Digital advertising encompasses all existing electronic media advertising channels that are available via the Internet. The most popular platforms are social media sites, email, search engines and websites. This approach doesn’t just target potential customers it also connects with existing customers as well to maintain connections and brand recognition. 

What is display advertising? 

Display advertising is a visual medium that uses text, image and video to advertise products and services and encourages the viewer on the online platform to click through to their product page. 

Display advertising for small businesses can seem daunting from an outside perspective. You may think it requires teams of people and years of marketing experience to achieve success. Happily, this is not the case and it is quite achievable for you as a small business to advertise on display networks at a fraction of the cost it would take in traditional media. Display advertising is a booming industry and spending on this advertising strategy is estimated to be at nearly 50 billion USD. Read on to find out more about these fantastic platforms and how they can help your small business. 

What is a display advertising network? 

Put simply, a display advertising network is a business that contains a large hub of networks that you can display your custom ads on. Think Google AdSense, Facebook (and Instagram is tied in with Facebook), Apple Advertising, Adknowledge to name but a few.

Your campaign on a display advertising business network is tailored according to your specifications and budget. That’s what makes display advertising so appealing to many small businesses. The interfaces on these advertising networks are designed to be simple and easily understood once you get started. With a little bit of know-how, you can become a whiz at creating online campaigns for your business. Using these networks gives you access to awareness of your brand that is unparalleled online. Not to mention that using display ads gives you a far greater ROI than traditional advertising ever could. It's not just targeted to people who are using their laptops, your display ads can be targeted to anyone, where who is on the move and is using an electronic device. And these days that includes just about everyone. 

What are the benefits to small businesses using display advertising? 

Display ads are visually appealing by design 

Display ads are designed to be eye-catching and distract your readers from what they are scrolling through. Many online platforms can help you create your advertisement without knowing the in’s and outs of creative software such as Photoshop and the rest. You can start by creating a Local Campaign geo-targeted to the area in which your business resides. Google AdSense, Facebook and Instagram offer this paid advertising within their platforms. They will pop up as dark posts or banners on the relevant platforms.  If you prefer something a bit more eye-catching many providers can provide you with many formats and options for a banner or static image at a price that will suit you. (insert a link to group). The point of the display advertising business is convenience to the consumer and yourself, the business owner. Gone are the days when you needed to canvas a wide area to target a small part of your demographic. You can create visually appealing and demographically targeted ads that catch the eye and take users straight to your website or product. Keep in mind that the most successful ad creatives contain media that is mobile phone friendly. 

Display ads create fantastic brand recall

While click-through rates are one of the most cited statistics when it comes to the success of your campaign, it doesn’t always tell the full story. Regardless of whether a consumer has clicked on your ad and purchased, they still will have seen your banner or dark post. This means you have awareness. It is extremely important to build awareness of your brand regardless of the immediate success of your brand. You may find that your customers may search for your product after your promotion is over because they remember seeing your display advertisement. This type of brand recall is beyond valuable as you are now part of your potential customer’s lexicon. You can also see the number of times someone has viewed your ad and set a minimum of times you want a user to see your ad.

Gives you valuable insight into your demographics and where you need to improve 

Unless your small business already has a system in place where they ask where you were referred to your business, it can be difficult to know how they found you. Your display ad network has you covered with their fantastic reporting analytics that is easy to read. Google AdSense in particular has free online tutorials to guide you through exactly how to make sense of your results and how to build upon the success of your recent campaign. There are many online articles and groups that are responsive to your questions and queries. The statistics will also show you what the core demographic is for your business if you are unsure. If you want to start refocusing your display ads on a wider range of ages or other demographics, no problem. 

Remarketing is available

After your initial campaign of display ads has run, that doesn’t have to be the end of your advertising. Remarketing is an extremely effective strategy to capitalise on your growing awareness of your business. With the click of a few buttons, you can implement your remarketing strategy to further gain brand recall. As you can see your target audience will know more about your business in a 7-day campaign with another 7-10 days of remarketing than they would in 7-10 years of traditional advertising for your small business. Video ads usually have the highest potential numbers for remarketing as your audience numbers will be higher. The larger the audience the more successful your remarketing campaign will be. 

Display ads are extremely cost-effective

Display ads are very effective at making your dollar stretch further. This is mainly because the charging structure is quite reasonable. You pay for Cost Per Click (CPC) and a small reasonable amount for the ‘bid’ to run your ad. It can be as low as $2 per day depending on industry, demographic and location as opposed to the traditional media structure when you simply paid a large amount for the advertisement to run. You may expect to pay around $100 all up for your initial campaign. You can also save money by having your ads run only during business hours, run short bursts of campaigns on display advertising rather than a long continuous campaign. This is called day planning.  Also on many display advertising networks, you can input how much you would like to spend per day and your reach will be calculated from that. Platforms such as Facebook have this handy feature. 

Display ads are a great starting point to learn the world of online marketing 

Display ads are a fantastic way to start your journey into online advertising. There are many ways you can dip your toe in and see how it is very advantageous for your business. It is a lot of fun exploring the demographics and audiences that view your ad and give you insights into your business that you never would have otherwise. 

I’m a small business, what’s the best display advertising network for me? 

For a small business, using the massive network that Google Adsense has will give you the best ROI. It is estimated that Google has over 90% of the market share and counting. If you are a relative newcomer to advertising online there is some small housekeeping you will need to do before you start using AdSense. However, it will also depend on what your business is and if you want a more targeted approach. If so, then Facebook may be better for your campaign.  

Creating your online presence

Some online presence will be required to make sure your ads are successful. It would be a great idea to have a Google Business Profile. It’s free and it gives you an online presence organically. It is recommended that you have a website as well. You don’t have to have a state of the art website. However, a well-maintained website, with great pictures, a security certificate and a clear framework are best.  And ensure that it is optimised to be mobile-friendly as a large part of today’s users are using their phones. The are many providers that can help you, at a reasonable price. (insert a link to the relevant page or provider page). 

Why do I need an online presence?

The reason for creating your online presence is that if Google can see your online presence it is likely to rank your business higher in your quality score which will affect your ad ranking. When implementing the structure of your site make sure you employ good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies (link to the relevant page or group) and also think about creating an SEO engineered blog with articles that have the most relevant keywords. Many services can do this for you if you do not wish to write the articles yourself (link relevant page or group). 

Are there any drawbacks to display advertising?

No advertising method is without any drawbacks, there are pluses and minuses to all. Here are some of the drawbacks to display advertising as a strategy. 

• Display ads have historically a lower click-through rate than other forms of online advertising. 
• consumers may experience ‘ad fatigue’ from seeing so many advertisements. However, you cannot beat display advertising for letting people know who you are. It is a good idea to employ the services of a trained marketing agency or freelancer (link here) to create compelling copy and images that capture the attention of the reader. 
• ad blocker software can stop some advertisements.

I want to start a display advertising campaign, what should I do now?

The first step is to quickly evaluate your online presence. If you don’t already have one, now is the time. -Develop a landing page or website. This can be done through many services online or you can hire an expert to build you a simple website

• When you have these it’s easy to create your Google AdSense account.
•  You will also need pages on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and so on. Make sure you create a professional page to have access to their ad services.  If you want to do this yourself and not have any outside help, there are many free tutorials available to learn how to create a display campaign. However, there are many experts you can turn to who can run your campaigns for you.
• Then you are in the driver’s seat! You can determine how big or small your campaign is, demographics and how long you’d like it to run for.