Display advertising is a form of online digital marketing that promotes products via graphic design or videos to allow for deeper engagement with users. As they are a way of visually telling a story, ads capture attention and convey a message effectively.
Google display ads are served on Google’s expansive display network. This network is made up of millions of websites, apps and platforms allowing for unparalleled reach. But without continuous optimisation and a close eye on where your ads serve, your display ads won’t reach their full potential! Rest assured, mira’s comprehensive guide of everything you need to know about display ads and how to implement them in 2024 has you covered.
What is a display ad?
As mentioned above, a display ad is a visual ad that showcases the product/service that you are marketing. It can be a still image, GIF or a video that serves on YouTube. The main differentiation between Google search ads and display ads is that search ads tend to ‘pull’ users into your business, whereas display ads ‘push’ your business and its features onto users.
Why use the Google Display Network?
Similar to Performance Max campaigns, ads are pushed out to the masses resulting in an affordable CPC whilst your brand is being introduced to 1000s of users. They are most commonly used for building brand awareness or remarketing to past clickers by using the data you have built up in Google Ads from pre-existing campaigns.
Although audience intent is not as strong as it is in search campaigns with targeted keywords, you can still steer your ads in the right direction to likely users.
How to target display ads
Like all campaigns in marketing whether it be via Google Ads or social media marketing, precise targeting is critical. Here are a few ways that you can make sure that you’re targeting the right audiences for your brand…
💡 In-Market & Affinity Segments
We think that this should always be advertisers' starting point when it comes to targeting. These segments are made up of 100’s of broad categories relevant to businesses and the more niche interests of those users. When combined with demographics, device targeting and other affinities you can create a focused pool of users.
💡 Custom Intent Audiences
Google can show your ads to users who are ‘likely to be interested’ as you feed it’s algorithm with high-volume keywords and website URLs from your competitors or similar brands websites.
💡Placement Reports
Often overlooked in the pre-defined reports section of Google Ads are placement reports. Here you can see how many impressions your display ads received on particular websites and leverage this data to exclude certain irrelevant URLs from showing your ads. This allows for tighter control and better budget saving.
In 2024, Google advertisers should expect to see more control in platform thanks to targeting and reporting metric advancements announced in the Google Marketing Live 2024.
Our final thoughts…
You can create a very powerful reach on the Google Display Network with the right attention to targeting. As Google moves to a more creative way of marketing, getting started now by building on and leveraging from your display ads will guarantee you long-term success. If you’re interested in getting creative with Google our PPC team could help you do just that!
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