Build your brand and reach the right audience
When it comes to reaching the right audience at the right time, Google Display advertising is a game changer. With access to over 1 billion active users, powerful targeting options and data signals, Google’s display network has taken mass advertising to new heights, allowing businesses to reach potential customers (and increase brand awareness) where they’re already spending their time – on the websites and apps they love. Plus, with advanced measurement and reporting tools, we can easily track an ad’s performance and optimise for maximum ROI. If you’re thinking, yeah but how’s this going to tangibly help my business – what is one of the major benefits of display ads? We’d say well, there’s not only one main benefit, but three – so let’s dive into the three core benefits of Google Display Ads and how it can help take your business and brand/s to the next level.
“I highly recommend Conversion Marketing for any business that wants to do digital marketing better.”
MICHAEL PEARCE | SHADE7
Cost effectively show your brand to as many people as possible
Harnessing the power of the Google Display Network (GDN), display ads can cost-effectively show your brand to a huge audience. It allows you to place image, text and video ads on millions of websites across the web, including Youtube and Gmail as well as Google’s bigger Display Network Partners such as Trade Me, Stuff, NZ Herald and Metservice, giving you access to a massive pool of potential customers.
We then help narrow this pool down using demographic and/or interest/intent-based targeting highly relevant to your brand whilst powerful machine learning technology leverages data signals (analysing 70 million signals within 100 milliseconds) to ensure you reach the right potential customers. We can target by gender, age, interests, topics, life events, specific placements, keywords and more. Hence why Google Displays Ads are fantastic for building brand awareness and should be a key contender as part of your ‘top of the funnel’ marketing strategy – complimenting an effective campaign targeting the ‘lower hanging fruit’ via Google Search Ads
Stay top of mind with those who have visited your site but haven’t converted
Not only is display advertising on Google Ads great for brand awareness and prospecting, but also for continuing the conversation with those who have visited your website – with and/or without converting depending on your business model, strategy and ad creative.
You may have heard of the phrase ‘remarketing’ – a marketing term with a sole purpose of making your brand unforgettable (in a non-annoying way!). People often refer to it as ‘stalking’, but if you’re wondering how remarketing works exactly, it isn’t really like that and does have a true place in the marketing mix for a reason. Say you’re an e-commerce business specialising in clothing and want to continue advertising only to those site visitors who didn’t make a purchase. A Google Display Ad campaign can be set up to do just that, within the parameters you choose such as frequency (how often a person can see your ad and how long after visiting your website you’d like them to be remarketed to) and by placement if required.
Reach as many relevant people as possible within your budget
If you’re deciding which channel will suit your brand best for mass advertising reach, it’s not so much about which is the better option (think TV, radio, billboards versus Google Display Advertising), it’s about which one offers more control and transparency and how important that is to your business. Like with paid search services such as Google Search Ads, Google Display Ads are fully transparent and all measurable, meaning you can directly see the return on investment for a particular campaign. Not only in terms of sales or leads, but also how many people saw the ad, how much money it cost for 1000 people to view your ad, how many site visitors came in from the ad and the subsequent actions taken. Best of all, you’ll only pay when someone clicks on your ad or by how much you want to pay for someone to view your ad.
How do Google Display ads work and how will they add value to your business?
So we’ve explained the core benefits of Google Display Ads – the ‘why’, but now let’s understand the ‘how’ – how they work and how they’ll add true value to your brand or business.
How do Google Display ads work?
What are Remarketing ads?
What is the right strategy for your business - display or remarketing?
Complement your Google Display Ads with Performance Max
How do Google Display ads work?
The Google Display Network is a group of over 3 million websites, 650,000 apps and other Google properties such as Youtube and Gmail where your ads can show. Unlike Google Search ads (where ads show up after a potential customer shows intent to engage with your product/service by typing a relevant search query or keyword into the Google search engine), Google Display ads are image, text or video ads that show up as people simply browse the web – reading the news, checking the weather, watching a video, playing an app game, shopping online… you name the site or app, and it’s likely in Google’s network. In fact, this network is so large, it can reach more than 90% of internet users around the world! Because of this, it’s likely your ads will be shown to those who haven’t heard about your brand or who haven’t actively searched for what you sell/provide – and this is a good thing. One of the key reasons businesses use display ads is to increase brand awareness and reach new audiences rather than relying on intent based searches alone.
So with this in mind, you’re probably thinking okay but I don’t want to talk to everyone, I want my ads to be relevant to the end user. And that’s where machine learning comes in – and subsequently the value to your business. Google uses 70 million data signals within 100 milliseconds in order to determine whether an ad will be the right fit for someone – it looks at demographics such as age, gender, income and parental status, the area you live in, recent Google searches showing intent or being in-market for something, video views, app downloads, whether someone is more likely to buy high end brands over mid-low end ones given their past purchases (or vice versa), whether they’re a movie buff, a frequent traveler, a foodie, corporate decision maker, technophile, shopaholic and more.
All of the above features can be narrowed down through certain targeting criteria to further feed the algorithm and to reach your ideal audience. This means your ad can show up on related websites to your brand/business, or to users who match the details you’ve specified.
In terms of the ads themselves, you can provide the creative assets yourself (in a format such as HTML5) or use Google’s responsive ad builder. Responsive ads are preferred by Google as they are asset based and can therefore be made into ads with countless configurations. By simply providing the platform with a series of images, logos, videos (if you have them), headlines and descriptions, Google will combine these into great looking ads which are continuously optimised for performance i.e. it will figure out which combination works the best for your campaign!
What are Remarketing ads?
Remarketing (otherwise known as retargeting) is a strategy used to continue the conversation with your website visitors – either at a brand level or product/service level by deploying image, text or video ads via a Google Display campaign. Depending on your business model and marketing strategy, it can be used in different ways in order to increase conversions, to keep your brand top of mind (or both).
For example, say you’re an online clothing business wanting to increase e-commerce sales. You may choose a remarketing strategy whereby any site visitors who do not make a purchase are shown ads with a discount or free shipping code (or similar enticing offer) for the next 30 days. Alternatively for a service based business or more expensive/high involvement products and services such as a building company wanting to increase brand consideration, keeping your brand top of mind may be more important. You may choose to show ads to any site visitors within a certain period of time to keep consideration high, especially if ‘shopping around’ or a longer decision making period is common in your industry.
What is the right strategy for your business - display or remarketing?
Given Google provides us with the ability to build a fully customisable display campaign, it’s not about only doing one or the other, it’s about understanding which will benefit your business and why. This is something we would determine with you during our on-boarding process! Don’t forget remarketing is just a targeting tool within Google Display Advertising, alongside demographic targeting, interest based targeting and in-market or intent based targeting. They all serve their purpose in different ways to achieve your marketing objectives – and given we’re a Google display advertising agency that focuses on providing custom solutions – we’ll work with you, and empower you with the skills, data and insights to make better marketing decisions. If you’re ready to take the next step, talk to our digital marketing specialists today!
Complement your Google Display Ads with Performance Max
Performance Max is Google’s new “all-in-one” campaign type, it shows ads on Google Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, and Discover Feed placements and has also replaced Google Shopping campaigns altogether.
The pros are that it’s able to leverage machine learning to find new audiences and figure out the best split of channels (adding more people to your sales funnel as it’s targeting different stages), as well as using more targeted creative (tests different combinations of headlines, descriptions, images, videos and more), to get the most conversions possible. The potential downside is that we don’t have as much control over it as with other campaign types (such as a Display Campaign), and it requires good conversion tracking and (depending on the industry) much higher budgets. However we have seen some impressive results from the format so please get in touch if you are interested in seeing how this campaign type can add further value to your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who do I pay?
You pay Google directly from a credit card connected to your Google Ads account. If we are assisting you with your Campaigns, you would also pay Conversion Marketing separately to create, optimise, manage, strategise and report on your Campaigns.
Where will my ads show?
Your ads will show across websites, apps (if enabled) and videos which are a part of the Google Display Network as per the targeting criteria we set. This targeting criteria is highly relevant to your business and enhanced by Google’s powerful machine learning / use of data signals.
Who will see my ads?
Your ads will be seen by those who meet the targeting criteria set within your campaign, enhanced by Google’s machine learning technology (data signals).
Are display ads expensive?
Given you control how much you spend, this lies entirely with you. We believe however that with the right budget recommendations, both display and remarketing ads are an a affordable ‘mass reach’ advertising option – if we compare this to placing an ad on the homepage of a news website for example (which can costs thousands of dollars simply for a day), it is actually quite affordable.
What is a data signal?
A data signal is a piece of information that helps Google understand a user’s interests and preferences. This data is collected through various means, such as a user’s browsing behavior or search history. Using these signals, Google can then display more relevant ads to the user based on their interests and behavior.
How often will my ads show?
You can either let Google decide this for you or limit it to 2 impressions (views) per day per user (this is viewed as best practice and is what we would recommend).
Do I have to provide the images for the ads?
Yes that is usually preferred however if you don’t have any you may be able to purchase some relevant images off a site such as Shutterstock. We would highly recommend using your own though or invest in getting some professionally taken (if relevant).
Can I control the content that my ads show next to?
To an extent, yes. When setting up a campaign, there is an option to exclude your ads from content that is labeled a certain way (i.e. G, PG, MA (mature audiences) or content not yet labeled), think violent movie trailers for example that may be labeled MA and which you may not want your brand being associated with. You can also choose to avoid showing on content that is considered sensitive such as tragedy and conflict, sensitive social issues, bad language, sexually suggestive and sensational/shocking. Lastly you can choose to avoid content by type such as live streaming Youtube videos.
Do I have to do display ads and remarketing ads?
No not at all – if you only want to use display advertising to reach new audiences we can do that for you! Whether you should or shouldn’t all depends on your business and overall marketing objectives – something which we will help you understand and determine the best course of action for.
What’s the difference between display and remarketing?
Remarketing is simply a targeting tool within Google Display Advertising, alongside demographic targeting, interest based targeting and in-market or intent based targeting. Remarketing is used to talk to users who have visited your site in order to entice them back to make a conversion or to keep your brand top of mind as users browse the web. Other types of display advertising are great for talking to ‘colder’ audiences who may not know about your brand/business in order to find new audiences, increase brand awareness, increase website traffic and therefore encourage conversions.
Can I use videos in a display or remarketing campaign?
Yes you can. It’s not a requirement but the more high quality assets you provide, often the better the outcomes will be. Videos can now also be made using a template within the Google Ads platform itself (which compiles images and text into a video format), please speak with us if you would like us to do this for you.
“Friendly, personal and know what they’re doing – you can’t ask for more than that. Jill and the CM team have been amazing.”
“I have done three courses with Conversion Marketing. These have helped me a lot getting my business back on its feet.
I found the content taught highly relevant, accessible and applicable. Through one of the ‘Google Ads’ courses, I was able to generate a sale which was the best outcome I could ask for.”
“Professional, expert and honest. It’s been a fabulous experience working with Monique. She takes the time to understand our needs and provides solutions tailored to Work! Big thank you.”
“Thanks Ellen for the virtual meeting on Friday. You make something that I find very boring more easy to understand. Your passion and knowledge through research of our products is refreshing and has enabled me to confidently trust your advice on our direction moving forward.”
“Excellent knowledgeable team who provided experts in each area of training and valuable insights into our business.”
“I’ve been working with conversion marketing for around half a year now. I’ve been so impressed with the quality of service that they provide. We have had Blair looking after us and he has made it such a good experience. I highly recommend Conversion Marketing for any business that wants to do digital marketing better.”
“I’m really thrilled with the results Jill, Jamie, Jono and the team @ Conversion Marketing have achieved for Uno Furniture since taking over our Digital Marketing.
Not only do they really know their trade, they are also great at keeping us informed and involved in any strategic changes as well as taking a clever approach to implementing changes. Thanks a million.”
Where to from here?
Whether you want to optimise your current digital strategy or looking for “outside of the box” ideas, we can advise you about the fastest and most cost effective way to grow your business.
Get in touch by calling us on 0800 2666 245 or feel free to fill in our form and we’ll be in touch with you soon.
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