An ad for a stroller displayed on a site for expecting parents or a shampoo ad shown before a hair makeover video. Makes a lot of sense, right? The method that allows for ads to be displayed alongside highly relevant content is called contextual targeting and can be done through specific keywords or categories relating to the central theme of a website or page.Contextual Targeting – Advant Technology – Programmatic Advertising 101
HOW DOES CONTEXTUAL TARGETING WORK?
Before launching a campaign, we choose a set of specific keywords, topics and themes relating to your ads on the Display Network. Google then analyses the content of publishers’ websites and matches it against your chosen keywords, topics, language and location. An example would be if you are a restaurant chain looking to run an awareness campaign for your newly-opened branch. If a person is nearby and reading a food blog, your ad might get displayed.Because the ad isn’t disruptive (the user is already interested in this type of content), the user is more likely to respond positively to your ad. Contextual Targeting – Programmatic Advertising 101 – Advant Technology
HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR KEYWORDS
The Google Keyword Planner is a great starting point to start building your keyword list. There are best practices for how to maximise the success from your keyword list. Typically, Google recommends that each ad group should contain anywhere between five to 50 keywords, and they should be shorter and more to the point than the keywords you’d typically use for organic search.
PLANNING YOUR CAMPAIGN
For a successful contextual ad campaign, it is also important to consider the buying journey of your target group. Do you want to target users in the consideration phase? What type of content will users who are ready to make a purchase consume? By getting a good understanding of this journey, you’ll be able to draft up a more effective list of keywords.
WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
We recently worked with Bompas & Parr who, together with the Design Museum, organised the competition Fountain of Hygiene to raise funds for the British Red Cross in light of Covid-19. Read more about the campaign.
The aim of the campaign was to maximise the number of competition entries. To do so, we used contextual targeting to get the ad displayed alongside relevant content and in front of designers and creatives who would be likely to enter the competition.
Below you’ll find two examples of ad placements for this campaign.
DESIGN WEEK
The Design Week placement shows an example of category contextual targeting where a page matches a specific pre-assigned category for which the ad matches.
The Design Week has a large readership of designers and creatives and our ad would likely fit well alongside any page on the site.
EVENING STANDARD
The Evening Standard shows a result of keyword contextual targeting where the ad is displayed alongside content that matches a specific keyword.
Although the site isn’t necessarily specifically targeted towards our main target group, we were still able to display out content alongside highly relevant content.
INTERESTED IN HEARING MORE?
Our team are experts at planning contextual ad campaigns, so if you’re keen to try out this method for your next ad campaign, please get in touch and we’d be more than happy to help you plan it.
Ben Myers
Ben Myers, CEO of Advant Technology.
Programmatic advertising expert and all round digital strategist.
Globe trotter, food fanatic, cocktail maker, car crazy, that's Ben.
London born n bread, it was here where he gritted his teeth in the advertising world starting at Videojug.com and then moving onto Teads where he drove sales, publisher growth and ad operations.
A regular speaker at trade events around the globe.
Passionate about helping brands achieve their goals through digital advertising.
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Which markets change your campaign, and how
A working companion to the multi-market playbook.
Explore what actually differs between the UK, US, DACH
and APAC — or answer four questions to see whether your
account list needs one campaign structure or several.
United Kingdom
UK
Message-based formats
Available
Outside the EU/EEA/Switzerland exclusion since Brexit,
so Conversation Ads (successor to Message Ads) are not
caught by the EU restriction that applies to Germany.
Governing regime
UK GDPR.
Standard UK GDPR employee-data handling applies;
no equivalent to Germany's works-council
co-determination layer.
Decision culture
Closer to US pace.
Single decision-maker with committee sign-off is common;
buying-group validation is typically faster than DACH.
Localization
English-native.
No localisation tax on creative or landing pages
for UK-only targeting.
United States
US
Message-based formats
Available
Conversation Ads run without the
EU/EEA/Switzerland restriction.
Governing regime
CCPA / CPRA.
California's B2B and employee-data exemptions expired
1 Jan 2023 (AB 25 / AB 1355 / AB 1281 not renewed).
Business-contact data in ABM lists touching California
residents is now in scope.
Decision culture
Fast-moving, champion-led.
Often an internal champion drives the process with
executive sign-off, rather than slower group consensus.
Localization
English-native.
Tone and proof points differ from UK
(ROI framing, case-study style) but no language barrier.
Germany-led DACH
DACH
Message-based formats
Unavailable in EU/EEA/CH
Following a Nov 2021 CJEU ruling that native inbox
advertising needs direct-marketing consent under the
ePrivacy framework, LinkedIn stopped EU-targeted
Message/Conversation Ads (new campaigns blocked
15 Dec 2021, existing ones suspended 10 Jan 2022).
Governing regime
GDPR + BDSG.
Germany's Federal Data Protection Act adds works-council
(Betriebsrat) co-determination rights over some
employee-data processing. A works agreement cannot itself
legitimate otherwise-inadmissible processing
(German court ruling reported Jan 2025).
Decision culture
Consensus-driven.
Formal sign-off and longer internal validation typically
precede commercial conversations — plan reporting
windows accordingly.
Localization
German materially outperforms English.
True below enterprise-only accounts; enterprise buying
groups are more English-tolerant, but mid-market is not.
Singapore-led APAC
APAC
Message-based formats
Confirm in Campaign Manager
Singapore sits outside the EU/EEA/Switzerland exclusion,
so formats are presumed available — but coverage isn't
centrally documented by geography, so verify before
planning.
Governing regime
PDPA (Singapore).
A distinct consent-and-purpose-limitation regime,
not equivalent to GDPR. Treat as its own compliance
track, not a GDPR analogue.
Decision culture
Not representative of wider APAC.
Singapore is English-language and Western-business-norm-adjacent;
this does not extend to Japan, Korea or Greater China
buying culture.
Localization
English viable — for Singapore only.
Do not treat English-only creative as a proxy for the
rest of APAC if the account list extends beyond
Singapore/Hong Kong hubs.
Decision-culture notes are directional, not universal —
treat as a planning prior, not a rule for every account.
Is the target account list evaluated by one centralised,
cross-border buying committee, or by in-market/regional
committees?
Does the plan rely on message-based formats
(Conversation Ads) in any EU/EEA/Switzerland market?
Does language localisation materially change conversion
quality in at least one target market (e.g. DACH below
enterprise, or APAC beyond Singapore/Hong Kong)?
Is your target-account list in every market comfortably
above LinkedIn's practical minimum audience size
(commonly cited around 300)?
Recommendation
Answer the questions above
Select one answer for each question to see
the recommendation.
Recommendation
A unified structure fits your answers
Your account list is centrally decided, doesn't depend
on a restricted message format, and localisation isn't
a material factor — the exception case for a single,
unified campaign structure.
None of the market-splitting triggers apply —
re-check this if your account list or market mix changes.
Recommendation
Split by market: separate campaign groups,
budgets and thresholds
At least one structural factor makes a shared
template unreliable across your markets.
Regional buying committees mean each market is a
separate decision unit — a shared campaign group
would blend distinct audiences.
A message-format plan cannot run as one structure
if it includes an EU/EEA/Switzerland market —
Conversation Ads aren't available there, so at
minimum that market needs a different format mix.
Where localisation changes conversion quality,
a shared budget and qualification threshold will
misread the localised market's real performance.
At least one market may sit below the practical
minimum audience size — consider folding that
market into a regional structure rather than giving
it a standalone campaign group.
Check each market's target-account list against
LinkedIn's minimum audience guidance before finalising
how many standalone campaign groups to build.
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The Design Week placement shows an example of category contextual targeting where a page matches a specific pre-assigned category for which the ad matches.
The Design Week has a large readership of designers and creatives and our ad would likely fit well alongside any page on the site.
The Evening Standard shows a result of keyword contextual targeting where the ad is displayed alongside content that matches a specific keyword.
Although the site isn’t necessarily specifically targeted towards our main target group, we were still able to display out content alongside highly relevant content.
