It used to be that online display advertising was cumbersome and the return on investment was meager at best. You had to craft an ad, get it into the hands of the publisher, run it, get results – rinse and repeat. Banner ads in particular simply weren’t able to be tested without incurring huge costs and a lack of segmentation and analytics made it difficult for companies to grasp how well (or how poorly) their ads were performing. In short, online display advertising was viewed as an expensive strategy that simply didn’t deliver the kind of returns that PPC could guarantee.
These days, display advertising is starting to pick up momentum again, and it’s coming back in a big way. With A/B split testing, multivariate (Taguchi) testing and a whole host of tracking options, smart businesses are catching on to the wealth of online display advertising opportunities that have the potential to bring them just as much targeted traffic as PPC had in the past. What’s more, ad networks haven’t been content to sit on the sidelines. They’re now fully engaged as an all-in-one platform where the buyer can upload, swap, test, track and report on performance directly online.
With that said, it makes sense to get a deeper understanding of how to make online display advertising work better for you, and one of the best ways to do that is by following these three easy steps.
1. Take steps to constantly improve your ROI – Many networks will allow you to test new creatives by uploading them directly and tracking them live within your administrative area. This means you no longer have to wait to start seeing how well a particular ad performs when presented to a particular target audience. Always be on the lookout for ways you can improve your ad – even the smallest change could yield significant results.
2. Apply what you’ve learned from PPC advertising – Today’s ad networks generally run on the same bidding principles as PPC, meaning you can revise the delivery, presentation and cost right down to the cent. Use what you’ve learned from Google and Yahoo’s search marketing principles when working with online display advertising – you may find that you get a better ROI with less competition than traditional PPC marketing.
3. Look at your competitors – Become intimately aware of what your competition is doing with their ads, or save any ads that stand out to you in a particular way. Build your own “swipe file” of creatives that you can turn to when you’re looking for a new idea or concept to test. Because the ad marketplace changes so quickly, you have more opportunities than ever to learn from others and tailor their approaches to see how well they might fit with your own marketing goals.
By leveraging these strategies when working with online display advertising, you’ll not only be positioning your company in front of the people who are best suited to buy from you, but you’ll be able to test and get results much more rapidly, which in turn gives you greater insight into what your customers truly respond to.
