Display advertising – what is it?

Display ads are promotional content that has a graphic form and appears not in the search engine itself, but on specific websites. Every Internet user contacts them almost non-stop, every time they visit the web. Where are they visible? Virtually everywhere. Display ads include banners that appear next to the body of the page or at the top of your website, or between paragraphs of articles you are reading. Display is also pop-ups, i.e. pop-ups, interstitial ads and ads that appear in the background behind the website content.

Most often we use the term display advertising in the case of google campaigns, i.e. those displayed on the Google Display Network. This extensive structure has about 2 million websites, and its reach covers the lion’s share of all active Internet users around the world. GDN has news portals, blogs, video platforms and lifestyle websites. Thanks to this, the display format works for almost every industry, regardless of the preferred group of recipients.

What are display ads made of?

Most often, this type of sales messages contain an image and a small amount of text, although there are display ads that are based solely on the word – then these are small, white squares with a slogan and a button containing a CTA. As a rule, however, advertisers try to use the full potential of the display format and create image-based messages that attract the attention of recipients much more effectively.

To create such a campaign, it is not necessary to have professional graphics made by a specialist. The Google Ads system has a library of free photos that advertisers can use to build their messages. However, if we have such an opportunity, it is worth using a unique design – then on the banner we can place, for example, products from our online store, photos of specialists working in the company, photos from the premises, etc. Such materials inspire much greater trust of recipients and build a stronger relationship with the brand.

Display advertising – on which pages is it visible?

As already mentioned, display ads are served on sites belonging to the 2 million pages of Google’s partner network. This does not mean, however, that our ad will be displayed in random corners of the Internet. The advertiser can control where banners are published by choosing the targeting types. For example, we can only target websites with a specific topic, selected from a wide thematic list. It includes categories such as home and garden, games, travel, sports, cars and vehicles and many, many more. By choosing this type of targeting, you can be sure that your ad will not appear in relation to completely random topics.

However, we can also put emphasis on recipients and set the campaign so that it appears to users who have interests that meet our needs or have recently searched for products from a specific category. Then the ads will be able to be displayed on websites unrelated to them, but only to those recipients who may be interested in what they present.

Display ads are also great for remarketing. With their help, we can “pursue” recipients who have already interacted with our website and display them various types of ads, including dynamic ones, showing the products they have previously viewed on the website.

Display ad types

Among display ads, there are several formats that focus on different marketing goals. We find among them such types of advertising as:

Traditional display ads
In this case, we send the finished product to the Google Ads system in the form of a banner designed in such a way that it always displays exactly the same. Most often it consists of a background or a photo, an advertising slogan and a company logo. It may contain additional information, for example about a promotion, discount or other special offer. We send such advertisements to the system in .jpg, .png or .gif format. An alternative to them are banners created in HTML5, which are mobile and interactive, and therefore extremely interesting for the recipients. (The uploaded files must have dimensions that meet the Google Ads requirements – the system allows banners in many sizes, so it is not a limitation for advertisers).

Responsive display ads
Responsive ads work in a slightly different way. In this type of message, we upload to the Google Ads system only individual elements of the banners: separately the logo, at least one image and several versions of the text. Then the system analyzes the sent materials and combines them in various ways, testing individual versions of the message. The type of advertising seen by a given recipient is determined by artificial intelligence, guided by the likely preferences of this user (based on his previous behavior on the Internet). Thanks to this format, we do not have to use ready-made graphic solutions, and in addition, we have a message that is as closely as possible to the needs of the target group.

Standard remarketing ads
Such banners are created for users who have already visited the site, perhaps even performed some action – for example, they put the product into the basket – but did not convert. In this case, we also send the ready material to the system, but with a slightly different message – here it is no longer about familiarizing the recipient with the brand and its offer, but about encouraging them to return to the website and finalize the transaction.

Dynamic remarketing ads
Here, as in the case of responsive ads, users are shown sales messages whose components are selected by self-learning algorithms. The difference, however, is that in this case the recipient gets an advertisement showing exactly the products / services that they previously viewed on the website.

Lightbox ads
This type of ad is a banner that, when hovered over with the mouse (or touched with a finger on mobile devices), expands and presents the user with a video or a set of images. It can expand to the full width of the screen or only to a slightly larger window. This format is designed to maximize audience engagement.

The advantages of display advertising in Google Ads

Display advertising is a useful tool for any marketer who invests in Google Ads campaigns. Its biggest advantages are:

Huge range
Due to the fact that the google network covers such a wide range of portals from various industries, it is difficult to find a better way to advertise your offer than using the opportunities offered by display advertising. The total reach of the sites that belong to it covers over 90% of all users of the global network, so we can be sure that the ideal target audience for our product will be among its audience.

Increasing brand awareness
Keyword-targeted text ads are great for people who are already looking for a specific product, but don’t have a significant impact on brand recognition. Display ads, in turn, allow the user to remember the name of the company and its logo, build the first associations with the brand and shape its image in the eyes of recipients.

Many targeting options
The target group can be selected very precisely in display ads. In the targeting options, we can determine the corresponding demographic data, interests of recipients or their behavior on the Internet. Contextual targeting is also available, i.e. placing ads only in the vicinity of content corresponding to them thematically, which increases the chance that the campaigns will be successful.

Visual attractiveness
The image catches the eye more effectively the text itself and gives much greater possibilities of influencing the recipient. Interesting graphics combined with a properly selected CTA give a great opportunity to gain the attention of the recipient.

Effects easy to measure
We can monitor the effect of the advertisement we have created on an ongoing basis. Statistics from Google Analytics allow us to see the ratio of the number of impressions to conversion, which gives us a picture of how attractive the ad is to our target group. This way, it is much easier to track the results than when we decide, for example, for traditional banners on the streets of the city.