Targeted Display Advertising

So, why use display advertising? There are three major factors to consider when advertising your business: exposure, engagement, and relevancy. Namely, you need to have attention-grabbing ads that speak to the person’s needs, located where they’ll find it. This is why targeted display advertising has become a popular tactic in digital marketing.

Research shows that people are more likely to remember what they see than what they read or hear. And this is one of the major benefits of display advertising. They can build brand engagement quickly with consumers at every stage of their purchase journey.

With display advertising, you can segment users by interest, demographics, their relationship with your brand, and where they are in their buyer’s journey. You can also set specific parameters, such as which sites they appear on. Display advertising also allows for retargeting, which is a highly effective way to reach people who have expressed interest in your brand. Why is display advertising an effective acquisition channel? All of this customized audience targeting, in addition to display ads brand awareness. You’re able to easily reach high-interest prospects and they’re more likely to notice and remember your ads.

Display advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, also provide a lot of data. You’ll know exactly how many times your display ads have run and generated engagement. This means you can test ads and improve performance, thereby increasing cost-efficiency.

When it comes to comparing the benefit of display advertising over search advertising, it’s important to realize that one isn’t necessarily better than the other. Rather than “display ads vs search ads”, each method might be better suited for different business goals. Display ads, SEO, social media, and email marketing work together to engage your target audience, helping educate them, and develop loyalty for your brand.

Display Advertisement

Much like display advertising in newspapers, people will only view your ad for a couple of seconds. They also don’t want to spend time decoding things. So, keep the design clean, simple, and focused. If the main idea is not obvious, your ad will not work.

Here are some display advertising best practices 2019:

• Single eye-catching image. Keep the imagery focused and use it to support the overall message of your ad. Balanced colors are also recommended.
• Single, targeted headline. A good headline quickly communicates what you’re offering and why. Speak directly to your audience, and keep your messaging focused.
• Keep your message concise. As with headlines, ad copy needs to be concise and easily absorbed within a few seconds. A 5-10 word maximum is recommended.
• Have a clear call to action. Know how you want your users to act and make it easy for them to complete those actions. If you want people to convert, your path to action must be extremely clear.
• Your company’s brand. Make sure your content includes your company’s logo or name, as well as visual branding (fonts, colors, and imagery style).

Mobile banner ads best practices, and HTML5 banners best practices will differ on some different technical specifications. However, the above points remain the same across all banner ad design best practices. The goal of any display advertisement should be to tell a clear narrative, communicating the story of your brand. Who you are, what you’re offering, and how your users can take action.

Display Ads Example

When designing your display advertising campaign, it’s a good idea to collect and analyze your favorite display ads example. Especially collect a sample of display advertisement from the brands you trust and admire. A quick search of “best display ads 2019” will provide a number of great choices. For instance, the Michael Kors brand is known for showcasing their products on Instagram via “real” photos (as opposed to stock images). Adobe does a great job of integrating their logo into their content. Meanwhile, Amazon provides a good example of how to create a display ad for basically every service you offer. In addition to successful brands and influencers, look up display ad best practices for your specific industry.

An excellent resource to visit for inspiration is the Webby Awards. This is an award for excellence on the Internet presented annually by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. In addition to display ads, there are also categories for video, PR, branded content, and even entire advertising campaigns.

Studying display advertising examples allows you to determine what elements you like best or what features will work well for your own banner ads. It can teach how to write a display advertisement effectively, as well as best practices for ad design, and what kinds of products to promote. While looking up best practices, also search out what not to do. Learn from the mistakes of others so you can avoid similar pitfalls with your own display advertising.

Target Display Mode Not Working

Audience targeting is a crucial part of success for advertisers in the display network, as is your ad design. However, it’s also critical to have technical support. This is because you need to be able to review your display ads across a variety of devices, to understand what your content looks like to different people. You’ll find that you might have to alter your display or banner ad design based on which machine, computer, laptop, or even software update they show up on.

This can present issues for marketers trying to execute targeted display marketing themselves. For instance, in late 2009, the first targeted display Mac was introduced. This special feature allowed iMacs to be used as displays for other devices connected via target display mode USB c (and later, thunderbolt) technology. However, they didn’t consistently support the feature. This meant searches like “target display mode not working,” “target display mode Catalina,” or “revert target display mode Mojave” spiked with each hardware release or OS update.

If you are someone experiencing these issues, we recommend hiring a consultant or agency to help. Or, better yet, partnering with an agency like Terminus, who use software that avoids cross-compatibility problems like these.

Types of Display Ads

So, let’s dive into the different shapes, sizes, and dimensions of display ads. As you can imagine, display advertising placement and ad size are extremely important when it comes to trying to engage a prospect. This is why programmatic creative best practices recommend utilizing ad sets which include many different sizes.

Although they’re all promoting the same thing, using different types of display ads allows your ads to show on an array of devices across the digital realm. Some ads are horizontal, some are vertical. In addition to static image ads, you should also include responsive formats, meaning they adapt to the size and orientation of the screen.

The 728×90 pixel “leaderboard” ads should also be in your mix and are most effective “above the fold” (the portion of the page that is visible when it first loads). This is especially true on forum sites. The goal with this type of ad size is to get the website visitor’s attention before the start reading the site’s content.

The 300×250 pixel “medium rectangle” is the most dynamic size, allowing brands to showcase text and display ads on both mobile and desktop devices.

The 468×60 pixels “banner” ad format is another popular format of display advertisement. Like leaderboard ads, banner ads often appear towards the top of a site, making them highly prominent and more likely to capture user attention.

Another common horizontal ad size is the 336×280 pixel “large rectangle” format. This type of ad performs decently well at the end of articles or within text blocks. Compared to its medium counterpart, it is slightly larger.

In addition to these common horizontal sizes, vertically formatted ads provide an excellent alternative for displaying larger messages and images – particularly on mobile devices. For instance, the 300×600 pixel “half-page” ad, which has more space for messaging and visual elements in comparison to other ad sizes. Viewers have to scroll down further to stop seeing the ad, meaning they maximize view time.

Google Ads

When it comes to display ads, Google is one of the most popular options, both for their sophisticated advertising platform and their network’s reach. Google’s Display network currently has a 90% reach across all internet users worldwide.

Just consider how Google could be successful in the display advertising business of your brand. Google display ads video and you’ll find numerous professional reviews, tutorials, as well as Google display ads examples.

However, it can also be a complex environment, with the different types of Google display ads, not to mention access to Google Ads YouTube. This sheer scope of the platform and network is why marketers should complete the Google Ads certification process, learning:

• How to navigate the Google ads console
• Google ads settings
• Google display network examples
• The components of Google display ads value proposition
• How to set display ad goals
• How to run Google display ads
• How to optimize Google display ads

When it comes to Google ads pricing, there is no such thing as free Google ads (unless you have some sort of Google ads promo code). However, with careful use of the Google ads keyword planner, you can find search terms that will get you results without breaking the bank.

So, are Google display ads effective? Ultimately it depends on the quality of your content and targeting. However, there is enormous potential when using the network. What do we mean by potential? Consider the reach of more than two million different Google display network sites. Not only that, your ads could also potentially appear on more than 650,000 apps. To put it modestly, advertisers have many options with the Google ad network.

Google has many options for beginners to get started, but it could still get expensive — especially if an error is made with targeting. The platform is also constantly changing, which is why it’s recommended to partner with a dedicated marketing agency or consultant. Make sure to check that they have earned the Google display network logo on their Google Ads certification (and that this badge is current).