What is Display advertising?
Display advertising or display marketing is purchasing and running ads on websites and mobile apps, most commonly, as banner ads.
Display ads can be shown to users who are visiting websites or mobile apps. They are often shown as banners, videos, or other rich media formats.
Display advertising is also called “online display advertising”, “web display advertising”, “banner advertising” , or “display ads”.
It is one of the most popular ad formats and can reach a target audience that may not yet be reached by social networks and is usually a component of most digital marketing strategies.
Display advertising is usually purchased from ad networks and digital media publishers who sell the space on their websites, apps, and mobile sites. The ads are usually measured in impressions (or views), which means they can be seen (or ignored; see banner blindness) but not necessarily clicked on.
Display ads are one of four broad formats for paid online advertising (besides search, social and lead generation ads) Display is therefore sometimes called “ banner advertising” since banners make up most online display ads.
A Display advertising campaign is primarily intended to drive direct response action from a target audience (ie: not for branding)
Examples of Display advertising
– Displaying an image-based banner ad with a headline, copy and URL link.
– Displaying a video ad when someone visits your fashion blog
– Displaying an ad with your company logo when you visit another website
— Google Ads are probably the most well known in online marketing circles.
— Search Ads: Showing a relevant ad to someone who previously searched for a relevant term.
Types of Display ads
On desktop
- Display banners
- Display pop-ups
- Display takeovers
- Display inline text advertisements
- Display native advertisements
- Display product placements.
On mobile
- Display banners (of different sizes)
- Display strips & Ad swipe (viewed by swiping left or right)
- Video interstitials (viewed by clicking on a video ad)
- Tap to view (to click on an image ad).
Display video ads are usually pre-rolls or post-rolls (with 30 sec + duration) showing before or after relevant videos on websites like YouTube etc.
Display takeovers are large full screen horizontal logo ads taking up other people’s real estate for 1/3rd to half of their pageviews.
Display popups are smaller ads appearing in an expandable window when you visit other people’s websites.
Display inline text advertisements appear as small links within regular posts that lead to separate landing pages which are often used for lead generation purposes.
Display Native advertising is a Display ad format where the ad content is in a similar style to the content on your website. Native advertisements are text ads in article or post format, that look like organic stories They can be found on websites like Buzzfeed, Huffington Post etc.
Product placements are ads where you can click on a product or brand name within the post. This type of Display campaign ad is more common on blogs with high traffic.
Rich media ads may have video, audio or advanced features like interactive elements.
Benefits of Display Ads
Display ads can reach a target audience that is not yet reached by search or social media.
They tend to be cheap.
display ad campaigns can be easily and quickly set up and run
On the right network, display ads can be highly targeted to specific internet users.
Display advertising can be very affordable (low CPMs)
Advertisers can use remarketing lists or a custom audience to target previous customers or website visitors.
Can reach massive amount of people through broad, demographic targeting, useful for awareness campaigns.
Disadvantages of Display Ads
While impressions may be cheap, Display often requires a higher budget to really work well, since it’s often less effective per thousand impressions compared to other digital ad formats like Search & Social.
Part of the reason they can be so affordable (particularly banner ads) is that the traffic is not always very high quality. If the content is low quality, the audience may not be very engaged. Many placements may also be surrounded by many other banner ads, decreasing the likelihood of your prospect seeing or responding to your display ad. This can result in an extremely low click-through rate.
With affordable, but broader targeting, you can usually expect lower conversion rates (less chance that the potential customer becomes a buyer) than you would targeting a user of, for example, a social media platform where you will typically find a more engaged audience.
Display ads are frequently run on mobile ads and advertisers can be charged for accidental clicks, as evidenced by a high bounce-rate on the post-click landing page. This can negate the cheap CPM advantage and lead to a wasted campaign budget.
Where to purchase Display Advertising
Display advertising is bought on a CPM basis from a display advertising network, which serves as a middleman between publishers who sell their for Display ads and advertisers who want to purchase them. The Google Display Network is the largest Display ad network.