Is Display Advertising Effective?

Display advertising is one of the oldest forms of marketing online. You probably see display advertisements every time you read online news or visit any other website that earns money by serving ads. At the same time, it’s not likely that you’ve ever clicked on one of those ads unless it was specifically made for you.

So, is display advertising effective?

We’ll answer that question on this page, in addition to looking at the display advertising ROI. If you’d rather talk to a specialist, you can reach us at 888-601-5359.

Is display advertising actually effective?

The short answer is: Yes.

When you break down how much display ads cost and how many people click on them, display advertising still delivers a positive ROI for most investors.

However, from a statistical standpoint, display advertising may not sound like much.

For example, only about 0.06% of people click on display ads.

That’s incredibly low for any ad medium. That’s why display advertising thrives on sites with high traffic, like news websites and popular blogs.

For example, let’s say you’re taking out a display ad with a website that has 1 million monthly visitors.

At a 0.06% click rate, that’s still 60,000 people clicking on your ad — 60,000 new potential customers!

And considering display ads are so affordable, you can afford to earn those 60,000 new customers with most marketing budgets.

Why display advertising is effective

There are several different reasons why display advertising works as well as it does. Here are some of the biggest ones:

• Brand awareness: Even when users don’t click, simply seeing your display ads on a repeat basis builds up your brand recognition in their minds.
• Retargeting capabilities: Display ads are highly effective for retargeting users who previously visited your website without converting.
• Cost-effectiveness: Display ads typically come with very low costs per impression, making them incredibly affordable.
• Measurable performance: It’s easy to reoptimize display ads over time since you can easily track the impressions, clicks, and conversions that they generate, enabling you to see what’s working and what’s not.
• Increased traffic and conversions: Display ads are very good ad generating clicks and conversions that lead to more revenue for your business.

Factors that impact the effectiveness of your digital advertising strategy

The effectiveness of your display advertising strategy is rooted in the way that you run your campaigns. Here are some of the most important factors to be aware of when planning your ad strategy:

• Ad placement and targeting: When your ads are targeted to your ideal audience — and when they’re displayed on the best websites for reaching that audience — they become far more effective.
• Ad creative quality: Ads with strong visuals and engaging copy will be more effective at reaching users, whereas ads with weaker visuals and copy will be ignored.
• Ad frequency: The more frequently your ads are displayed, the more users they’ll reach, and the more they’ll reinforce recognition of your brand in those users’ minds.
• Landing page experience: It’s not just the initial ad that matters — it’s also the landing page it leads to, since that’s where users convert. A poorly optimized landing page won’t drive results.
• Bidding optimization: Allocating your budget is a huge part of a paid advertising campaign. If you don’t spend wisely, you’ll blow money on the wrong things and fail to achieve a high ROI.

The most effective display advertising: Retargeting

Retargeting is the process of examining what your visitors looked at on your website and serving them display ads based on their Internet history.

This is significantly more effective in terms of viewership, with 53% more views than regular display ads.

On top of that, retargeted users are 70% more likely to convert into customers. So you have a 53% larger viewership with a 70% better chance to convert — that means much more revenue for your company just from one marketing source! The result is a much higher display advertising ROI.

You can retarget your site’s previous visitors based on lots of different criteria.

If you’re an ecommerce store, you can retarget users based on their behavior on your site. So if you sell shoes and someone was looking at pairs of Reebok men’s running shoes, you can serve them additional display ads about shoes from the same brand and in the same size.

Similarly, if you’re a B2B company, you can serve ads to users who came to your conversion pages but didn’t convert. That way, you can reclaim lost traffic and potential leads based on what your users want to see from your site.

In general, there’s no set limit to how you can target your audience. Even if someone comes to your homepage for a few minutes and leaves again, you can still try to re-attract them based on your brand name and industry.

That’s the magic of display advertising — you can reach practically any customer for the price of a few cents and the time it takes to create the ad.

All in all, it’s no wonder why some people see a display advertising ROI of 486%.

Will your business be the next to experience that kind of incredible return?

But there’s one big catch — if you want to get the most for your dollar, you need to get around ad blockers.

Display advertising with ad blockers

Ad blockers are programs that consumers use to get rid of display and video ads.

When they were first created, they caused a big stir in the marketing community. In a nutshell, companies were paying for ads that never got served to their target markets.

That’s a huge problem for any company. Fortunately, there are a few ways around it.

We’ve written about ad blockers before. You can easily find out if your audience uses ad blockers, and you can also determine if blocked ads count toward your overall PPC bill.

With both of those resources, you can figure out a way to reach the majority of your audience without worrying about who uses ad blockers. That means you can still get a strong ROI from all of your campaigns — maybe even 486%!

Regardless of what you end up earning though, it’s important that you work out the ad blocker issue before launching your first display ad campaign. That way, you can be sure you’re reaching the largest audience and earning the most customers with every ad you launch.

All you have to do is start a display advertising campaign today!

WebFX is a display advertising agency

At WebFX, we have a talented team of marketing experts who have worked with display advertising for years. They know the best ways to get qualified traffic for your business and how to turn that traffic into customers.

Do you want to earn more revenue for your company?

Contact us today to create a display advertising strategy for your business!