Table of Contents

Display Advertising Defined

Types of Display Ads

Remarketing Ads

Personalized Ads

Contextually Targeted Ads

Site-placed Ads

Display Ads Formats

Display Ad Sizes

How Display Ads Work

1. Identify Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience will help you choose where to display your ads. Define who gets your display ads based on inputs, such as shopping signals and demography. For example, if you run a pizza restaurant, you should place your ads on food websites and pizza blogs, where pizza lovers go to find out what’s new. This targeted approach increases your visibility and the likelihood of converting.

2. Choose Your Ad Campaign Goals

The next thing to do to make display ads work is to define your campaign goals. Ask questions, such as:

• Why do we want to use display ads?
• Do we intend to create awareness, generate more leads or make more sales?
• Are we looking to attract new customers or working on retaining existing ones?
• Are we promoting awareness for our new product or feature change?

Evaluate your business needs and goals with relevant teams and determine necessary key performance indicators (KPIs). Also, remember to make specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (S.M.A.R.T.) goals.

3. Conduct a Competitive Analysis

Knowing your competitors’ display ad strategies will help you understand the peculiarities of high-performing display ads. It will guide you in creating the most effective ads with appropriate designs and website placements.

Use advertising intelligence software like Semrush’s AdClarity to find top industry advertisers and your competitors’ display ad expenditure, placement and more. Then, use the results from your analysis to refine your ad campaign for optimum performance.

4. Design Your Display Ads

It’s time to prepare your ad, engaging elements, such as images, GIFs and videos, and tailoring them for your audience. Note that a compelling design can boost your click-through rate (CTR) and help you make some sales while a poorly designed one can turn potential customers away. That’s why you should remember the following when creating a display ad:

• Select colors that align with the emotions you intend to invoke.
• Use fonts that reflect the essence of your brand and are easy to read.
• Maintain a balanced visual layout with text and images complementing each other.
• Ensure your CTA stands out and matches the overall design.
• Focus on a primary message so that you don’t overwhelm your audience.
• Consider incorporating local elements, such as languages when targeting a location.

5. Craft Compelling Copy

Combining your design with relevant copy and a CTA enhances your conversion rate. When crafting your ad copy, address the pain points of your target audience and tell them what they’ll gain by choosing you. Also, create a simple copy that aligns with your CTA.

Use action-oriented words, such as “See How We Can Help,” “Get a Free Quote” and “Request a Demo,” which usually are more effective than generic words like “Click Here.” Also, create a sense of urgency with your words to prompt quick decision-making. Examples of such words are “20 Slots Available” and “Offer Ends on Friday.”

6. Choose the Display Ad Platform, Type and Format

Choose websites and platforms that match your target audience’s interests to ensure your ads appear before those likely to become your customers. Even better to target websites with high traffic so that your ads reach more people. Use ad networks such as the Google Display Network and Meta Audience Network to connect to multiple websites and have them do the bulk of the work for you.

For example, Google Display Network reaches more than 90% of internet users today, offering responsive and uploaded display ads. You’ll need to design uploaded display ads while responsive display ads are automated, only requiring you to provide essential elements, such as images, videos, headlines and your logo. Google combines the components to fit various internet users.

Regardless of your choice, you’ll need to configure your campaign settings, including your target locations and budget. We recommend reviewing your campaign and hitting “Publish campaign” only when everything looks good.

7. Launch, Analyze and Optimize

The next thing left to do is launch your campaign but don’t stop there. Analyze your metrics using tools, such as Google Ad Manager and Google Analytics, for best results. Check how well your overall campaign and the elements perform. If they need to perform better, switch up the design, copy or ad placement and examine what works better. If, for example, a display ad gets a high CTR but fewer conversions, it usually indicates that the landing page needs a fix. Tweak it and conduct A/B testing to see which ads get better results.