Marketingshift has a post - Contextual Search Is Relative - claiming indirectly related contextual ads are more effective than directly related contextual ads by 200% - 500%. According to John Gartner of MarketingShift:
"…But often the ads that might generate the highest volume of clicks are indirectly related to the content or keyword at hand. There have been many studies saying that click rates are lower when they talk about the exact content of the page — for example, reading about skis may not generate the highest yield for ski boot ads."
Makes sense. Think about it - if you already have the information on the main text of the page -why do you want to see the same kind of stuff as advertising?
Wouldn't you rather see something that goes along (indirectly related but complementary) the publishers' content rather than something competing with it?
Probably, the reason for the MarketingShift post is the recent announcement that Mamma.com will use ClickSense to help improve Contextual Advertising on Momma.com.
I'll be curious to see a "before/after" case study on contextual advertising on Momma.com - see if the ClickSense technology does increase advertisers CTR.
