It is very unlikely to purchase something from a brand that you have never seen or heard before. The modern customer is complex, there is a lot of things that go in between the time the user is exposed to a brand to the time they are prospective customer to finally buying it. In online advertising, Search ads (PPC ads) are considered to be hero because they can be easily attributed to conversions (leads and sales). This is because they come at the last mile (purchase decision) of the consumer decision journey. However, display ads which help create brand awareness gets less credit than it deserves due to its relatively lower conversion rate. This is because display ads come at the nascent stage of consumer journey.
e-Marketer report estimates that 61% of all online ad spends are on display advertising and comScore says the Display Network reaches 90% of Internet users worldwide and includes more than 2 million publisher sites. So, what should you know to make it work for your brand?
Why Display Advertising?
Display advertising effectively reaches the most people within a target market compared to any other media. It has more power to educate the consumer and build trust for the brand. One of the reason for this phenomenon is that display advertising is not as interruptive and annoying as traditional media advertising.
The ripple effect of creating awareness transcends just online advertising and influences offline purchases too. Multiple studies have validated combined Search and Display campaign gets 22% greater conversions compared to search only campaigns.
A simple explanation to this is, we all feel comfortable and reassured to buy from a brand that we have already seen or heard before, and display advertising aids in this process by creating millions of impressions (eyeballs) for a small budget.
Benefits of Display Advertising
Get the ads featured on relevant sites - Banner ads featured alongside a relevant content increase the likelihood of getting noticed, and clicked. Through display advertising you can target list of websites which are usually visited by your customers. You can also target specific sub set of the website such as Sports section in Gulf News making it more relevant.
Enjoy lower marketing cost - Online display advertising is not at all expensive. In fact, this kind of advertising is leveling the playing field for small entrepreneurs with limited resources. With billions of Internet users, you can reach so many target users for a couple of dollars.
Benefit from “Geo-targeting” - Display ads allows you more control over your advertising campaign and lets you personalize your advertisements so that you can efficiently zero in your market by geographic location. E.g. Do you deliver orders in a specific location, let the local market know how by showing a banner ad with a telephone number to order.
Contextual targeting - The display network ad technology can read and understand the type of content on the page where the ad is to be served, and it also knows the identity of the user / visitor and learns what their interests are based on (affinity) past clicks, browsing history, etc. Coupling this two information results in showing relevant ads for the audiences based on the context.
Capturing the market through remarketing/retargeting – It is very usual that not your entire target audience would convert the first time they see your banner ads, display advertising through remarketing is a great way to remind them of your product/service maybe a second visit is necessary to convert them.
People are spending ever increasing amounts of time online. To stay in front of their audiences, brands will inevitably have to devote more of their budgets to digital.
And digital can work for brands. Online display can be a phenomenal vehicle for brand advertising, allowing companies to reach the right people and stay in front of them.
Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com