• The Google Display Network has an estimated 95% of market share in search engine advertising
• Facebook can reach up to 35% of the population aged 13 or over
• The top 5 countries with the best advertising reach on Facebook were India, USA, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico. 

It is a truth universally known that if you are advertising digitally you must be in want of a display ad campaign as well as a social media ad campaign.

Display advertising has been around for about 30 years, since the internet became accessible. Social media advertising has been around for about 15 years. Both are extremely powerful and effective for brand recognition, lead generation and sales. 

Let's explore the pros and cons of each strategy and see how implementing both can help put your company on the map. 

As display advertising has been around for a few decades the pros and cons are well known. 

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What are the advantages of display advertising? 

They are visually appealing

There is no doubt about it. Display advertising is fantastic for helping brands get their products or services known by their branding choices. This is very helpful in retail situations where your product will be on the shelves after your customer has seen them on targeted display ads. 

Help build awareness

You want to have your brand or packaging to become instantly recognisable by your customers and the only way to do that is by building awareness. Display ads are perfect for this stage of a campaign. 

With a well planned and designed display ad campaign your product will be associated with whatever you are advertising. That brand recall is priceless. 

Great for retargeting

Display ads are great for retargeting campaigns. You can use your banners to advertise a sale on a product your customer bought previously or to remind your customers who may have clicked off without buying your product.

Either way it's a great asset to your marketing sales funnel. To read more about sales funnels read more here. 

They complement other strategies. 

Display ads are a fantastic asset to a holistic campaign. Just using display ads alone won't get you where you need to go but it will help you build awareness and brand recognition. After this part of the campaign you would be best to move on to search ads and targeted social media ads. 

What are the downsides of display advertising? 

Viewers get banner fatigue

A well documented problem, many viewers of display ads are a little too used to seeing banner ads on the websites they view or in other places. 

This means they can just tune them out and scroll past without even looking at your ad. A way to overcome this is to create video or animated display ads that capture your audience's attention. 

Not as good for sales as other forms of advertising

Display ads aren’t as good as other forms of digital ads for sales, it's true. But if you have a display ad campaign for sales, you are using the wrong strategy. 

Display ads are fantastic for building awareness which is the first cycle of a marketing campaign. It’s much better to use this fantastic tool on the Google Display Network for an awareness campaign than a sales strategy. 

It has a lower CTR

Ah yes, it’s true less people are going to click on a display ad. This is for the reasons stated above and one more. People are wary of online advertising and many people have clicked on banner ads and downloaded viruses (less so these days) but the fear is there. 

But what they are seeing is your brand and your product. Again, as an awareness tool it’s perfect. If you want a higher CTR display advertising is not the way to go. 

Which brings us to social media advertising. 

Let's look at the pros and cons of social media advertising. 

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What are the advantages to social media advertising?

Increased awareness

Your social campaigns bring in added product awareness. You will be building on the awareness you created with your display ad campaigns and your social ads will likely have more information about your product. 

You can now get potential customers to like and follow your product for more sales leads. 

Increased traffic 

Social ads are recognised as having a very high click rate as opposed to other forms of advertising. This largely due to the fact that the ads that you run on social media are highly targeted to interests and demographics. 

Great for SEO rankings

Social ads are a great way to improve your SEO rankings. According to Blue Fountain Media companies that have had paid and organic social media for over a year have improved SEO rankings overall. 

Improved brand loyalty and authority

Having paid social media campaigns gives your company an air of authority that organic alone doesn’t deliver. The more followers you obtain the more likely it is that you are encouraging brand loyalty. You can also give discounts for social media followers to reward people for following your page. 

Cost effective for advertising 

In terms of paid advertising alone, social media advertising is very cost effective. You can reach 1000 people for as little as $5. It’s pretty hard to beat that. There are costs involved with the creation of graphics, copy and community management but from a purely ads dissemination point of view, it’s very cost effective.  

Can gain marketplace insights

You can gain many valuable marketplace insights through statics reporting in your social media advertising. These insights help you become a stronger, more competitive business as a result. 

What are the downsides to social media marketing?

Social media marketing has exploded in recent years and it's showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. You may think there are very few downsides to social media marketing. Let's explore the topic further. 

Time consuming

This is a big downside to social media advertising. You will need a dedicated resource on social media at LEAST three times a week. And that’s not even for paid ads. Your organic strategy must be just as important as your paid ads strategy. 

Organic and paid must work well together to be successful with social media advertising. Your paid strategy will require frequent monitoring and adjustment, particularly in the beginning. 

Slow to get ROI

Social media takes a lot of time to get back what you put in. This is partly because the time you put in is not always equivalent to what you get out. In order to make the most of the time you put in, paid ads are a must. But as I said earlier, your organic strategy matters just as much. 

Bad comments and reviews can tank a business or product 

I'm sure many of us have seen bad reviews or comments on a paid ad’s comment feed and been put off buying from them and sometimes it can go viral for the wrong reason. Social media can result in unfiltered feedback. Your community management strategy goes a long way here. 

Making sure your customers are seen and heard on social media can go a long way to mitigating any bad reviews getting out of control. It’s also a great way to reassure potential customers that should there be an issue, it will be sorted quickly. 

Also keep in mind that community management is important from a legal perspective. Your company is responsible for all the comments on its feed. Anything defamatory or offensive will need to be taken down with the appropriate community management strategy. 

You need quite a lot of know how on social media advertising

Should you be wanting to start a social media strategy you are going to need quite a lot of know how to get it up and running. It’s best to hire someone with paid ads on social media experience and community management experience. 

It takes a lot of time and practice to become skilled at social media and many times business owners rarely have time for it. 

Source: Shutterstock

The Final Verdict

Display advertising and social media advertising can work together to increase awareness traffic and leads. It would be best to create a campaign with 3 stages to use both of these techniques to the best of their ability. 

• First stage will be Awareness in which you would have awareness as your objective and use display ads to show customers your brand and what your products are. 
• Your second stage will have social media advertising and possibly search ads. Your social media won't be able to just rely on paid ads and you must cultivate an organic presence as well. You will be able to increase traffic and leads during this time. 
• The third stage is retargeting which would employ display ads again to their full advantage. You can have the second and third stages running at the same time if you wish to ensure your sales funnel is working at the best it can be. 

If you've decided to start a multi step marketing campaign using display ads and social media ads here's what you need to do. 

1. Decide what you want in your advertisements and what you want to highlight about your product or business. 
2. Decide if you want your campaign run through an agency or go it alone. 
3. Consult a graphic designer or seek one out to get the graphics for the ads and your logos up to date. 
4. Run your ads through the Google Display Network or have a marketing agency do this for you