Tixa, a Beijing-based Internet pioneer in contextual advertising, launched its targeted online advertising format "NarrowAD" and website NarrowAD.com, in the fast growing China's online market in September 2004.

Different from search engine oriented online advertising, NarrowAD programme places advertisments based on the content of the article being viewed, as well as users' location and interests.

Based on personalization technology, Tixa developes this contextual marketing approach which is still new to Chinese business community. This online ad system narrows down the focus of online ad and allows advertisers to deliver ads specifically to users' interests and to address target audiences in a straightforward way.

People surfing online documents may be looking for associated services and businesses. For example, when a person in Shanghai is reading a real-estate related article on Xinhua Net, he will find on that particular web page contextual ads from NarrowAD's clients like a Shanghai real estate agent. Thus, the NarrowAD? ads placed in the webpages would help netizens find relevant, timely and useful information.

Over the past monthes, the company has formed a strong media publisher alliance including most-accessed Chinese web sites Sina, Tom, Xinhuanet, People's Daily Online and other thousands of domestic media.

Coincidently, Google's AdSense program, NarrowAD's counterpart in the US, performed spectacularly during this period, generating almost as much revenue as its search business ($490 million versus $530 million) and growing at almost an identical rate sequentially (28% versus 29%), Google's 2004 Q4 report said.

It seems that NarrowAD's success in China has set up strong entry barriers for Google, if they propose to enter this potentially largest cyber market. This is because the contextual network uses the pageviews from affiliate websites, this is more easily done by a Chinese company than a foreign company because lots of BD work needed As Tixa has already built a very comprehensive and wide covering affiliate network, even if, Google promote greatly their own contextual ads service, the advertisers will still consider using narrowad simply because they want to show their ads over the affiliated websites that NarrowAD builds.

Also, NarrowAD contextual ads are more affordable for small and medium companies.

"With NarrowAD, we can offer a much more cost-effective marketing solution. It is economical but powerful." said Forrest Zhang, CEO of Tixa. The ad is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and each click starts at 0.2 RMB yuan (2.5 US cents).

Since this solution offers an unobtrusive web ad service, IT Insiders believe "NarrowAD" will enhance the profit-making ability of China's online media that is often stamped as the "Internet Bubble".