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What is display advertising?

Display advertising is an online form of advertising that uses text, images and videos to promote products or services. Display ads are placed on websites, social media platforms or apps. They encourage consumers to click to a landing-page and take an action (subscribe for a newsletter, purchase something, etc.).

The flexibility of display ads is what makes them so cost-effective. Display advertising allows advertisers to make changes on the fly. Unlike traditional ads where it is impossible to change visuals, CTAs or messages after the campaign has started, dynamic display ads allow for quick and easy adjustments. This flexibility allows brands to optimize their campaigns, and make the most of their budget.

Market share of digital advertising

The global display advertising market is expected to reach 292.7 billion U.S. Dollars by 2026 , according to research.

The growth of the display advertising market is driven by several factors, including

Demand for digital advertising
Improved internet connectivity and access
Mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular.
Brands are increasing their advertising spend
Automated advertising platforms

Why display ads are preferred by marketers over search ads

Here are some reasons why you, as a marketer, might prioritize display advertising:Marketers tend to choose display ads over search ads because of various factors. The decision is largely based on the marketing campaign objectives. Here are some reasons why you, as a marketer, might prioritize display advertising:Marketers lean towards choosing display advertising over search ads for various reasons, and the decision largely depends on the objectives of a marketing campaign. Here are some reasons you, as an advertiser, might prioritise display advertising:

Brand awareness and visibility: Display advertisements have been proven more effective for elevating brand awareness, allowing users to showcase a product or service, even if they are not actively looking for related terms. Advertisers use third-party cookies to track user activities on different websites to understand the consumer’s behavior. Google Chrome, and other browsers, will phase out third-party cookie starting in Q1 2024 to protect user privacy . Display ads will continue to work just differently.
Visual Appeal: Display Ads grab attention with striking graphics. This is particularly beneficial for products and services that benefit from a visually appealing presentation.
Rich targeting options: Display ads offer a variety of targeting options that allow you to focus on demographics, behaviors, and interests. Precision targeting is essential for campaigns that require a nuanced way to connect with a specific audience.
Promotion of content: Display advertising is a great way to draw attention to content that is valuable. It’s a good way to promote articles, blog posts and other pieces.
Rich Media Formats: Display Ads are a canvas that can be used to create rich media formats with interactive elements, videos, animations and more. Marketers can create dynamic and immersive ads that are particularly effective when promoting specific products or services.
Retargeting Options: You can re-engage potential customers that have previously visited your site but did not make a purchase, and encourage them to convert.
Engagement at the top of the funnel: Display advertising and search ads can be complementary within a digital strategy. Display ads work better to introduce a brand to potential clients. Search ads target users who are actively looking for products or information.

The choice between search and display ads is often based on campaign objectives, the target audience and the type of product or service being promoted. Display and search ads are often combined in successful digital marketing campaigns to maximize reach.

Why is display advertising so important?

Imagine that someone just heard about your product or service. Imagine a display ad strategically placed as a friendly reminder to encourage them to make a purchase.

Display ads can do so much more.

Display advertising allows you to reach new audiences that have not yet discovered what you offer.
Display advertising allows you to target your audience by allowing you a wide range of options. Reaching everyone is not the goal. Reaching the right people is important. Display advertising puts you in control, as you decide who sees and doesn’t see your ads.
Display advertising allows you to choose the audience that sees your ads. You can do this based on the topics, interests of the people, the context in which the ads are displayed, their demographics or other specifics about your target audience. You can customize your targeting in order to meet your marketing goals. This includes reaching your ideal audience, or re-connecting with previous customers and visitors.

Display advertising offers a variety of targeting options that can help you reach people who are ready to buy. This will increase your chances of converting those prospects into paying customers, and boost conversion rates.

Advertisement on the programmatic display

Programmatic Display Advertising is also known as “programmatic Marketing” or “programmatic Media Buying,” and it’s a method for buying ad space using software. It uses complex algorithms to deliver targeted ads.

Let’s now clarify the differences between display and programmatic ads. In simple terms “programmatic” is the way in which you buy ads while “display”, the format of the ads. The main difference is the buying process and the capability to buy ads on various platforms.

Display ads are usually associated with placing them within a particular ad network like the Google Display Network. Programmatic advertising is a step up, because it works across multiple platforms. This includes supply-side platforms and demand-side platform. It allows advertisers to purchase ad inventory on an open network.

Marketers can control critical aspects of display advertising, such as budget, creative content and audience targeting. You can navigate the advertising waves with precision, making sure your message is delivered to the right audience on the most appropriate platform.

Display ads come in many different types.

Display ads can be used to advertise:

Banner Ads

The most common display ads appear on the top, the bottom or the sides of the webpage. These are static images that aim to attract attention and encourage clicking.

Interstitial ads

The interstitial ads appear as web pages, before you access the website or app that you were looking for. You can see the difference between a desktop computer and a mobile device in the following example:

Rich media ads

Rich media ads are designed to generate leads by incorporating video, audio and animations. They also include fillable or clickable elements such as lead forms. Rich media ads come in three different types:

Ads that appear in-page are displayed on specific placements within a webpage
In-stream video ads appear either before (pre-roll), after (post-roll), or during (mid-roll) the video content.
Pop-up ads and expandable ads, for example, are typically initiated by the user.

Native Ads

Native Advertising is a form advertising that tries to match the content of a website in order to make it more consumable for the website’s users. Native ads are displayed in the feed and do not disrupt users, similar to suggested posts on Facebook or promoted tweets on Twitter.

Video Ads

Video Ads are ads that use sound and moving images to communicate a message. You can use them to roll over online video content in social media feeds or websites. Video ads can be effective in capturing the attention of viewers and telling stories.

Social Media Ads

Social media ads are displayed on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and Twitter. These ads can be in many different formats, such as image ads, slideshows, carousels, or video ads. As a part of social media advertising strategy, this type of advertising offers extensive targeting capabilities, allowing you to reach potential customers based on their geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics/traits.

Search Ads

Search Engine Advertising is advertising that appears on the top and bottom of search results pages. Text-based search ads are usually triggered by keywords. You can bid for keywords to display your ads when users are searching for relevant terms.

Affiliate Marketing Banners

These banners are a part of affiliate programs, where businesses pay commissions to affiliates for generating traffic or sales via the affiliate’s efforts. Affiliate marketing banners contain tracking links that allow conversions to be tracked.

Why display ads are important for your marketing campaigns

Display ads, as mentioned above, offer a faster return on advertising spend (ROAS), since they appear on publisher sites immediately following a campaign launch. SEO is different, as it requires a certain level of authority before showing up in search results.

Your business can optimize conversions by running both short-term campaigns and long-term ones. As soon as your marketing materials become part of an advertising network, the targeting and reach are seamless. Google Display Network is a good example. It can display your ads across a wide range of websites that your target audience visits, particularly if you select the right keywords when you launch your campaign.

Display advertising networks also offer tools to monitor, refine, and scale your campaigns. Using advertising platforms, marketers can identify which assets generate the most impressions, clicks, and conversions–valuable insights that may enhance other marketing efforts as well.

What is the difference between banner ads and display ads?

Display advertising refers to a large family of digital advertisements that come in many shapes and sizes. This includes banner ads, videos, pop-ups, and more.

These rectangular ads can be found at the top, side, or bottom of a website. These are commonly referred to as leaderboards.

When discussing display marketing, the terms “banner ads” and “display ads” are often used interchangeably. It could be that display ads used to be banners placed at the top or bottom of websites.

All banner ads are display advertisements, but not all display ads are banner ads.

Why is display advertising essential for remarketing campaigns?

Remarketing, or retargeting, allows you to stay in front of potential customers even after they leave your website without taking any action. This can help them reconsider your offer if they ever need it.

Remarketing is the process of showing prospects ads based on how they behave on your website to guide them down your marketing funnel. This process is enabled through cookie-based pixels which track the internet browsing habits of your prospects after they leave your website.

Remarketing display ads can help you re-engage lost visitors by showing relevant ads for products/services that they expressed interest in on your website.

The customer journey has changed. It looks more like this:

Remarketing display advertisements help you highlight the value proposition of your business to your target audience who has left your website. This will encourage them to return when they feel they need your product or service.

Remarketing campaigns can be classified into two categories:

Pixel based remarketing is done with the JavaScript code placed on your landing page or website. The pixel will drop an anonymous cookie every time a visitor visits your landing page or website. This helps you track the online activity of the visitor and display relevant ads at the appropriate time. Google Chrome, and other browsers, will phase out third-party cookies starting in Q1 2024 to protect users’ privacy. Google will propose new cookie functionality to support legitimate use cases and preserve user privacy.
Remarketing using lists allows you to target specific customers with ads.

You should aim to achieve two different goals, depending on the stage of the buyer’s journey or cycle.

Awareness: These campaigns are aimed at visitors who have little experience with your brand. Visitors are informed about the features of your products and other announcements by awareness campaigns. You can use awareness campaigns to prepare for conversion campaigns.
Conversion These campaigns are aimed at visitors who are familiar with your company and its products. The visitor may have signed up for a trial, downloaded an ebook or watched a webinar, but has not yet purchased your product. You want them click on an ad that is relevant, send them to a landing page dedicated to your product or service, and then convince them.

Segmenting your audience is the key to creating effective remarketing display advertisements, whether you run campaigns to increase awareness or to convert.

Segment your audience according to the following:

Behaviour: A visitor’s behavior can be classified into two categories – not interested (they spend less than five seconds on your site and leave immediately), and interested (they browse the content of your website and may even click to other pages such as the pricing page, the resources page or the About Us section). Remarketing ads are served to visitors who have high intent.
Time:

Three things are involved in time segmentation:
- You can measure the time between a visitor’s visit to your website and the first display of an ad.
- How often do you see ads?
- The duration of time between the first time a visitor visits a website and when they no longer see remarketing advertisements
Existing Customers: Display your display ads to existing customers who are not that active on your platform. They might be convinced to become more active by the new feature.

Remarketing display ads are available in a variety of formats, depending on the advertising platform you use. The components of a remarketing optimized ad remain essentially the same.

Optimized remarketing display ads

The following elements are essential to the creation of remarketing display advertisements:

A compelling headline: Your ad’s headline must be relevant to your visitors and written in a way that makes it stand out.
Use media that is relevant and visually appealing: Display ads should be visually appealing, and they must relate to the offer in your copy. Use the colors that you know your visitor has seen on your website in order to create an instant visual link.
A CTA button that is relevant: Create the CTA in a contrast color and include relevant copy.
Actionable Copy: Display Ads have limited characters. Ad copy that is direct and encourages the visitor to click on it will get you more clicks.

This remarketing display advertisement has a compelling discount offer as well as a call-to-action:

Always connect your ads with relevant landing pages if you want to encourage your audience to continue their journey after clicking on a remarketing advertisement. In the next section, we will discuss how to optimize your landing pages for display ads. We’ll also cover what elements all post-display click landing pages should have.

Why it is important to link display ads with landing pages relevant

You can increase the click-through rate of your ads by optimizing them with the correct components. It’s exciting to think that your ads will reach your target audience. The customer journey does not end when the ad is clicked. It’s just the beginning.

You must link all display ads to landing pages relevant to your offer if you want users who click on the ad still be interested in your offer.

What exactly is a landing-page?

A landing is what it sounds like: the experience that occurs after a user has clicked on an ad. Connecting all of your ads with landing pages that meet the following criteria will optimize the landing page.

1. Message Match

Message Match is the process of matching an ad’s content to that of a landing-page to let the user know they are on the right page.

By creating an ad that matches the landing page, you can reassure users that they are on the page the CTA button in the ad promised to take them to.

Both the display ad and landing page have a similar message. The landing page also echoes the same message.

A landing page that is optimized must also maintain a 1:1 conversion ratio.

1:1 Conversion Ratio

Conversion Ratio is the ratio of the number clicks on a page to the conversion goals that are presented. Landing pages should be separate from the navigation of your website. This page’s purpose is to promote one offer. It should maintain a 1:1 ratio.

CTA is the only link that can be clicked on a landing page optimized. Imagine that your landing page contains other links to off-page navigation. You are going against the definition of a Landing Page. This will reduce your chances of getting the visitors to complete the conversion goal.

Active Campaign ads and landing pages maintain message matching:

All display ads should be paired with optimized landing pages that are relevant to your brand. This will encourage visitors to stay with you beyond the click of an ad.

Display advertising lets you use rich media to create ads with a visual appeal that will attract new customers or bring back customers who may have lost their way. You can increase your chances of getting a CTA and an ad clicked when you connect optimized display ads to relevant landing pages.

Instapage allows you to create optimized landing pages today for your display advertisements.

Try Instapage for 14 days at no cost.

Author: Fahad Muhammad

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