What Is Google Display Advertising?

Google display advertising is one of a number of ways to advertise in Google Ads. It includes using image ads, banners ads, display ads and videos to promote your products or services to potential customers and clients for your business. So, when people see your ads and click, they are directed to the landing pages that relate to those ads.

 

To get started with Google Display advertising, you’ll need to create a Display campaign in your Google Ads account.

 

And that will allow you to advertise on the Google Display Network (GDN), the largest online advertising network that reaches over 90% of internet users.

 

The GDN has over 2 million websites and apps and you can advertise on any of these placements either automatically or by selecting the ones you want to advertise on.

 

These are the main features to update as you start your Google Display advertising:

 

Google Display Advertising Campaign

 

Whatever your objectives and goals, the campaign setup process will guide you through the creation of your campaign. Here are some important features to consider as you create your campaign:

 

⁃ budget – your budget is the average amount you want to spend each day in your campaign. You’ll need a good budget to be able to achieve your objectives. It’s often hard to know what budget to set for display campaigns because there is no way to do keyword research like Search campaigns. But it’s ok to start with a small budget and then increase it each month as performance improves.

 

⁃ bid strategy – there are at least six bid strategies to choose from and each helps you based on your goal. For a Display campaign I would recommend starting with an automated bid strategy like Maximise Clicks to try and get as many clicks as possible for your budget.

 

⁃ locations – this is about targeting the locations your audiences are in. For example, if you’re interested in people in London, then add that only and not the whole United Kingdom. When you focus on the correct locations, your messages will be more targeted and ads will achieve good conversions.

 

 

Google Display Advertising Adverts

 

In Display campaigns, you can run responsive display ads and uploaded display ads. Adding both allows you to appear on a wider range of websites and apps that your customers are on.

 

However, you can run either of these and it’s not always necessary to run both. But responsive display ads will give you more exposure and will update easily to the placements and devices that your target audiences are on. So, you’ll provide headlines, descriptions, logos, images and even videos if you have them.

 

 

 

But, responsive display ads don’t give you as much control over how your ads appear compared to uploaded display ads. With uploaded ads, you can work with a graphic designer to create them and to reflect your brand the way you like. And you can create them in gif, jpg and png formats.

 

Google Display Advertising Audiences

 

Display campaigns have more audience targeting options than most other campaign types. So, there are many audience types to use and within each there are hundreds or thousands of combinations that you can use and create.

 

Basic demographics – this targeting allows you to reach people based on their age, gender, household income and parental status. This is usually more important for business to consumer (B2C) industries that target end users. When you first setup your campaign, I would recommend targeting all the available demographics unless your products or services are for a particular demographic only, like females. Later, when you have more data, you can adjust your demographic settings and narrow them down to the best performing ones.

 

Detailed demographics – these are more detailed and allow you to target people based on parental status, marital status, education and homeownership status. And you can combine this with other audience types like basic demographics to narrow it further and reach your specific market.

 

Affinity audiences – reach people based on what they are passionate about and their habits and interests. For example, you can reach people based on lifestyle and hobbies like art & theatre aficionados or fashionistas. There are hundreds of affinity audiences and you are sure to find at least one that is relevant for your business.

 

In-market audiences – target people who are actively searching for your products or services online and are ready to purchase. There are hundreds of in-market audiences to choose from and you’re likely to find at least one that is relevant for your business. An example is targeting people who are looking for specific jobs in accountancy, education, healthcare and many others.

 

Life events – this covers areas of great change for many prospects like creating a new business, marriage, purchasing a home, retirement and others. For example, an accountancy practice can target people who’ve recently started a new business.

 

Placements – placements are specific websites and apps that you choose to advertise on. This can be very effective because you can look for sites that closely match what you do and place your ads there to target people that are relevant to your business.

 

Keywords – you can also add keywords in display campaigns like you would in a Search campaign. However, you are not bidding on them but are letting the system know which websites and placements are relevant for you based on the keywords. So, it will automatically find sites that relate to your keywords and place your ads there.

 

Remarketing – Remarketing allows you to reach people who have been on your website before and looked at your products or services but did not convert. So, you can retarget them as they browse third-party websites across the Google Display network, with your responsive display ads and image ads.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Google display advertising is one of the most effective ways to advertise your business online. As described above, there are many ways to advertise through Google Display advertising and you can do so in the Display network. It’s also an affordable way to advertise and you’ll often see that the average cost per click (CPC) is much lower than your Search campaigns. And you can do a lot of testing until you reach a good ROI.

 

Get in Touch

 

As a Google Ads consultant, I have many pears experience setting up and managing Google Display advertising campaigns. Reach out to me below to discuss your campaigns and to find out how I can help.