When it comes to Internet advertising, there are a multitude of avenues for you and your business to explore when trying to deliver messages to your consumers. There is pay per click (search engine marketing – SEM), paid posts through social media (social media marketing – SMM), mobile advertising and email marketing, but one of the most tried and true forms of online marketing is still display advertising.

While Internet advertising is still a small share of the overall advertising market (4.5% share of overall ad spend in 2013), it is currently the fastest-growing medium out of them all with all the various opportunities out there. According to Nielsen, global display advertising across the Web, mobile Internet and apps collectively grew by 32.4% in 2013 — by far the biggest leap of any media. There are many who believe that display advertising is outdated, but one cannot deny the power of the visual. People are more attracted by what they see rather than what they hear or feel. So, what exactly is display advertising?

In a nutshell, display advertising is a graphical advertising method that conveys its advertising message visually using text, logos, animations, videos, photographs, or other graphics (rich media). Often referred to as banners, display ads come in standardized sizes and typically appear next to content on Web pages. Think of display advertising just like magazine and newspaper ads, but online instead of in print. One thing that differentiates online display advertising from traditional advertising, though, is its targeting and tracking options. You can target demographic and behaviors to laser in on your audience and you can track the performance of your campaign daily to measure metrics such as impressions, clicks and conversions to really hone in on your ROI.

Display advertisers frequently target users with particular traits to increase the ads' effect. Online advertisers (typically through their ad servers) often use cookies, which are unique identifiers of specific computers, to decide which ads to serve to a particular consumer. Cookies can track whether a user left a page without buying anything, so the advertiser can later retarget the user with ads from the site the user visited.

As advertisers collect data across multiple external websites about a user's online activity, they can create a detailed picture of the user's interests to deliver even more targeted advertising. This aggregation of data is called behavioral targeting. Advertisers can also target their audience by using contextual and semantic advertising to deliver display ads related to the content of the web page where the ads appear. Retargeting, behavioral targeting, and contextual advertising all are designed to increase an advertiser's return on investment, or ROI, over untargeted ads.

Advertisers may also deliver ads based on a user's suspected geography through geotargeting. A user’s IP address communicates some geographic information (at minimum, the user's country or general region). The geographic information from an IP can be supplemented and refined with other proxies or information to narrow the range of possible locations. For example, with mobile devices, advertisers can sometimes use a phone's GPS receiver or the location of nearby mobile towers. Cookies and other persistent data on a user's machine may provide help narrowing a user's location further.

So now that you have a grasp on what this type of advertising is all about, let’s talk about the various types of display advertising techniques. The first, and most obvious type is web banner advertising. Web banners, or banner ads, are typically graphical ads displayed within a web page. These types of ads usually use rich media to incorporate video, audio, animations, buttons, forms or other interactive elements. Then there are frame ads or traditional banner ads, the first form of web banners. Website publishers incorporate frame ads by setting aside a particular space on the web page. Then there are pop-ups/pop-unders where a pop-pup ad is displayed in a new web browser window that opens above a website visitor’s initial browser window. Conversely, a pop-under ad opens a new browser window under a website visitor’s initial browser window. There are also floating ads or overlay ads, where a rich media advertisement appears superimposed over the requested website’s content. Floating ads may disappear or become less obtrusive after a preset time period. Expanding ads are rich media frame ads that change dimensions upon a predefined condition, such as a preset amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage, the user’s click on the ad, or the user’s mouse movement over the ad. Expanding ads allow advertisers to fit more information into a restricted ad space. Trick banners imitate some screen element that users commonly encounter, such as an operating system message or popular application message to induce ad clicks. Trick banners typically do not mention the advertiser in the initial ad; therefore they are a form of bait-and-switch. Trick banners usually attract a higher click-through rate, but may result in resentful users after they have realized that they have been deceived. Interstitial ads display before a user can access their requested content, sometimes while they are waiting for the content to load, therefore sometimes referred to as interruption marketing.

So, what elements should be included in our display ads? The first, and most important element is to include a call to action (CTA). Usually show as a button with text that prompts users to click the ad to perform a specific action such as purchasing a product, CTAs are not unique to display ads, but are nonetheless an important factor to include. In addition, don’t forget the branding opportunities with display ads. Make sure to design your advertisements with branding in mind – keep the same colors, logo etc. ... across all of your platforms. Display ads help to increase brand awareness by getting images out to viewers when they are surfing the Web. Even if they have never purchased the product before, potential buyers will remember the product from the ads they have seen. Even if users do not click on the ads, they still end up having a positive impact on sales building familiarity with consumers. When consumers see ads repeatedly on sites they visit, they are much more likely to remember and recognize the brand even if they have never clicked on any of the ads themselves.

In terms of content, it is important that you know what should go into the ad. You have a very limited amount of time and space with which to gain attention and make an impression, so you must create content that will imprint an image and an idea into the viewer. Start thinking about who your target market is, what they want to see and what messages you are trying to send … then tailor your content accordingly.

So, with all of this in mind, how do you make display advertising work for you? One of the most important things to remember is that display advertising alone is not the answer. You want to make sure it is only one component of your overall marketing strategy. Don’t assume that you can rely on this practice alone to deliver the results you are looking for. In Ayal Ebert’s blog, “Display Advertising As Part of Your Overall Marketing Strategy,” he mentions three main things you need to do with your display advertising strategy; segmentation, search engines and targeted marketing.

The first category, segmentation, he says, will take up most of your time. You want to segment your campaign into different parts … determine the focal point of your campaign and decide what your campaign is all about. Are you focusing on an entire product line or a single product? Understanding the audience you want to appeal to will help with developing the proper campaigns and advertisements for your brand. Once you have this determined, you want to tailor your ads to match the search results of your target audience. If you want to get the maximum number of views for your ads, you will need to use search engines to generate a large number of impressions. If you have properly used segmentation, then you know that the “correct” user is seeing your ads and you are reaching the correct audience. Lastly, take advantage of the targeting ability of display advertising. You can target by demographic (age, gender) and by location to really optimize who is seeing your ads.

Make sure to created ads that are compelling by using all of the rich media resources available and pertinent to your target audience. Ebert says, “You cannot compromise on the quality of content you post through display ads. Else, you wouldn’t be able to attract the customers you are looking for.” The ads need to be visually appealing by using this rich media and compelling designs.

By now you should know what display ads are, the different types of display ads, what to include in them and how to make them work for you. But, one last thing to remember, and the most important thing that differentiates them from traditional advertising methods, is to track your results. See what’s working for you and what’s not working, and then go on to refine and tailor all of the above. Ebert continues, “If any ad does not deliver the desired performance, you can chop and change it.”

By measuring your results you can continually improve your ROI and build a stronger, more effective web presence. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Now time for the shameless plug. We, here at Imagine That, are your Summit County digital marketing experts. We have years of experience with all forms of online marketing and would love to help you and your business set up your next marketing campaign. Give us a call (970-224-1930) or shoot us an email () for your free consultation today. We would love to hear from you. Until then, Dream Bigger!

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