Industry
Interests

If you don’t know where to start, check our guide Who Are the Social Media Users in 2025?

Once you found out where your audience likes to hang out, collect demographic data from your potential customers’ preferred social platforms.

Look at the age variable, for example. If your product or service is geared to a younger audience, find which platform your potential customers use.

Here are some demographic statistics to get you started (source: PEW Research Center):

Most popular social media platforms for under-30 yrs old users

Instagram
Tiktok
Snapchat

Most users between 18 to 29 years old report using Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok with 18-24-year-olds using Instagram (76%) and Tiktok (55%).

Adults in the U.S prefer Facebook and YouTube

The use of online social media platforms varies widely in the U.S according to gender and location.

Wide-content media platforms like YouTube and Facebook get the widest audiences. LinkedIn gets the most highly educated users with medium to high income.

All this data will help you create your buyer persona. A buyer persona is a detailed description of your typical customer. Including name, profession, and interests, this profile puts a “face” to your customers and makes it easier to create content for them to use on social media.

Do a competitive analysis

Your competitors most likely are already on social media. So, you can look at what they are doing since they cater to a similar audience.

There are several ways you can gather useful information about your industry and target market:

Social media listening

This method is the process of monitoring the Internet and media for mentions of your (or your competitor’s) name, relevant keywords, and account handle. This lets you know what people are saying about them and what they are sharing.

Conduct a competitive analysis

This study helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Applying the traditional competitive analysis to social media means you can benchmark your results against the big names in your industry.

With a social media competitive analysis you can:

Identify your competitors for your target audience.
Detect which social platforms they are using and how.
Understand their strategies’ strengths and weaknesses.
Compare your results to theirs and find your weaknesses.
Find potential strategic threats.

How do you carry on a social media competitive analysis?

#1. Identify your competition: Use the keywords you try to rank for and find the top 10 more relevant to your business. Input them into the social media platform search bar and you’ll see who is your competition.

#2. Use social media analytics to find who your audience follows. Both Facebook Audience and Twitter analytics have features that can give you an idea of which brands your target viewers are following. For instance, in Facebook Audience, you input your target audience demographics and you will see which pages have the most likes. If they are relevant to your industry, add them to your competitor’s list. Then narrow the list to the top three most close competitors.

#3. Map their strengths and weaknesses: Now that you know which social media platforms your competitors are on, find how much you can about their social media strategies.

What techniques are they using?
What is working and what isn’t?
What is their engagement rate?
Their post frequence
Their most popular hashtags.

Use the data to do a SWOT analysis. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

STRENGTHS

Metrics where you perform better than competitors

WEAKNESSES

Metrics where you perform worse than competitors.

OPPORTUNITIES

Untapped areas where you can perform better than your competitors

THREATS

New competitors or new campaigns can threaten your posture with your audience.

Do a social media audit

If you already have a social media strategy in place, you should analyze how your efforts are doing so far. Your analysis should answer the following questions:

Who is engaging with your social media content?
How do your social media efforts benchmark against the competition?
What is working in your strategy and what not?
Which channels are performing well?
Which content is performing well?

Hootsuite has a very easy-to-use template that can help have clear visibility on your answers.

Decide the channels you will use

Now you will have information to make strategic decisions about where you should focus your social media strategy.

Pay attention to how each channel is aligning with your social media goals (the ones you defined at the beginning). Next, focus on the ones that are performing better. You don’t need to pull out permanently from the other channels, you might decide to take the time to improve the strategy on those.

Define your strategy for each network

This will depend on what you want to achieve for that channel. For instance, a fashion brand may benefit from Instagram Stories and Snapchat.

Defining each channel strategy should include writing the mission statement for each one and more:

Set up a profile for each network, complete, with high-quality images and a bio that includes a mission statement.
Assign responsibilities to your team, who will manage the company’s Twitter and the Facebook page, for example.

To help you select your network, here are the top platform statistics for 2025:

Biggest Platforms Statistics

Image source

Facebook

Facebook continues dominating the social media market, even more since acquiring Instagram. Facebook owns 4 of the 5 most social media apps.

Usage

Users spend 35 minutes a day on Facebook on average.
The platform has 2.5 billion monthly active users.
74% of all internet users visit the site daily

Demographics

Most Facebook users are from 18 to 49 years olds. Although most teens are now users of other platforms like TikTok, Facebook still maintains an active audience of over 100 million teens.
96% of users get on to the platform via smartphones and tablets.
42% of users have taken a break from the platform in the last year.

Statistics source

Trends for 2025

Facebook shopping: You can make your Facebook shop, group products into categories, tag products in photos you share, create collections, and enable in-app checkout to encourage purchases.

User-generated content: It is one of the best ways to engage your audience since it is fun for them to see their photos and videos shared by brands. Pro tips: ask permission to share the post on your page, create a unique hashtag for users to share photos of your products, and link back to the product featured in the photo.

Facebook Stories: Stories have become increasingly popular, especially because you can cross-post your stories to Facebook and Instagram. Pro tip: Create unique aesthetics, uploading photos, videos, and boomerangs.

Augmented reality: The platform enables users to create their augmented reality ads and posts. Pro tip: Create interactive ads that enable your users to try their products. Build filters for Instagram and Facebook stories.

Instagram

This is the platform you need if your audience is on the younger side. With most Instagram users being under 29 years old it is perfect for marketing and building brand awareness with teens.

Usage

Users spend an average of 53 minutes a day on Instagram.
The platform has 1 billion monthly active users.
42% of internet users visit the site daily.

Demographic

67% of Instagram users are aged 18 to 29.
The gender distribution is almost the same with 51% of male and 49% female users.
Instagram claims that 90% of its users actively follow a business account.

Trends for 2022

Instagram shopping: Use shoppable posts to sell to your audience. The platform’s visual style facilitates displaying products and engaging buyers. Pro tip: add purchase links in Instagram stories.

Influencer marketing: Collaboration between brands and influencers has been around some time and this trend will continue to grow. Pro tip: promote hashtag campaigns by using a network of influencers.

Instagram Live: Live streaming allows for two-way communication. They can comment and ask questions in real-time. Pro tip: Launch a product live on Instagram to create expectations and drive sales. Use a live video so you demonstrate how to use your product in different ways.

Interactive Content: Interacting with your audience is one of the best ways to engage them. Instagram has several ways to make your content interactive, you can ask a question, create a poll, and more. Pro tip: Create a quiz, start a countdown for an upcoming post, experiment with interactive Instagram Stories stickers.

TikTok

The most downloaded platform of 2020 has a particularity, most users are on the younger side, although adults are getting on quickly on the platform.

Usage

Users spend 53 minutes a day on TikTok.
There are 1 billion monthly active users.
TikTok has a billion views every day.

Demographics

56% of TikTok users are male and 44% are female.
41% of all TikTok users are under 24 years old.

Trends

More brands and influencers will use TikTok for marketing purposes.
Generation Z watches more Tik Tok than television.
Brands and influencers will collaborate to create content in episodes.
More companies are encouraging users to make and share videos on TikTok using their products using a branded hashtag.

Twitter

Twitter has a smaller number of users than Facebook and Instagram. However, the platform has a staggering 500 million non-registered users audience.

Usage

Users spend 3 minutes daily on Twitter.
There are 330 million active monthly registered users.
There are almost 500,000 new accounts daily.

Demographics

The majority of Twitter users belong to the age bracket of 18-29 years old, with the next category being the 30 to 49-year-olds.
66% of Twitter users are male and 34% female.

Trends

Twitter is still one of the main sources of news for users.
Video advertising has grown on Twitter, representing 67% of the platform advertising. Tweets with video attract more engagement than tweets without video.
Twitter is one of the main platforms for company discovery, meaning that 30 out of 50 brands’ Twitter accounts show up on the first page of Google.

This is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms, and with a very specific user base. With 1 out of 3 adults on LinkedIn, the platform has the largest demographic of users 30 to 49-year-olds.

Usage

Users spend 6 minutes a day on LinkedIn.
The platform has 303 million monthly active users.
There are 5.26 million new accounts monthly.

Demographics

The age range is evenly spread from 18 to 64-year-olds, with the largest percentage of users (37%) belonging to the 30-49 age bracket.
There are slightly more men than women on LinkedIn (57% against 43%).
40 million LinkedIn users are reportedly in “decision-making” positions.
30 million companies are on LinkedIn.
94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content.

Trends

LinkedIn Stories: These posts are visible for 24 hours and can be up to 20 minutes long. The aim is to introduce more dynamic engagement between users.

Personalized Ads: Dynamic ads can target segmented audiences with accuracy and impact. Pro tip: use it to scale up individualized campaigns and customize them according to your marketing objectives.

Video Chat Integration: This feature aims to promote better communication between companies, employers, and candidates. Accessible both on desktop and mobile apps. Pro tip: Use this feature for interviews.

YouTube

Usage

There are 2 billion YouTube users as of June 2021.
The number of daily active users reaches 122 million.
Users spend an average of 18 minutes daily on the platform.
1 billion hours are watched daily on YouTube.

Demographic

56% of YouTube users are male
44% of YouTube users are female
37% of millennials 18-34 years old watch YouTube daily.
Users between 15-35 years make up 77% of the YouTube users.

Trends

2021 was a great year for YouTube. Because of the pandemic, most users relied on video for entertainment and replacing in-person activities. The platform usage then grew exponentially. Thus, several hot trends are developing on YouTube in 2022.

Short format content: YouTube rolled a feature called “Chapters” which enables viewers to skip to key sections of a video. Also, YouTube Shorts are 60-sec videos optimized for the mobile experience.
Mobile-first: talking about mobile, it’s changed the way YouTube content is consumed. Most people consume videos on the go, and the platform is adapting the content to simplify this experience.
Challenge videos: these videos feature two people competing in a split-screen format. The trend is catching on as a way to engage users.
Branded channels: These channels are making serious money on the platform, by monetizing subscribers, selling merchandise, and featuring a branded profile photo and banner, which are easily recognizable.

This platform, although not considered one of the “big names”, boasts a surprisingly high engagement. It offers a great opportunity to run ads, but they need to be highly targeted.

Usage

On average, users spend 16 minutes a day on Reddit
The platform has 430 million monthly active users
The site receives 21 billion monthly screen views
44% of the traffic is via the mobile app.

Demographic

Most Reddit users are men (74%)
The age bracket is dominated by users under 30 years old, with the second large age group from 30 to 49 years old.

Trends

Reddit is great for highly targeted advertising since the platform communities are wary of traditional online advertising.
Use content marketing to promote a product or service on Reddit. Sponsored posts, with images and a call to action, can work wonders.
Promoted video allows you to play embedded videos on the feed. It can be autoplay, with a call to action and multiple aspect ratios.

The “DIY” platform has been growing for several years, with a 30% annual increase in users.

Usage

There are 320 million monthly active users.
Users spend 14 minutes a day on Pinterest.

Demographic

Pinterest has the largest percentage of female users of all social media platforms, 70% of their users are female.
93% of pins are made by female users.
85% of female users use the platform to plan life events.
Men use it primarily to bookmark ideas and projects.

Trends

Stories: On Pinterest Stories you can share video, images, and text, and the viewer can expand on it by clicking on an icon in the top left of the screen.

- Use Pinterest trends to uncover potential topics: this feature enables you to discover top searches and trending topics, helping you maximize your marketing efforts.

Pin-to-sales: Pinterest is promoting advertising and shopping features. You can turn a catalog into browsable product Pins that connect to Shopify and convert users.

Build your social media brand

Once you know the channels you will use, and how you will use them, it is important to keep in mind the strategy needs to align with your brand voice. Your brand voice is how you present your company on social media.

With every content piece, every comment, and post, your audience is creating an impression of your brand. Here are some tips on how to find it out:

Tips and strategies

If your brand was a person, how would it be? What adjectives would you use to describe your brand?

In our case, it would be: Confident, Visionary, Casual, and Professional.

Step 1: Ask which adjectives would describe your brand? You can pick from this list or make your own:

Adventurous, Artistic, Bold, Bright, Calm, Caring, Casual, Cheerful, Clever, Conservative, Daring, Detailed, Dramatic, Down to Earth, Easy, Efficient, Elegant, Endearing, Energetic, Fantastic, Familiar, Fashionable, Fierce, Fun, Functional, Glamorous, Impressive, Informal, Inspiring, Liely, Majestic, Modern, Natural, Nostalgic, Organic, Pleasant, Professional, Quirky, Rustic, Sassy, Savvy, Sleek, Smart, Sophisticated, Stable, Tasteful, Tranquil, Unconventional, Unique, Upbeat, Urban, Vintage, Wishful, Youthful.

Step 2: Pick 4-5. And create every content around them.

Step 3: Avoid jargon, write as you talk. Keeping a conversational style gets to the point and engages people.

Step 4: Stay away from sensationalism. In short, avoid clickbait like the plague. A clickbait headline can make people click on your posts, but good and informative content will make them return to your company for reference, information, and purchasing. Don’t create noise, focus on the quality.

Step 5: Keep it consistent. Even if you have different people writing for different channels, keep the message and tone consistent.

Schedule everything with a social media calendar

Scheduling your content is critical when you want to reach your users at the right time. It also prevents misshapes, forgetting to post, and missing trends and opportunities.

How to create a social media calendar

There are a few key steps for creating the perfect social media calendar:

Define your goals and your content mix. What do you want to post? Make sure it aligns with your social media strategy and goals. For instance, you would want a percentage of the content to drive traffic to your website, while others to support lead-generation goals.

Set your posting schedule. Look at the channels you chose, what are the best times to post on each channel? Make sure to plan your calendar so you can reach your users when they are on the platform. Check also the ideal frequency. For instance, for LinkedIn, a post a day is enough, while Twitter requires 5-6 tweets daily to drive engagement.

Plan the calendar. You can use a spreadsheet or a template. Most project management applications, like Monday and Asana, have their own social media calendar templates. HootSuite has a free social media calendar template to download too. Using a template saves you time and effort.
Remember important events and dates. Depending on your product or service, there can be dates that are relevant for you. For example, if your market is electronics, planning around Black Friday is important. If your market is chocolates and flowers, you should plan posts leading to Valentine’s day.
Measure, evaluate and adjust the strategy. Rinse and repeat

Your social media strategy is dynamic, and you may find that some strategies don’t work as you expected and others work better than you thought. That’s why tracking, measuring, and analyzing the strategy is essential. How do you do it?

Track your performance metrics: Besides analyzing each social network analytics, you can use your website performance metrics and even heatmaps to see how visitors are moving on your website.

Once you have the data, use it to evaluate how well the strategy is performing. Tracking the metrics will help you understand several factors about the performance of the social media campaign:

Which channel is performing well
Which channel is underperforming
What content is working and what isn’t.

Use this data to A/B test different versions of posts, campaigns, strategies, understanding what works and what doesn’t. Besides tracking metrics, you can also use surveys, polls, and even your email newsletter to find out if you are meeting their expectations and the type of content they would like to see more.

Next, adjust the strategy as needed, and repeat.

Biggest trends for social media

These social media trends can help you guide your strategy. Pay attention and follow up so you can apply them to your social media strategy:

TikTok will continue to grow

After the explosion of 2020 that made it the most downloaded app, TikTok has not stopped growing. Don’t think that it is only for young audiences. Many brands are understanding that sooner than later everybody will visit TikTok, not just teens, and sponsor content to promote their products and services.

An example of a great TikTok campaign is Chipotle’s annual “Boorito” challenge for Halloween. They offered a discount for customers that ordered in a Halloween costume, asking customers to post a video to TikTok showcasing their outfits and using the custom sound created for that occasion. They created a branded hashtag #Boorito and #Contest.

They even teamed up with top influences like Addison Rae to fire up the challenge.

Source

The prize? The top 5 posts will get free burritos for a year.

The results: 3.6 billion views in TikTok.

Live streams help connect with customers.

2020 was the year for live streaming, and the trend is still strong. Even now, when things start to go slowly back to normality, everybody is comfortable with streaming live and many companies are taking this as an advantage.

Live streams let you connect and engage your customers in real-time. An example of using Livestream to connect with customers is “Mr. Robot: Debt Deletion” The creators of the show “Mr. Robot” launched the show by deleting $100,000 debt live on the Twitch site. Since the primary demographics of the show is the gaming audience, Twitch was the perfect social media platform to do it.

Source

Augmented reality

Virtual and augmented reality became mainstream, taking brand messaging to a new level. Instead of telling a story, you can let your customers immerse themselves into your story. Companies are taking the opportunity and producing VR tours. An example is what the Hacienda Patron Spirits did with their Virtual Hacienda Tour. The VR tour can be experienced by using the Oculus headset, the Google Cardboard, smartphones, and tablets and guides you through tequila production from a bee’s perspective.

[Embed video 360° Video of Hacienda Patrón Tour | Patrón Tequila]

Artificial Intelligence

Modern social media marketing requires artificial intelligence tools to keep up with the fast pace of social media trends. An AI tool enables you to listen to social mentions, analyze sentiment drivers in your audience conversations, searches, and comments. Without AI, most marketing analytics cannot be possible these days.

Psychographics

We talked about demographics for each social media platform. The thing is today’s social listening goes beyond typical demographic attributes like gender, location, and income. Many social analytic solutions today understand the sentiment or psychographic data of your audience when commenting or mentioning your brand. They allow you to understand if their impressions are positive or negative.

Which Is The Fastest Growing Social Media Platform?

No, it is not TikTok

In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, while TikTok remains the most downloaded app, the social media platform that is growing the fastest is….

YouTube

81% of users in the U.S (over 2 billion people!) use YouTube. Yes, it is a quarter of the world’s population. This represents an increase of 8% since 2020.

Final Thoughts

Well, this was a handle! Creating your social media strategy is not an easy feat, and requires being on top of the latest statistics and trends. But a social media strategy needs to be aligned with your overall business and monetization goals, starting with reaching your audience at the time they are most receptive to conversion. At CodeFuel we use artificial intelligence to leverage high intent data, so your marketing efforts reach the right user at the right time. Learn more about how we help achieve results by signing up.

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What Is Contextual Targeting?

What Is Contextual Targeting in Advertising?

Types of targeting

Behavioral Targeting vs. Contextual Targeting

How Does Contextual Targeting Work?

1. Choose a topic and a keyword.

What’s a topic?

What is a keyword?

2. Choose your contextual audiences

3. Place your Ads on Google.

WHAT SHOULD YOU BE CAREFUL OF? A WORD TO ADVERTISERS

What is keyword contextual targeting?

Contextual Ads Examples

Which Platforms of Contextual Targeting Should You Choose?

CodeFuel

Google Ads

Yahoo! Bing Network

Contextual Targeting Examples

Difference Between Contextual and Behavioral Targeting

Contextual Targeting Pros and Cons

The pros of contextual targeting

The cons of contextual targeting

Why Is Contextual Targeting Now Popular Again?

How does Contextual Targeting work in Social Media

Best Practices for Digital Marketers

How Effective is Contextual Targeting?

Contextual Targeting Statistics

Why Contextual Targeting is the best solution for a Cookie-less Ad Market

Future Trends of Contextual Advertising

FAQ’s About Contextual Targeting

How will contextual targeting look when cookies are phased out?

How can publishers maintain control of contextual advertising?

How do you build a contextually targeted campaign in Google Ads?

How CodeFuel uses Contextual Targeting to Increase Conversions

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Challenges and Advantages of CPM Ads?

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1. CodeFuel

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2. Bing for Partners

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5. Taboola

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9. Revcontent

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10. BuySellAds

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11. Exponential