Online display advertising can be a very effective way to build awareness and generate leads for your business.
Display advertising includes the banner ads that everyone has seen on the web. Display ads come in a variety of sizes and formats. New types of display ads are being developed all the time as people think of creative ways to capture your attention online.
Display advertising can be purchased in many different ways. The most common ways are to directly purchase space on a specific website or to participate in an automated advertising network such as Google AdSense or the Doubleclick advertising network (also owned by Google).
You can also set your own website up to run advertisements from other organizations.
How to Create a Display Advertising Program
If you want to promote your business using display ads, there are a variety of things you will need to do:
- Develop a strategy – display advertising requires somewhat more thinking to get the messaging, target audience, and target venues right.
- Develop a messaging concept that will capture attention and communicate your key marketing messages
- Prepare interesting advertising copy that is well designed and professional looking. Prepare in multiple sizes to more versatility. It is also often helpful to test 2-3 versions to see which one gets the best traction.
- Identify websites and/or advertising networks that will allow you to reach your target audience easily
- Setup accounts and get your ads running
- Measure and monitor performance to make sure you are getting good value for money
Running Display Ads on Your Own Website
Depending on what type of website you have, it may make sense for you to consider running display ads yourself. This can be done either directly by publishing ad space you sell to other companies or it can be done on an automated basis using by publishing ads delivered by an advertising network like Doubleclick. You can also runs ads for affiliate marketers if your site lends itself to pitching products that may be related to your content.
Getting an advertising program going on your site involves some work, such as:
- Identify the number, size, and pricing of ad slots on your website. The number and size of ad slots should be appropriate to the type of site you have and how prominent you want ads to be. Pricing is as much art as science and will require some research of competitors and market going rates.
- Configure your website to display ads. This can be as simple as manually posting the ads, but more powerful solutions involve using embedded javascript code to call ads from an ad network or even your own ad server.
- Obtain some ads to run by selling ad space yourself and/or by setting up an account at an advertising network
- Monitor ad performance in terms of impressions, click thrus, and other metrics. If they aren’t able to measure things themselves, some advertisers may ask you to provide them with periodic reports.
- Review impact of ad slot positioning, timing, and other factors to determine if there are ways to improve performance and generate more revenue
- Make sure you have systems in place to track ads impressions and get paid properly as things progress
How Webdot Marketing Can Help
At Webdot, we have organized and run all types of display advertising programs – both on our own sites and on client sites and as both advertiser and publisher. As a result, we can help you plan and execute a successful display advertising program. Contact us to discuss how we can work together.