Add In-Text to Your Advertising Mix

Media Planning Glossary

How complex has it become? The once rather simple online media plan has now become a monster. And considering the fact that it is just a fraction of the largest all encompassing advertising plan, it’s simply mind blowing.

After the competitive research, campaign goals discovery, audience targeting, geographic distribution, and all the other necessary steps… Only then comes the media mix which in all template plans includes sponsored links, sponsored search and SEM, banners, rich media advertising… And then each of these is further analyzed according to the ad delivery method, be it direct placement, online ad networks, ad exchanges, and so many more. By the time I’m writing this new terms are being added to the ever growing glossary.

Does Your Media Mix has In-Text?

So this is a rather simple question – have you remembered to add in-text advertising to your media mix?

I can’t detail here a full online media plan and I don’t plan on lecturing about its desired structure. However, I believe I can safely say that if you’ve forgotten in-text ads, you’ve made a mistake and harmed your campaign.

While sponsored search leads to highly interested clickers but in low volumes, traditional display ads yield very low click levels with varying interests, and social media ads initiate demand but usually do not bring potential customers with specific needs, in-text advertising has a unique contribution to any advertising mix.

The In-Text Ads Advantage

In-text ads only display their content upon an active interest display by a potential customer who hovered over a double underline link. At this stage they already support branding efforts. Then, visitors to the advertiser’s landing page arrive only upon a click, which means interest has been shown twice – the visitor has given permission, twice, to be exposed to the advertiser’s message. Clearly this should lead to higher conversion levels.

In addition, the click through levels on in-text ads are 10 times higher and more than the CTR of display ads. When building your media mix, in-text ads blend the branding efforts with actual click based traffic.

Millions of Clicks

I’ve recently discussed in-text advertising with a major advertising agency and was amazed to learn that not all media plans include in-text advertising; at least not knowingly (some get it indirectly).

From my experience at Infolinks I can tell you that there are many many millions of clicks on in-text ads just waiting. The prices are still relatively lower than other ad delivery methods and the potential is huge. Drop me a note if you need more details and at any case – let me know how it worked for you.