The marketing industry is a constantly-changing, ever-evolving one, and staying on top of current trends is vital for keeping a company afloat. In a time when more and more users are spending time online, it’s become more important than ever to put your business in front of your consumers and ensure you have their attention. To achieve this, many companies turn to one of the most commonly used strategies out there – display advertising.
Display ads have been around since the ‘90s, and even though they look a lot different and appear much more often these days, their purpose remains the same – engage potential customers while simultaneously generating brand awareness. In this article, we’ll be exploring this popular strategy and listing everything you need to know about this type of online advertising.
What are display advertisements?
A big part of running a successful business is making sure your marketing message reaches your audience. For that to happen, you need an effective tool that will capture your customers’ attention online. This is where display advertisements come into play.
Often appearing in the form of a text, image, or video, display ads are usually included on the top of a web page or on its sides. They can appear while you’re reading a blog post, watching a YouTube video, or checking your inbox on Gmail. Their main aim is to promote a company’s product or service and generate sales. Other than that, display advertisements are quite an effective tool for helping companies raise brand awareness while also increasing their website traffic.
How does display advertising work?
Now that you have an idea of what display ads look like, it’s time to explain how this type of online advertising works. Simply put, display ads rely heavily on small pieces of code – pixels – to help track website users’ online activity. These pixels gather data which then helps ad servers identify which ads they should serve to users.
According to statistics, a typical user encounters around 63 display advertisements per day. In order for display advertising to be successful, it’s vital that the ads that are being served are relevant. For this to happen, advertisers often rely on Display Advertising Services to help boost the efforts of their marketing campaigns. These services ensure your ads are served to the right audience at the right time. In doing so, they optimize your marketing campaign and maximize your marketing investment.
Photo: Pexels
What are the different types of display advertisements?
Not all display ads are created the same. Depending on how they work and who the target audience is, you may encounter several different types of display ads. For example, some websites may serve image ads, while others may focus more on side-banner and pop-up ads to attract users’ attention.
For businesses whose main aim is to ensure better user experience, personalized ads may be the best option since they take into account user behavior and preferences. A more common type of display ads are remarketing ads, and it focuses on offering services and products to their customers depending on their interests and needs. Then there are contextually targeted ads which follow certain criteria (website visitors’ browsing histories, ad keywords and topic, the overarching theme of the host’s website, etc.). Finally, there’s also an option to use site-placed ads meaning you get to choose which sites or individual pages will host your ads.
What are the benefits of display advertising?
There are multiple reasons companies should consider using display advertising. For starters, display advertising ensures your marketing message is delivered quickly and efficiently. They raise brand awareness, and creating and placing them is rather easy. When used together with other marketing strategies (e.g. PPC) , they have shown to increase their overall effectiveness. Finally, display advertising ensures you reach your target audience across different channels. This means that they can see your ad regardless of whether they’re on social media or a search engine, or if they’re using their mobile device.
Although effective marketing is vital for business success, not every type of display advertisement works for every company. Each type has its pros and cons, and it’s important for businesses to take this into account before deciding which type of display ad they should use.
Wrapping up
With more customers moving online, it’s important for companies to employ effective methods that will help them reach their target audience. By relying on visually engaging options such as display advertising, you can boost your conversion rate and increase brand awareness, thus helping your business reach new heights.
