By Colin Jeavons, Vertical Search Works, New York CityAs more brides-to-be and wedding planners flock online to make purchasing decisions, wedding industry professionals need a robust digital marketing strategy. Online marketing campaigns must generate awareness via impressions, entice wedding-focused consumers with compelling messaging and imagery, and ultimately, drive purchase intent.  The challenge many wedding marketers face is affordability. Which online platforms offer marketers, both large and small, the biggest bang for their buck? Paid search platforms, when combined with advanced targeting abilities, offer affordable precision that, over time, can help influence other elements of the marketing mix, becoming something every wedding professional should be including in their marketing plan. What is semantic technology?Traditional search engines or technologies can only understand word content, not context. Semantic technology is able to understand both content and context based on the additional content on publisher web pages. Think of semantic technology like a human brain. For example, semantic technology can answer this question: Does “java” refer to a computer-programming language, a coffee drink, or an island in the Pacific? This technology is now being leveraged to drive enhanced ad-matching platforms that automatically discover relationships and understand similarities between ad content and publisher web pages. Essentially, it displays ads next to relevant content, creating better brand associations, generating greater awareness, and optimizing response rates. This eliminates the need for advertisers to select and manage keywords, which is extremely time consuming!What does this mean for your business?Semantic technology does a better job than traditional search platforms at matching relevant advertisements to online content.  Because it is conceptual instead of literal, semantic technology matches ads in ways limited by traditional keyword algorithms.  For example, an ad for wedding invitations might appear next to an article about wedding planning or wedding venues, even if those words do not appear on the page.For online marketers, semantic search technology and ad matching offer multiple benefits—satisfying their demand for additional clicks, increasing brand reach, and ensuring placement next to relevant content, yielding better response rates and brand correlations.  Semantic search advertising is not based on keywords, so it does not require complex keyword bidding strategies. It can be implemented quickly and easily—saving users time and providing an efficient paid-search advertising mechanism.Tips for Success in a Semantic WorldHow can you ensure that your website is equipped for a rising trend in semantic technology advertising? Here are five tips to set you on your way to achieving success in the world of semantic advertising.

1. Develop clear copy. Communicate who you are and what you offer so your ads can be accurately aligned with publisher page content and so prospective consumers know what to expect from your website and brand. 

2. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Use images in your paid-search ads that will appeal to consumer interests. Paid, semantic-search advertising shouldn’t just be about the clicks, it should also be viewed as a chance to build your brand and generate awareness. 

3. A marriage of geo-targeting and semantic ad matching is powerful. Provide targeted experiences for your audience, which will inevitably create more time spent with your brand. 

4. Be dynamic and flexible. Run a few different campaigns that target different types of brides and/or regions. Don’t be afraid to change things up if you see that one of your ads is getting a better response than the other. 

5. Incorporate social media promotions into your campaign. It can be a great retargeting tool for future communications.