What is the difference between the terms ‘search advertising’ and ‘content advertising’?
I think the simplest way to describe it is to use an analogy from traditional print media.
Content advertising is like the ads you find in a magazine. You read the magazine for whatever interests you, and the ads are placed by advertisers who think they will catch your eye because your interests have something in common with what they are selling.
Search advertising is like the Yellow Pages. No-one sits and reads the yellow pages for fun. But when you want to find a plumber, you search in the index.
Searching on Google is like searching the index in the Yellow Pages.
Search Advertising
First, two definitions:
‘Organic search results’ – these are the sites that appear naturally as results in response to a search query, ranked according to their popularity.
‘Sponsored links’ – sites that an advertiser has paid to appear in the search results.
Paid results appear on the same page as the organic results but they appear at the top or at the side of the organic search results.
So that they do not give the erroneous impression that they are there because of popularity, they are identified with a message that they are sponsored links.
These sponsored links appear in front of the audience that enters the search terms that correspond with the keyword(s) that the advertiser has specified.
In other words, people will only see the ads if they are looking for what the advertiser is selling.
Search advertising is dominated by Google, but there is also Yahoo and others.
Content Advertising
To get in front of an audience that did not search for whatever the advertiser is selling, there is content advertising.
The ads appear as a text ad or a visual on sites on the internet that accept ads.
Google has also ‘partnered’ with many websites to offer content advertising.
This really means that Google is the broker between the advertisers and the websites.
Many popular websites handle their own advertising directly with the advertiser.
And also, Google is not the only broker.
Federated Media, to give one example, also partner with various websites.
Here is a link to the websites for which Federated Media acts as broker.
