Targeting Option - Contextual Targeting (For Websites and Web-Based Apps)

Contextual Targeting is applicable to Programmatic (Video, Display, Native, and Email) campaigns, except Audio, Connected TV and OTT .

Contextual targeting refers to targeting your ad messages to prospects, based on their interests, relevance, and theme to what they are browsing, whether on websites or web-based apps. In short, it matches the ad message with keywords or categories of the website or web-based app that the prospect browses.

It is the placement of an ad on websites or web-based apps that are directly relevant to the product or service being sold in the ad message. For Search campaigns, naturally, a keyword input by a prospect to the search bar, captures the intent at that moment. When the prospects’ keyword matches with your ad message keywords, the ad will be shown.

Contextual targeting is timely and relevant content where ads are optimized to appear when a user actually needs that product.

Pre-Campaign Segment Creation (For Cross-Channel)

The contextual segment is created before you create your campaign and ad group. This is an optional step and can be linked to both a Search or a Display campaign, depending on the ad message and industry targeting.

1.  Under the Utility menu, Select Segments.
2. Click on +Segment.
   
   
   
   
3. Name your segment and type the most relevant keywords related to your industry and ad message. You can also input a URL related to your industry or competitor and click enter.
   
   This will give you a list of keywords matched to the entered URL and save the keywords based on your ad strategy like Desirable, Required, and/or Excluded keywords for your segment.
   
4. XPO will automatically analyze and suggest semantically related words to the keywords and web URL you inputted, to extract more relevant keywords for you. Select a few and click + to include them in your segment.
5. Suggested Keywords in the system are based on the keywords you inputted first. These are more generic and cover a broader view of the prospect's intents. 
   
   
6. From the list of Matched URLs or your inputted URL, click on Page Analysis for a list of suggested relevant keywords based on the URLs and click + Add Keywords to include them in your segment.
7. The Matched Apps gives you a list of web-based apps (Google Play Store and Apple App Store) related to your keywords. XPO will target your ad messages to these matched apps as they fall within the category of your selected keywords. For instance:

   Google Play Store	Apple App Store

8. XPO also detects the language of your keywords. You can check the dropdown list and opt for any of our supported languages for your contextual segment. 
9. Based on the selected keywords, you can also choose to exclude or select required for certain words.
10. Click on Save. XPO will save your new Segment which you can link to a Display or Search ad group.
11. After saving the segment, you will be directed to the below UI, which displays:
    i) Your final Keywords
    ii) Search Phrases (suggestions which can be used for your Search campaigns)
    iii) The Programmatic (Display, Native, Video) section, displays a sample list of websites and web apps matched to your keywords and URLs. You can further analyze them to fine-tune the keywords.
    
    With the Programmatic matched Website URL list, from the page analysis, you can extract keywords to add to your segment. Once you save these changes, the added keywords will be part of your final defined Keyword list.

Contextual Targeting For Display, Native and Video

1. Select a campaign and create a new ad group by clicking on + Ad Group.
   
   
2. Select Display, Native, or Video ad groups. Fill in the ad group details and click Save. 
3. Open the new ad group and click on Segments from the sidebar.
   
   
4. a) Click on Add Segment to select XPO built-in grained segments, related to various industries. You can select the ones most suitable for your ad.
   
   b) If you have created a new built-in pre-campaign contextual segment (as explained in the steps above), click on Add Sub Segment and link the new segment for the ad group.
5. Click Save to save the contextual targeting option for the ad group.  

Contextual Targeting For Search

1. Select a campaign and create a new ad group by clicking on

   +Ad Group

   
2. Select Search ad groups. Fill in the ad group details and click Save. 
   
   
3. Launch the new search ad group and click on Keywords from the sidebar.
   
   
4. Click on + Search phrase. To select XPO built-in grained segments, there are 2 ways to generate keywords:
5. a) Input a URL from where you want to extract keywords from, and click save, OR
   b) If you have created a new built-in pre-campaign contextual segment (as explained in the steps above), select the new contextual segment from the drop-down list and link the new segment for the ad group. Here you can also select XPO built-in keywords related to your industry.
6. Click Save to save the contextual targeting option for the ad group. 

• After you save a contextual segment, you can always go back to edit the name or keywords 
• You can clone contextual segments across campaigns and ad groups
• If you clone campaigns or ad groups with a contextual segment, the segment will also be cloned accordingly

FAQs

Q.1. When we save the segment, are all the keywords automatically inclusive?

Ans. No, they are not all-inclusive, however, by default, all words are Desirable (XPO's machine learning algorithm will form a context from all keywords to capture the prospect's intent). In XPO you have the option to select which words are Required (keyword will have to appear in the content of the search intent of the prospect or webpage data they browse) or Excluded (must not appear in the content).

It's simple to say Required and Excluded are additional tools to help you control and manipulate the segment in a stricter way.

Q.2. Are broad keywords better to capture more audience or specific to my product or service? 

Ans. It's recommended to be specific to your brand and product. But, make sure not to be too narrow in your keyword selection. It might give you a lower reach if you're too specific.

Including a few broader meaning keywords related to your brand is always good to give you a wider audience.

Q.3. Is there a limit on the number of keywords I can input in XPO?

Ans. No there is no limit, however, we recommend a maximum of 20-50 keywords. Keeping your contextual segment meaningful and relatable to your product and brand is always better.  

For instance, If you go beyond 100 keywords, XPO will make a relevant context of all the words together. This makes your segment too generic, hence you might lose the right audience.

Q.4. Can I select keywords from 'Search Phrases' for my display ad group segment?

Ans. This is not recommended. The search phrases are not an optimal choice of keywords for your Display ad. They are suggestions for the Search ad group segments only.

Q.5. How many languages do you support for contextual targeting?

Ans. As of now, we support 17 languages. You can build a contextual segment for any of these languages and link it to your campaign.

No.	Language
1	Arabic
2	Bahasa Indonesia
3	Simplified Chinese
4	Traditional Chinese
5	English
6	Japanese
7	Korean
8	Thai
9	Vietnamese
10	Bahasa Malaysia
11	Deutsch
12	Russian
13	Swedish
14	Hindi
15	French
16	Spanish
17	Bengali

Q.6. Can we know the estimated reach of our new segment before applying it to the ad group?

Ans. After you build and save the segment, XPO gives you an estimated global impressions rate only (Inventory Size). This is because the geolocation factor of the ad group is not included yet. 

We are correctly working on providing an estimated segment reach based on different countries (and not only global) before you start the campaign. This will help you analyze the potential reach for each country.

Q.7. Do you support in-app mobile contextual targeting?

Ans: Currently, we only support web-based contextual advertising. You can still target an app but only if the app has web views. 

Contextual targeting for in-apps and targeting potential apps based on the context of your segment is in our pipeline. 

Q.8. Does XPO look into the content of an in-stream ad while analyzing the context for our contextual segment?

Ans. No, XPO only analyzes the webpage content and not in-stream video content.