The performance implications of contextual marketing for electronic commerce

Consumers may access the interweb and internet anywhere anytime via wireless devices. The strategy of contextual marketing (CM), or providing customised and contextual information to customers at the point of need in real time, becomes the key to reaching and retaining online customers. This study attempts to empirically explore the new business model of CM and its resulting e-commerce performance in a business-to-consumer setting. Survey data of online users were utilised to examine quantitatively the perceived importance of CM and both its potential positive and negative outcomes. The results provide some initial evidence of its positive influence on users’ perceived e-commerce outcomes (eg, site value, user satisfaction and online purchases). In addition, the results indicate that CM does not necessarily lead to a higher level of negative outcomes (eg, consumer complaint behaviours of providing incomplete information and incorrect information online), although one may expect them as the potential dark side of technology development.