5 Ways to Create a Powerful Display Advertising Campaign

January 25, 2017

3 MIN READ

You are searching Amazon for a particular furniture cleaning product, add it to your shopping cart, but then decide you don’t want to buy it after all. You move onto another website and there you see an ad featuring the very same furniture cleaner you just abandoned. Or, you are reading about RV maintenance before you head out on a road trip, and you see a square ad for camping tents in the righthand column of the webpage. In both cases, what you saw was a display ad.

Google AdWords allows marketers to run ads on both the search network–which are in most cases text-only ads that appear above and below the organic search results–and the display network, which can run on websites across the Internet. What would it take for the ads you saw in the above examples to compel you to click on the ad and visit the retailer’s website?

Today we’re highlighting 5 ways to create a powerful display advertising campaign.

Your ad must be relevant. The key word in display advertising is relevance. Google does not look fondly on ads that are attention-grabbing but completely irrelevant to the product or service being promoted. Your ad should be highly relevant.
Ensure the ad is relevant to the landing page. There’s that word again! If your ad promises a great deal on a variety of camping equipment, but the corresponding landing page is for Coleman coolers, you’ve misled the user. The appropriate landing page for an ad about camping tents is a page about–you guessed it–camping tents! This may seem obvious, but many marketers are penalized in Google AdWords due to a disconnect between their landing page and their ad.
Ensure consistency of design. Your ad should use the same colors and styles as the landing page that it links back to and your brand overall. Whether a user clicks on your display ad or comes to your site from an organic search result, you want them to have a consistent experience. Your branding should then be consistent across all of your marketing elements.
Your ad message should be compelling. Keep in mind that a user who sees your ad will be at a particular stage of their buying journey. Your message should include anything that differentiates your products and services from your competitors, and may also including pricing or promotional information–anything that will guide your prospective customer to make a purchase. Keep in mind that the messaging on your ad should match the messaging on the ad’s landing page.
Your ad design should be striking. Always use high-definition images. Per Google, ads that feature images that are clear and crisp are more likely to stand out to users.