Advertising is a critical component of running a business — and doing it well online is critical in today’s competitive online marketplace.
What Are Display Ads?
Display advertisements are visual advertisements that appear on websites, mobile applications, and social media platforms. They frequently contain text, images, video, and occasionally audio.
As with any other form of advertising, businesses pay for display ads in order to attract customers and increase sales. The cost of display advertisements is determined by the cost per click. You are charged each time someone clicks through to your landing page.
Why Do Display Ads Matter?
Display advertisements are effective because they are hyper-targeted. Consider a more traditional form of advertisement for a vegetarian food delivery service: a billboard.
Anyone driving past an advertisement on the highway will see it. While this indicates that the advertisement is reaching a large audience, it does not guarantee its effectiveness, as all you know about this audience is that they own cars. The advertisement does not speak to their interests or needs.
However, suppose the business engages in online display advertising. In that case, they can pay for an ads to be displayed only to their target audience — on cookery blogs, supermarket websites, or even on their own social media feeds — and still reach a large audience.
According to Google, advertisements on the Google Display Network can reach 90% of global users. That is an investment worth making.
Advertisers benefit from the advantages of increasing awareness, increasing traffic, establishing trust, and optimizing their advertising budget for a positive return on investment.
Users can also benefit from the added value of highly targeted advertising, as they will no longer see irrelevant advertisements online.
Display ads make perfect sense.
What is Important for Effective Display Ads?
While display ads have a broad reach and enable you to target a large number of people, they are ineffective unless they convert leads into conversions.
What should you focus on in order to convert those clicks into conversions?
Your Call to Action
A call to action (or CTA) is critical for a display ad to convert. Make your CTA bold and actionable to entice the user to click through to your landing page. Include phrases such as ‘Learn more’ or ‘Register now.’
Another critical step is to emphasize the user benefit: include what the user will receive as a result of converting — for example, ‘Click for a free trial! ‘ or ‘Obtain our e-book! ’
Your Landing Page
Your display advertisement should not direct visitors to any random page on your website. You should create a landing page specifically to entice users to convert.
A good landing page reflects the design of your advertisement and delivers on the promises made in your advertisement.
Your Ad Copy
Your advertisement copy (the headline and body text of your advertisement) must work for you. When writing the text for your advertisement, you want to ensure that you include a compelling headline (ideally under 80 characters). You must also include special promotions or offers and excellent summary that emphasizes the important components. Appropriately sized images is another thing that must you must include. Google recommends a 1:1 or 4:1 aspect ratio for your brand logo, as well as avoiding overlaid text, excessive images, and excessive white space. Your main image should have a ratio of 1.91:1 or 1:1.