Display ads are the banners and boxes appearing on websites and apps. They are the cheapest impressions available and the easiest budget to waste, because the person seeing one was reading something else.
What display ads are actually doing
Search advertising answers a question somebody asked. Display advertising interrupts somebody who asked nothing.
Consequently the two behave nothing alike, and judging them by the same measure produces bad decisions. Display buys attention, awareness and reach. It rarely buys immediate demand, and expecting it to is the root of most disappointment with the format.
Why the reported results mislead
Two things inflate display ads in almost every report.
The first is view based counting, where somebody who saw an advert and later bought is credited to it, whether or not they noticed. The second is retargeting sitting inside the same campaign, following people who were already going to return.
So separate them. Report retargeting apart from cold display, and look at click based results before view based ones. The picture usually changes considerably.
Where the budget leaks
Four leaks account for most wasted spend, and all four are fixable in an afternoon.
- Placements on apps and low quality sites nobody would choose.
- Adverts served below the fold, which nobody actually saw.
- Automatic expansion into audiences you never picked.
- Frequency with no cap, showing the same advert dozens of times.
Check the placement report in the first week rather than the first quarter. It is usually the most revealing screen in the whole account.
When display ads earn their place
Three situations, and they are narrower than the sales pitch suggests.
Launching something nobody is searching for yet, because there is no demand to capture. Staying visible to a defined audience over a long buying cycle. And retargeting, which is really a different activity wearing the same clothes.
Outside those, a business with unmet demand in search will usually get more from spending the same money there first. That is not a criticism of the format. It is an order of operations, and getting it wrong is the most expensive habit in the channel.
Display ads wait their turn for a reason, and why existing demand gets covered first is the shortest account of it.
Creative matters more for display ads than anywhere
Nobody came looking for your advert, so it has to earn a glance in a fraction of a second.
That means one message rather than four, a size of text readable on a phone, and a picture doing work rather than decorating. Meanwhile a banner containing a paragraph is invisible, however well written the paragraph is.
Refresh the creative regularly. The same image shown repeatedly stops being seen, which is a real effect rather than a marketing story.
Targeting display ads without wasting the budget
Broad targeting is cheap for a reason. Narrower is usually better, even at a higher cost per thousand impressions.
Pick audiences you can describe in a sentence. Exclude existing customers where the advert is aimed at acquisition. Then exclude the placement categories you would not want your brand beside, since brand safety is a business decision rather than a technical setting.
Resist the urge to layer three targeting types on top of each other. Each layer shrinks the audience, and a display campaign with almost nobody in it will spend its budget on the few people it can find, over and over.
Measuring something honest
Click through rates on display are low by nature, and optimising for them tends to produce accidental clicks rather than customers.
Better questions are whether branded search rose while the campaign ran, whether direct traffic rose, and whether total sales moved. Those are blunt and they are harder to fake than an attributed conversion.
Where possible, run the campaign in some areas and not in others, then compare. That is the closest a small budget gets to a real experiment.
How long display ads need before you judge them
Longer than search, and for a plain reason. Search catches somebody at the moment they want the thing. Display plants something they may act on weeks later.
So set the review date when you set the budget. A month is usually the minimum. Anything shorter measures the setup rather than the campaign.
Hold to that date. The temptation to intervene in week two is strong, and every intervention resets whatever you were trying to learn.
Display ads and video
Video sits alongside display and behaves similarly: interruptive, good at reach, poor at immediate response.
The same rules apply. Cap the frequency, exclude poor placements, judge on whether demand rose rather than on attributed conversions, and expect the effect to appear in other channels rather than in this one.
A sensible way to start
Decide what the campaign is for and write it down, because "awareness" is not a measurable goal on its own.
Then set a small budget, one clear audience, capped frequency, an excluded placement list, and a fixed period. Check the placement report weekly for the first month. Display ads reward supervision far more than they reward budget, and an unattended campaign is where the money quietly goes.
One last habit is worth building. Look at your own adverts in the wild, on a phone, on a site you actually read. Seeing what a stranger sees settles arguments about creative faster than any report.
Frequently asked questions
What are display ads good for?
Reach and awareness, particularly when launching something nobody searches for yet, or staying visible over a long buying cycle. They rarely produce immediate demand, and expecting that is the usual cause of disappointment.
Why do my display results look better than they feel?
Because reports usually include view based conversions, crediting people who saw an advert without noticing it, and often mix retargeting into the same campaign. Separate the two and look at click based results first.
Where does the budget usually leak?
Poor app and website placements, adverts served below the fold, automatic expansion into audiences you did not pick, and uncapped frequency. Check the placement report in the first week rather than the first quarter.
Should I optimise for click through rate?
No. Display click rates are low by nature and pushing them up tends to produce accidental clicks. Ask instead whether branded search, direct traffic and total sales moved while the campaign was running.
How tightly should display targeting be set?
Narrow enough to describe in a sentence. Broad targeting is cheap because it is vague. Exclude existing customers when the goal is acquisition, and exclude placement categories you would not want your brand beside.
What makes a good display advert?
One message, text readable on a phone, and an image doing work rather than decorating. Nobody came looking for it, so it has a fraction of a second. A banner containing a paragraph is effectively invisible.
How often should I change the creative?
Regularly. The same image shown repeatedly stops being noticed, which is a genuine effect rather than a marketing story. Rotating creative also stops a capped campaign becoming wallpaper for the people who see it most.
Is video different from display?
Not much, in how it behaves. Both interrupt, both suit reach, and both are poor at immediate response. Cap frequency, exclude weak placements, and expect the effect to appear in other channels rather than in this one.