Over the past decade, the “display ad” has become an after-thought for the savvy Internet marketer. Click through rates are at an all-time low (less than .1%) and there are far too many sites/places to advertise. With budgets becoming extremely limited, the smart choice has been to put your money in search where marketers have known exactly what outcome they could expect from their investments. Before we bury display advertising, however, there is now strong data that supports using display in conjunction with your search campaigns. Let’s look at some of the facts presented by Rajas Moonka, Group Business Product Manager, Google Inc. at last week’s SES Conference in San Jose.
- Display Drives More Search – After seeing display ads, nearly as many users search (27%) as those who click on display ads (31%).
- Display Drives More Traffic – After seeing display ads, website traffic to advertisers websites increased 268%.
- Display Drives Better Conversion - Using display ads, a major financial services firm saw a +38% conversion lift while a major airline saw a +34% online revenue lift.
- Display Drives More Offline Sales – Using display ads, a major food manufacturer saw a lift in offline sales of +52%.
The numbers clearly indicate that we’ve perhaps been too hard on display advertising over the past few years and we should instead reconsider using them in our marketing mixes. When looking at this from another perspective, consider the fact that people’s media habits are changing. We are now consuming less traditional media (goodbye newspapers, radio, tv) and spending a lot more time online (hello Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Google, Flickr). As such, doesn’t it make sense then to refocus your budgets and advertise where your target customers are now going? Of course, search is still an integral part of the mix. A customer often needs to see your brand in many places and from many different types of media (video, banner, social media) in order to put you in their consideration set when they are ready to buy. But give display advertising the “assist”and the credit it deserves in helping you win conversions from search.
The “big three” search engines get it. Yahoo! in particular has been leading the pack offering a search re-targeting service. This service uses search query data to re-target display ads through sites in the Yahoo! network. Google also is making great strides for potential display advertisers helping them build and create display ads easily with their Google Display Ad Builder. Because of search re-targeting’s upside, additional solutions are out there. According to Mark Simon from Online Strategies, “you should familiarize yourself with solutions from companies like Advertising.com and Audience Science” if you are interested in getting into this space.
Display advertising is the oldest form of advertising on the web and perhaps we all may be been just a little too quick to rule it dead???!!!
Tags: banner advertising, display ads, display advertising, online marketing, search engine marketing, SES 2009
