5 tips for display ads that deliver

Display advertising is just one of many digital channels that can help you drive brand awareness, promote a product or service, or collect leads through a piece of content or event, and it has some great advantages—one being the sheer number of people your ads can potentially reach. Google Display Network alone can reach up to 90% of all internet users, everywhere. While this might sound like an enormous, easy opportunity for a quick win, banner blindness is a real problem. Today, the average person is served between 4,000 to 10,000 digital ads daily—so many that we’re all getting pretty good at tuning them out. What’s more, 31.5% of internet users now utilize settings or specialized apps to block ads all together. All of this means that—while display ads present significant ROI potential—you have to use them strategically to make sure prospects not only notice your ads, but are then curious enough to click on them.

Having orchestrated hundreds of display ad campaigns, we’ve compiled some of our best tips to help you create display ads that both cut through the noise and ensure you get the most return on your investment of time and ad dollars:

Tip #1: Be compelling, be concise, and be clear

Keeping in mind that you have only a few seconds to capture attention, your display ads should focus on a single, refined message that communicates one key takeaway without a lot of reading. These banners are small and you’re pretty limited on the amount of space you have for content—so you need to make the most of it! Following the “Three C’s” is a good place to start: your ad messaging should be compelling, concise, and clear.

Like we mentioned earlier, banner blindness means your messages and offers need to be ultra compelling in order to entice prospects to click on them. Today, the most compelling ads are also those that are the most personally relevant. Try to think about the key pain points that your target customers have or what they would most benefit from, and talk directly to those unique needs. For instance, if you’re promoting a new piece of content like an ebook or whitepaper, be sure your messaging hits on exactly what they will gain by reading it or what high-value problem it can help them address. Your call-to-action (CTA) should also be clear, highly motivating, and invoke a sense of immediate value or urgency (e.g., Free trial, Limited time offer, Get it now, etc.). For instance, if you’re promoting a new product and you currently have a free trial or assessment available, that’s a great incentive to enhance your ads—people love getting things for free (especially when vetting a big new technology investment). Ads with a single, clearly defined offer or time-bound urgency are proven to significantly boost ad effectiveness over more generic CTAs like “Learn more” or “Contact us.”

Tip #2: Determine your ad placement and targeting carefully

It’s important not to overlook a targeting strategy for your display ads, which starts with segmenting and deeply understanding your prospects and their pains, concerns, needs, focus areas, etc. You can then use this knowledge to establish contextual targeting parameters, allowing you to specify particular keywords and search terms for sites you want your ads to appear on that are most relevant to your prospects. You can also leverage demographic, geographic, and other targeting parameters, as well as specific relevant websites for your ads to be displayed on where your prospects might be already browsing.

Tip #3: Have a dedicated landing page

One of the biggest mistakes people make with a display ad campaign is driving the ads to a general homepage. This is a primary cause of lead drop-off, when the page that prospects are brought to doesn’t clearly connect to the banner they clicked on. In this instance, you may see a good number of banner clicks initially, but then wonder why significantly fewer leads are captured in the end. Having a dedicated landing page that is tailored specifically to your ads helps connect the entire experience and make it easier for your prospects to provide their information to you. Keep the key messages, along with the overall look and feel, consistent across both your landing page and ads, and be consistent with your CTA and what action you want them to take once there. For instance, if your ads are promoting a new asset with the CTA “Download the ebook,” don’t just bring them to a general product page on your site and expect them to go hunt down the ebook. Instead, create a landing page unique to that ebook, with a brief description of what they’ll learn, and a clearly visible lead capture form for them to access the download.

Tip #4: Design for impact

All variations of your display ads should contain these four essential elements:

1. Your logo – Make sure people know what company they’re interacting with.

2. A value proposition – Make the most of the small space and amount of text with an impactful, to-the-point statement that clearly conveys the unique value of your solution, asset, or offer. You can even take a look at your competitors’ ads through a simple search with Google Ad Transparency or other similar tools to inspire more ways to differentiate or set yourself apart.

3. Compelling visuals or animations – Grabbing prospects’ attention as they are scrolling means having eye-catching, visually compelling colors, graphics, and images. However, don’t sacrifice your entire brand identity to get there. It’s about finding ways to stand out while staying true to your brand to maintain and reinforce brand recognition. You could also explore animating your ads to further combat banner blindness, since motion can help draw the eye more-so than static images. This could range from simply adding motion with a waving or shifting background graphic, to having a build of text that enters the banner in sequence, or even having an animated graphic that adds to your story and resonates with your target audience (like items dropping into a shopping cart for a retail industry ad). Animations—essentially GIFs—should be kept short, however, (best practice is between 3-7 seconds total) and be set to repeat in a loop for a continuous experience.

4. A CTA button – Clearly define what action you’re asking the prospect to take (download an asset, register for a webinar, get a free trial, etc.) and make it stand out on your banners.

Tip #5: Test and refine

A critical step in ensuring your display ads are effective and perform as well as possible is testing, iterating, and refining your approach as you go. A/B testing different ad formats, headlines, or CTAs and evaluating the performance of each through tracking metrics (like impressions, click-through rate, and conversion rate) will help you identify what works best for your target audience. You can even leverage AI to do a lot of this work and analysis for you, and to even suggest new content or approaches based on the findings.

Want help getting started with your display ad campaign or taking your efforts to the next level? Connect with our talented campaign specialists today!