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Steps To Improve Performance of Your Display Ad Campaign

Publish Your Ad on Web Pages with Specific Content

When a user is browsing a website with specific content, it indicates that he or she has a high level of interest in that particular subject. For example, if a viewer is browsing websites about hotels and hotel rates, he or she is more likely to be looking to book a hotel room. Serving a related ad to users exactly when he or she is showing interest in the product will result in more conversions and sales.

Less Equals to More and Vise Versa

Larger banners have high visibility and grab the viewer’s attention, increasing the chances for a click or conversion after they see the ad. However, your message should be simple and effective. The aim is to attract the viewer’s attention and convey your message without confusion or losing attention.

Consider the Format

The most common display ad formats are banners and ad boxes on web pages of relevant content. While these are effective, if your brand has a more complicated message like the introduction of a new product or service or even a change of image, consider other formats such as interstitial, gateway, and over the page ads, which allow for narratives. Interstitial ads serve between pages as a full page ad, which times out after a specified duration before showing the website. Over-the-page ads automatically expand downward pushing the site content down with it. The ad unit then auto collapses into an ad on the page that can be expanded by viewers for additional information. The peelback ad acts as an over-the-page floater on the top right corner in a collapsed state and on interaction unfolds to reveal the full ad content. Today’s online market is filled with animated and content rich display ads because viewers have become more demanding and consumer savvy. These various ads not only grab attention because of the presence of motion, interactivity and narratives but enable advertisers more creative freedom.

Optimization

Optimization lets advertisers know which display ad is preferred by the viewers based on their actions with the ad. The results of each version of the ad are constantly compared and the most effective option is served more. Effectiveness is dependent on the viewer’s response so display ads that are more likely to be clicked on or interacted with are served frequently. This leaves no room for guesswork and no time is wasted during the campaign as even the slightest differences in two ads can generate varied levels of activity or interest.

Retarget Your Viewers

At the first and second exposure to your display ad, viewers are typically in the awareness phase so it’s only after a few more ad views that they become favorable to your product and would have the intent to purchase or make a purchase. If your ads aren’t displayed frequently enough, your viewers will still remain at the first stage, yet over exposure could result in an annoyed viewer.

Online users have highly unpredictable browsing patterns that change constantly, so merely increasing frequency of your ads wouldn’t solve anything. Research shows that users are more likely to click on an ad that they have seen previously and that an average 61% of viewers receive only one exposure over a campaign’s lifetime, but a majority of 82% of viewers received three impressions or less (MediaMind Research Standard Banners - Non-Standard Results).

This is where retargeting comes in handy. Retargeting is a technique that serves your display ad only to those viewers who are underexposed, ensuring that they have the chance to move forward to the next favorable stage and are more likely to convert or purchase.

Be Useful

Provide your viewer a reason to interact with your ad. Interaction with your display ad means they are interacting with your brand and developing a favorable attitude towards it.

A recent study showed that viewers valued incentives the most appealing factor when it comes to engaging with an online ad.

Aim with Psychological Mechanisms

Your objective of the ad campaign can be achievable with the help of psychological mechanisms. For example, sales might be the objective of the ad and the mechanism could be one of the following.

Reminder: This mechanism works well for a well established brand. The ad’s main function is to get the consumer to think of and reach for the brand on their next purchase.


Reinforcement: This works well when the consumer has some level of familiarity with the brand. Take this Kaya Skin Clinic ad as an example. The goal of this ad is to strengthen the brand promise of beauty and healthy skin. The simple iconic imagery of the attractive face and brand mark are an effective way to reinforce this perception.


Reposition: Sometimes brands change their image, logo or slogan. They can achieve this new image successfully with a display ad that is brand persistent, yet conveys the new image or slogan in a way that connects it to the old image.



Introduce: When introducing a new product, brand presence and an effective message are important. If the message is more complicated, consider using higher visibility ad formats with interactivity.

Direct Response: For products sold online, direct response ads can be very profitable since this type of ad is used to generate leads, sell, etc. It involves a call-to-action and clear benefit.

Be Brand Persistent

Brand persistence is the most important factor of a successful display ad. It ensures awareness of the brand at a minimum and at the most, your ad will ensure the key visual message of the brand is absorbed and linked to in the future.