Display ads

How the Google Display Network works

The Google Display Network helps you find the right audience with its targeting options that strategically show your message to potential customers at the right place and the right time. Here are some examples of how you can approach targeting with Display ads:

• Find new customers or engage existing customers using audience segments. Similar segments and in-market segments help you find new prospective customers by targeting people who are interested in your products. You can also use your data segments to help you re-engage people who previously visited your site.
• Drive more conversions using automation. Automated targeting increases conversions by finding high-performing audience segments based on your existing audiences and landing page. By automatically optimizing over time, Google Ads can learn which audience segments work for you. Automated bidding automatically adjusts your bid to help meet your return on investment. Smart display campaigns combine the best of automated targeting, bidding, and creatives to maximize your conversions on Google Ads.

Even after building a high-quality ad with an excellent keyword list. You’re disappointed the ad isn’t being shown as much as you’d like. The reason is “Bid for the ad is too low.” With lower bids, your campaign is likely to receive fewer clicks and conversions. I remember a question where Michael built a high-quality ad with an excellent keyword list but still his ads were not being displayed frequently.

Eight Types of Display Ads You Should Know

• Static / Standard Banner Ads
• Animated Ads
• Interactive Ads
• Video Ads
• Expandable Ads
• Interstitial Ads
• Lightbox Ads
• 360-Degree Video Ads

Advantages of display advertising

There are a number of benefits of using display advertising:

• Visual – you can use eye catching imagery or rich media to get your audience’s attention.
• Awareness – you can build brand awareness and promote your products and services.  While search advertising reaches an audience with an intention to purchase, display can create an initial interest. Display ads have a high reach and can be seen by large numbers of people.
• Targeted – there are certain targeting options that aren’t available through search marketing. These include topic and interest targeting and remarketing. You can also reach specific demographics such as gender and age.

Disadvantages of display advertising

There are some downsides to display advertising:

• Lower click-through rate (CTR) – display ads typically have a lower CTR than search ads.
• Lower conversions – a lower CTR also means lower conversions, such as sales and registrations. When users see your ad they aren’t actively looking for your products or services, so they may not be ready to buy. Display ads are more suitable for long sales processes than for selling high volumes. 
• Ad avoidance – while your impressions may be high, you can’t guarantee that users paid attention to your ad. Ad blocking tools can also stop users seeing your ads.
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• 5 Steps to a Winning Display Advertising Strategy

1. Set campaign goals

Successful ad campaigns rely on a sound, multi-layered strategy, and this strategy consists of precise goals that a brand aims to achieve. Whether they’ll include raising brand awareness, growing email subscribers, or increasing website, traffic, sale, or conversions, they should express your brand’s commitment to fulfilling them.

2. Reach out to your audience

Ideally, you want to create a strategy that focuses on reaching your perfect audience. Your ads won’t produce an equal impact on everyone, which is why a clearly defined targeting plan will be directed only to those that are likely to be interested in your ads. This will save your budget, time, and efforts.

Questions such as these below could help define your strategy:

• “What do we want to accomplish with this campaign?”
• “Do we want to generate broad interest within a target market?”
• “Do we want to convert people who have already shown interest in our brand?”

Here’s a brief overview of some targeting strategies:

• Location-based
• Demographic-based
• Retargeting

3. Choose the right tools for campaign execution

The success of your campaign largely depends on the tools used for its execution. This means you should research your media buying options and choose the one closest to your established goals.

There are several media buying options to choose from:

• Directly from publishers
• Using programmatic platforms
• Media agencies
• Affiliate networks

Whether you decide to buy media directly from publishers or use a platform, make sure they fit your needs and budget.

4. Create compelling banner ads

After you have your strategy set, you should make sure the banners you create will appeal to your audience. Banner design is an important factor in a display campaign strategy. After all, ads are displayed for people to see them. That’s why they have to cause engagement with potential consumers.

5. Optimize your landing page

A strategy can have all the elements included, but if it fails to optimize the landing page for conversion, it might result in a complete failure. What happens after someone clicks on your ad? A potential consumer is taken to your landing page. 

How to start using targeted Display ads

Google Display Network targeting allows you to set where or when your ad is shown based on features of your ideal audience, such as their personal interests, age or gender. This means your ad can show up on sites related to your business, or to users who match the specific criteria that you’ve specified.

If you aren’t already running ads on the Google Display Network as part of your Google Ads account, here’s how you can do so:

• Log into your Google Ads account
• Click on “Campaigns,” and then “New Campaign”
• Select “Display Network only” as the campaign type

From here, select the types of Google Display Network targeting that you’d like to include as part of your campaign. To find out about the different types of ways to show ads to users and how to set them, keep reading.

7 display ad metrics for measuring display success

• Viewable Impressions
• Display Impression Share (DIS)
• Product-Relevant Onsite Interest
• Direct, Organic and Paid Search Channel Health
• Branded Search Demand
• Targeted Conversion Activity & Revenue: On-Platform and Off
• Actual Conversion Data