Elements of Effective Display Advertising

When looking to drive your business’s website traffic and target highly-specific audiences, it’s essential to prioritize your online presence. Through display advertising, companies are building brand awareness through visuals, which can increase a customer’s purchasing intentions.

What is Display Advertising?

Display advertising is a visual form of advertising that can be presented to consumers on websites or apps. Through an assortment of formats made of images, text, audio, video or flash, a company can create and distribute its promotional messages.

Display ads appear on designated sections of websites where paid advertising can be visible. They’re aimed at sparking conversions by targeting people with certain characteristics. Directly reaching customers helps increase ad clicks and ultimately boosts purchases. Unlike native advertising, which is designed to blend in with its surroundings, display advertising is clearly separate from the rest of the website’s content.

Why Display Advertising?

Display ads are visually stimulating, easily capturing your audience’s attention through compelling graphics, unlike text-only Search Engine Marketing (SEM) ads. From static images and pop-up ads to floating banners and wallpaper, there are multiple types of display advertisements that you can tailor to your company’s goals. With the freedom to choose from so many styles, sizes and formats, you have ample opportunity to experiment while staying true to your brand’s unique identity.

The effectiveness of display advertising is easy to measure because you can track the number of clicks, impressions and conversions made in real-time. Using the data obtained from ad engagement, you receive a comprehensive understanding of what types of content are most compelling to consumers, allowing you to tweak your strategy based on what’s most effective.

In order to extend the reach of your business’s goals, display ads allow you to set specific parameters around where they appear. Whether it’s through contextual targeting, which uses keywords to determine pertinent websites for your ads or topic targeting, which lets you to select specific topics of web pages you want to place your ads on, targeted advertising technology will find the most relevant websites for your display ads. As a result, you can reach the right people at the right time, increasing the chance of monetizing your business’s website traffic.

Through your display ads’ striking visuals, you’ll promote your brand as you nurture your potential customers through their buyer’s journey and drive additional sales through deals you’re offering.

How Can I Make My Ads Most Effective?

With so much content to be seen on a webpage, users are limited to the advertising they actually engage with. In order to optimize your company’s display ads, there are some things to be mindful of, such as:

Considering your buyer persona.

Buyer personas provide tremendous insight into how you should create your display advertisements. These semi-fictional representations are based on real, measurable data about existing customers. When designing your ad, reflect on a potential customer’s aspirations and challenges to make it as successful as it can be.

Using Real-Time Bidding.

Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and real-time bidding (RTB) work in conjunction with one another to target the individuals who are most likely to buy your product or service, maximizing your display ad’s effectiveness.

DSPs are pieces of technology that are responsible for collecting data that reveal user information, like age, gender and other demographics. This data is then taken and used in RTB, which is the process of choosing display ads for a web page in the same time that it would take for the web page to load.

Ensuring the ad is visually appealing.

Think simple design. This means using a mix of both small and large fonts and colors that complement each other. According to HubSpot, “Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content” (Buffer 2014).

Keep in mind that not all ads require images. If you decide to include them, make sure you choose relevant photos and graphics to strengthen your message related to the service or product you’re promoting. However, clean typography can be just as successful.

Select colors that typically elicit the response you would like from your target audience. For instance, orange is associated with playfulness, energy and value, so it can be used to draw attention to your call to action or CTA. Blue, on the other hand, evokes feelings of safety and acceptance, which can assist in helping a consumer experience a sense of belonging.

Being recognizable.

Does your company have a well-known logo? Does it use a notable font or a unique color palette? Be sure to incorporate these elements into your display ad. Although there are many formats to try out, it’s vital to choose one that’s consistent with your branding. Consistency and cohesiveness within a brand will form trust between your company and your consumers.

Offering a clear CTA.

Whether it’s bringing someone to your product’s landing page or getting them to download your company’s newest one-pager, ensure that your CTA is distinct, defined and will bring the individual to the proper web page.

Being wary of disrupting an internet user’s experience.

When someone is surfing the web with a set goal in mind, the last thing they want is an interruptive advertisement impeding on their activity. Your display ad should be noticeable, while still being respectful of the content on the rest of the page.

Here at Bridge, we work closely with our clients to align our services with their goals. We can help your business create the most effective display advertisements, increasing your sales and your customers’ satisfaction.