• Find what you need in order to start your first display campaign
• Learn which network will work best for you
• Find out how display ads can give you amazing brand recall

What Is Display Advertising?

Display advertising is advertising through digital mediums such as websites, social media platforms or search engines. There is usually a static image or video and text to these advertisements to catch the eye of your desired audience. All of these visual elements are combined to create a ‘call to action’ that makes the potential customer want to know more. The most common way that you will pay for the advertisement is by Cost Per Click (CPC). Another great aspect of display advertising is that the success of one campaign can be followed on with a retargeting strategy after the initial campaign has ended (more on that later). 

However, let’s take a closer look at how costs are calculated and what sort of amount you will shell out through display advertising

How are costs calculated in display advertising?

This article will look at the four main digital power players that offer the best return.  

1. Google 

Google has the best ROI out of any platform. There are many different types of Google display ad campaigns to choose from. These are:

Search Campaigns (the text ads that display on search results on the top of the page), Display Campaigns (image ads on websites), Video Campaigns (ads that play before a YouTube video), Shopping Campaigns (eCommerce product listings shown when clicking on the shopping option on Google), App campaigns, Local Campaigns (promote services on many channels), Smart Campaigns (an automated approach).

As you can see there are many different types of campaigns. Google also determines your cost by your ‘ad rank’. Four main components go into ad ranking. Your bid, the quality of your ad, and the search context and format your ad is in. This process is repeated each time a search occurs on Google. 

Other factors that influence the price of Google Display ads are:

• The industry sector you are in: Google has an average cost per click prices per industry, the highest is for legal and medical industries. But they are still on average quite competitive as the highest cost per click is $5.88 and for health and medical $3.17. 
• The country you wish to advertise to: The larger the demographic in terms of country population the higher the price. This is due to the higher living expenses of for example the US as opposed to other countries. 
• Quality score: This is important as Google will measure the relevancy of your ad and keywords to the quality of the ad and your landing page. Lastly, some keywords are ‘evergreen’ and are always popular. This means that targeting these keywords will cost more and may not give you the position on ranking that you desire. It is a delicate balancing act between what users will search for and what position your ads will be given in search results.  

2. Facebook

If social media marketing is where you want to be, Facebook will give you the best ROI. It has approximately 2.14 billion users using this platform. The average CPC (cost per click) is as little as $1.72. And according to Ad Espresso by Hootsuite the highest CPC is achieved in Australia. 

Much like Google, there isn’t a set price for advertising through the social media giant. The factors that influence the cost of a display are:

• Relevance and Ad Quality: If your ad does not appear relevant to the demographic you are targeting is may be deemed lower quality as a result. Choosing your demographic carefully makes all the difference. This is adjusted by positive or negative reactions to your display ads. Obviously, the higher the positive reactions, your relevance score goes up. 
• Audience Selection: As previously mentioned your demographics selected matter a great deal to your overall costs. If your product is very popular on social media ie Fashion will automatically be more expensive. This is where filters come into play. You may decide to only advertise to a younger demographic to lower the cost and target your average customer. 
• Bidding: With Facebook, you are allowed to set the amount you want to pay, daily, weekly or monthly. Facebook will also count an automatic amount to see what would be the best price. 
• Ad placement: There are two options with placements. Facebook can automatically place the ad wherever it deems there to be the best fit or you can edit your placements so it only appears in the one area on the social media site. Some Government agencies and other more sensitive topics are recommended to do this to avoid any issues with placement. 
• Ad Objective: There are three main pillars that Facebook have as objectives. These are Awareness, Consideration and Conversion. Awareness is usually used for Government or Legal companies, Consideration is more for encouraging App installations and Conversion is usually used for E-commerce. Consideration objectives such as app installation will be more expensive than awareness as it requires more from the consumer in terms of action. 

The main things you need to be mindful of when advertising on Facebook in terms of cost are: custom audiences, rather than broad demographics, great creative in terms of static images, videos and copy and utilising the aforementioned pillars on the Ad’s platform to your advantage. Ie. Awareness, Consideration and Conversion. Video ads are great for retargeting in a complementary campaign later as well!

Instagram

Instagram is a far more visual medium than Google or Facebook. Also, a great aspect of Instagram is that its Ads platform can also be tied into your Facebook ads platform. Your creative will need to be on point in terms of image and video in this medium. 

Its ad’s auction works identical to Facebook (it is owned by Facebook). There is no set cost but is determined by an auction system identical to Facebook’s. You can stipulate the amount you spend daily, weekly or monthly. 

The amount paid for the ad again depends on:

The amount you ‘bid’ per day, weekly or monthly. The estimated response from the users viewing the ad and the quality of the ad and its relevance to users on the platform. Competition does factor into the price as well. For instance, if you are selling health and wellness supplements on the platform and it is a very popular item in terms of click-through, you will have a higher amount to pay. 

Instagram also factors in the month and day of the week in its pricing. It also factors in the time of year. For instance, if you are advertising your e-commerce stores wares at Christmas time you may see a jump of about 0.20c per day. All in all not a huge jump but it’s worth keeping in mind. 

Much like Facebook, the use of custom audiences, looking at the automatic bidding cost and great creatives means a lower cost at the end of the day. 

LinkedIn

This B2B giant has an audience of nearly 700 million users. 

It has a minimum spend of $2 per CPC and other campaign advertisements. This leads to a CPC spend of over $5 per click which can be more expensive than its counterparts. 

There are ways to reduce this cost. LinkedIn’s bidding system works a little differently. You can input your maximum bid strategy, target cost strategy and also use a manual bidding strategy if need be. LinkedIn also does have a relevance score for advertisements much the same as its other social media counterparts. To reduce costs you can select the right bid strategy by having control over your cost per click by choosing a manual bid rather than automatic bidding. Also by setting your target bid is a better financial payoff than relying on automatic bidding with LinkedIn. 

Some advertisers also use a service called Lead Gen Forms which is where most of your company’s pre-filled information is entered and is formatted into an ad. You can save significantly with this nifty little advertisement tool and increase your presence. 

How Can I Set a Realistic Budget?

There is no set price on these platforms that will give you a clear idea right away. It does take time and a lot of experimentation to get a rough idea of exactly what to expect in terms of the financial cost. But these platforms do help you get a great idea of who or what your demographics and keywords for Display Advertising are. When you have nailed that down you can start having a good idea of what is the average cost per campaign will be. It takes some investigating to get an accurate budget down pat but it’s worth it as it is an incredibly cost-effective way to increase your company’s digital presence. 

What Should I Do After a Successful Campaign?

A retargeting campaign is a fantastic way to make use of the success of your Display Advertising and is usually cheaper than the initial promotion. It doesn’t have to stop with your initial campaign and you will likely get more customers. As you can see many platforms have made it very easy to upload your creative and create a digital campaign that will raise your company’s profile at a much lower cost than traditional media.