With the human attention span now lingering nearby eight seconds, you need ads that:
- Make a dynamic visual impact
- Expose you to the widest/most appropriate users
- Give customers an easy way to respond/engage immediately
Digital display advertising satisfies all three of these bullet points. But the benefits of display advertising hardly end there.
What is display advertising?
Display advertising utilises what is popularly called a “banner” or “banner ad”. These images or graphics are paid website ads that appear on websites and mobile apps, across social media platforms or wherever a user might be surfing the net.
Because search engines like Google remember the sites that users visit regularly or have visited recently, your banner ads are targeted and shown to consumers with search histories relevant to your brand, business or product; often appearing in the form of squares or rectangles at the top or towards the side of a page.
Visibility to a targeted audience is one of the banner ad’s greatest advantages.
Why display advertising?
There isn’t one big reason that display advertising has grown so popular with digital marketers. There are plenty of them.
For starters, they’re visually appealing.
When a user is scrolling through their newsfeed or thumbing through a litany of digital content, you’ve got within the blink of an eye to catch their attention before they’re onto something else.
Display advertising provides clear and instant visibility.
Visual appeal
Banner ads often appear in very visibles place on a page. On the top or at the side. So designs that use strong colours against light backgrounds or bright colours on a dark background can help attract customer attention. So can short, sharp and attractive promotional messages.
Remember, you are competing for the user’s attention against infinite competition. So do what it takes, and use effective advertising elements, to attract all the customer attention you can.
Attractive fonts. Video. Audio. Images that pop off the screen. Try to incorporate whatever you think will engage new web visitors.
If you can wrangle their attention with something eye-catching, it’s likely they’ll bite and click on over to learn more about your product or service and see what it is you’re offering.
Make attention-grabbing visuals a priority when designing your banner ads, and you’ll improve the odds of driving traffic to your site with display advertising.
Effective targeting
Display advertising takes the guesswork out of reaching your key demographics.
Just like Facebook ads, banner ads can be highly focused on a distinct target audience. You decide on which websites your ads will appear. You choose which geographic areas to focus on. You pick the audience of consumers that fit your business offering.
If your product or service is targeted towards young people, you can advertise on entertainment channels like YouTube or sites that deal in celebrity and movie news.
If you’re going after their parents, you can target sites and online destinations more appropriate to that age and those interests.
This flexibility with targeting not only makes display advertising remarkably effective. It makes it a more economically efficient advertising channel too. Think of all the money you’ll save by laser-focusing on a specific, relevant markets with your banner ad.
Banner ads also help with growth because they conquer certain geographic obstacles. Quality display advertising now makes it possible to reach a global audience. And that means opportunities to grow your customer base that other forms of local advertising simply can’t compete with.
Increase brand awareness
People spend a lot of time online. Between smartphones and home computers, consumers are wired in nearly 24/7. So with so much content to consume on a daily basis, it’s important to create a connection between your brand and potential customers.
Digital advertising makes your brand a part of the potential customer’s online journey. Once they begin to recognise your logo, name or product after seeing it on a few of their favourite websites, they will begin to associate with it in a positive and curious manner.
Being recognisable to customers is the first step to becoming “famous” within your market. Support good ads with quality offerings and you’ll earn the kind of trust and repeat business from loyal customers that leads to long-term success.
Display ads are also great for retargeting.
This is when your ad gets displayed again to people who have already visited your website and demonstrated an interest in your business. They may not be customers yet, but with their interest already piqued, a good banner ad supported by a quality offer may be all it takes to persuade them.
Maximise exposure and access
The internet’s biggest advantage to advertisers is the limitless amount traffic it provides. Display advertising’s potential to achieve vast exposure, and give you access to a massive base of potential customers, is seemingly boundless.
Strong banner ads can turn leads into regular customers.
Strong, persuasive promotional messages delivered to the right place at the right time can have a significant impact on your ROI if they’re backed by a quality offer.
An instant customer response
If your banner ad has done its job, users will be wanting to click it to learn more about the full offer. That click means they’re just a single step more from buying your product or paying for your service. So make sure your call to action is easy to follow and obvious to activate.
Using a form presents you with an opportunity to collect additional information from your potential customer that might be useful in future marketing activities.
Either way, the banner ad’s main objective is to drive users to the website. After that, you’ll have plenty of other opportunities to convert them into leads and eventually regular customers.
Display ads work for a lot of reasons.
They’re a visually appealing promotional tool that helps build a link between your company and potential customers. They stimulate brand awareness.
Display advertising is a cost efficient marketing channel that allows you to set parameters in line with your advertising goals, and focus your efforts on a targeted market.
Banner ads achieve visibility and exposure without compromising professional decorum. They encourage an immediate customer response. And have become an essential apparatus in the toolbox of the modern digital marketer.
