Glossary
Contextual advertising
Ads matched to what the person is looking at or searching for: search ads on keywords, and display ads placed by page topic or by the user's recent interest. Intent-driven, expensive, and strict about what it allows.
Also called: search ads, Google Ads, paid search.
Search is the purest intent traffic: the person typed the need. Google Ads and Bing Ads sell it per click by keyword, with quality rules that decide the price and whether the ad shows at all. Affiliates run search on white offers, finance comparisons, software and pay-per-call.
The display side of contextual advertising follows the user around with products they looked at, which is retargeting under another name.
Related terms: Keywords, PPC, Retargeting, White offer.