Display Advertising: An excellent option for competitive sectors

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Display advertising doesn’t tend to get much appreciation. It yields lower click through rates and isn’t as targeted as the search network.

I must admit, I thought the same thing. That is, until I considered it for a client of mine.

I recently started a paid campaign in AdWords for a firm of solicitors with specific services. They wanted traditional search network ads to be put in place. Unfortunately, I very soon discovered that the CPCs were far too expensive for their budget, as this market has been saturated with legal firms using it as their own advertising channel. When your target keywords cost between £5 and £30 per click, a low budget just won’t cut it. It wasn’t sustainable or beneficial for them in any way.

Not wanting them to waste so much money, I decided to look into the display network for them, where the average CPC has been around £0.23. Dubious, I gave it a go.

The results were surprising. I got more conversions through the display network than I did with the search network, and far more traffic driven to the site, all for a fraction of the cost. Granted, not all of this traffic was relevant, but it was still good for brand building.

The key to using the display network is choosing specific targeting options and managing it thoroughly and frequently.

Which Sectors Should Consider Display Marketing?

In February, the paid advertising experts at WordStream wrote a blog post aiming to give businesses an industry benchmark should they choose to use paid advertising. The following image from this post shows average cost per click depending on sectors:

As you can see, legal, employment and consumer services are the most expensive sectors on the search network. The most expensive keywords on Google infographic and Search Engine Watch’s top 100 most expensive keywords in the UK research also highlight these sectors as the most expensive in PPC advertising, alongside gambling services, where some keywords can cost up to £144.76 per click!

So, if your business falls into any of these categories and your advertising budget is low, you may benefit from trying to advertise on the Display Network. Indeed, even if you don’t fall into these categories, you may still want to try it our alongside a search network campaign, as it’s so much cheaper.

For certain sectors, some marketers even argue that the display network is more effective than the search network, as you can tailor your ads to be more enticing. Unlike the search network, the display network gives you the option to use a variety of formats:

• Text ads – much like the traditional search network ads
• Images
• Rich media ads – ads with animations such as gifs
• Videos

How to Save Even More Money with Display Advertising

With the search network, people are actively looking for the goods or services that you are serving them an ad for. For example, you know that you want to target people searching for “flower delivery Nottingham”.

The Display Network, however, is more passive in the sense that people are casually browsing websites and will be served your ads. This is where the display network usually receives criticism: it’s not as targeted as the search network. However, with their targeting options, I believe that it can be tailored to reach your target audience and thus achieve the results that you’d like.

You can target the audience to narrow your reach to people who will be interested in your services. This can be done via:

• Keyword Contextual Targeting – Target people based on the content that they consume. According to Google this means that you can serve your ads to them “at the exact moment they’re actively engaged in highly relevant content”. This is one of the targeting options that has yielded the best result with the solicitor campaign that I’ve been running. You can reach people where they are likely to be interested in you or your services. So if someone is browsing a forum about alternative home energy and you happen to sell these services – they may well require your help.
• Placement Targeting – This allows you to serve your ads on specific websites, or even specific pages on websites, that your customers visit. You’ll also need to exclude a LOT of irrelevant websites in order to keep your CTRs at a respectable level. So if there are any industry specific websites and forums that you feel are relevant to your business, and that you think people would be likely to visit were they interested in your services, why not advertise on them?
• Topic Targeting – This option allows you to serve ads to customers who are browsing relevant pages. So for instance, if you sell fitness equipment, it stands to reason that advertising on fitness websites might be a good idea for you.
• Remarketing – By far regarded as the best targeting option, remarketing campaigns have often been found to have very high conversion rates. This is because you are serving your ads to people who have already been on your site, or even on a specific page, but who didn’t make a purchase. Maybe they got distracted? For more information on setting up an effective remarketing campaign, read this guide.
• Interest Categories – This targets people based on their personal interests online. For example, if they’ve visited a lot of travel blogs or flight comparison sites, they’ll be marked as interested in travel.
• Geographic and Language Targeting – Geotargeting helps you to reach people in specific areas, towns, and even postcodes. In this way you can avoid wasting your ads on people in areas who would be more interested in their own local services.
• Demographic Targeting – If your target audience is of a typical age and gender, it’s wise to use demographic targeting in order to reach just them and avoid wasting money on other demographics who simply wouldn’t be interested in your products.

Your Best Bet: Combining Different Targeting Methods

The Display network works best when you combine these targeting methods in order to reach a very specific and highly likely-to-purchase audience.

This has the effect of reducing your campaign’s impressions while increasing your click through rates. It means that you have extremely well targeted ad groups.

Say you’d like to sell lightweight printed trouser for young women going on holiday. You’d use the following criteria:

• Demographic Targeting: women, presumably between 18-35 years old
• Interest Targeting: travel, fashion etc.
• Potentially Geo-Targeting: if you were only able to deliver in a certain area you’d select it to block out unwanted traffic
• Keyword Targeting: with keyword research you could find what terms people are looking for to find these items and target these

These measure would help to target your ads to an audience that would be likely to make a purchase. A word of caution: do not limit your campaigns by trying to be too specific.

Typically, marketers combine placements and topics targeting as it means that you choose websites that your audience are likely to browse, as well as a subject, or multiple subjects, that they are interested in. You can use whichever combination you feel might be effective. Just make sure that you measure the results, as there’s a lot of room to switch tactics.

How to Avoid Losing Money on the Display Network

Use the Ad Builder: Studies have found that on the display network, image ads get far more clicks than text ads. The ad builder is very easy to use, and means that you can create visually pleasing images without requiring the help of a graphic designer.

Exclude Mobile Apps: Showing your ads in games and music apps probably won’t be beneficial to you. Most people accidentally click on the ads to return swiftly to the game. They’re looking to entertain themselves rather than make a purchase or seek B2B services. Avoid wasting money on these accidental clicks.