Grow Your Consumer Base with Display Advertising
Potential of Display Advertising
The display advertising world is expanding at a rate like no other sector. Forrester estimates the market will become a $28 billion dollar industry by 2017 with an anticipated growth of nearly 10% every year for the next decade.
Online display advertising offers the unique combination of the targeted reach, persistence, and technical support of some of the largest companies in the world that rely on advertising to generate income.
Determine Your Display Advertising Objective
Whether you’re driving sales, branding, or nurturing your leads, you must understand who you are targeting along your marketing funnel. Online display advertising is a flexible advertising medium that can be used to target potential customers along with any point in the funnel. Understanding what drives your customers is key to building display advertising campaigns that speak to the right people.
The versatility of online display advertising allows you to achieve three campaign goals simultaneously:
- Build brand awareness to acquire new prospects.
- Nurture potential customers who show interest in the product or service.
- Drive additional sales through special offers aimed at customers already in your ecosystem.
Establishing a cycle of awareness, nurturing, and upselling will ensure a steady flow of income or prospects throughout the year.
Experimenting with Display Advertising
Create different ads and calls to action as you understand your customers. Never be satisfied with an advertisement that works for now – a single display advertising campaign can’t last forever. If you find one that works, by all means, stick with it. However, prepare additional display advertising campaigns to flank your lead until it’s ready to be retired.
Analyze all incoming data and understand how to read it. Some campaigns may work better at certain times of the day, week, or month. Factors only your company can provide will be the key to success.
A retailer may see movement on campaigns heading into the school season, close to paydays, or around holidays. Restaurants may see movement just prior to meal or snack times. Businesses may see movement at the beginning of the year or heading into each new quarter. The advertising landscape is as fickle as your customer base, so understanding your customers is key.
Additionally, all display advertising has a shelf life. Understand the tells of a dying campaign and acquire enough data through constant experimentation to incorporate better practices into your next campaign.
Keep It Simple
Some of the best online display creatives consist of a single image and a provocative call to action. Your customers aren’t visiting websites to read advertisements, so don’t make them read a long paragraph or scan through the fine print to understand the point you are trying to get across. You can provide your customers with additional information, legalese, and other details after they’ve clicked your banner.
A Multi-Channel Approach
Incorporate a multi-channel approach to your digital advertising campaign by integrating your banners with supplementary marketing efforts. Your online display advertising efforts can be augmented by both email and print advertising.
Persistence
Just like any other industry, persistence is the key to landing sales. Entice your prospects by hitting them where they are and rekindle past consumers’ interest through new offerings and products.
Retargeting
A common thread throughout your campaign life-cycle has always been retargeting. Consider retargeting your pool of prospects based on their levels of interaction with your campaign.
Typically retargeting follows a customer journey from a specific creative or set of creatives. Ideally, we want to follow up with additional advertising to push the sale through special offers and promotions related to their area of interest.
Display Advertising Today
Display advertising is an industry that is evolving as fast as it is growing. Just a few years ago, marketers were burned by unrefined ad servings that were both uncontextualized and untrustworthy.
Today, marketers are presented with a myriad of sophisticated options that allow advertisers to bid only on space relevant to them, using targeting criteria by audience interest and keywords, and be able to pay as little or as much as they want.
Planning to run a paid advertisement and mastering the method to having the industry work for you is an ongoing challenge for many businesses. Don’t be left in the dark and make sure to embrace the potential of display advertising into your next campaign.
