Author bio: Guest post is provided by the president and co-founder of engage:BDR, Ted Dhanik. Dhanik has worked for big names such as Beyond.com, Xoriant Corporation, Nextag.com, and even Myspace. Ted Dhanik has over fifteen years of experience in marketing, business sales, and business development. Ted Dhanik leads the way in advertising solutions.
Online display advertising has often been compared to offline billboards due to the serious impact it can have on consumers. Online display ads are also similar to television and print ads offline. Display ads are simple and informative ads about products or services. Display ads are embedded into web pages and consist of images and text. These ads aim to sell a specific product while also creating brand recognition.
According to www.emarketer.com, display advertising made up about $5 billion of online advertising in the year 2009. Display advertising differs from search advertising on Google and other search engines, which accounted for 12 billion dollars last year. Search engine advertising only represents 5% of the internet’s page views, which means that 5% of the internet’s page views generate most of the revenue.
There are a few differences between display and search advertising. Search engine marketing is essentially an incredibly direct ad that is aimed at getting the user to purchase something. Display advertising works a little differently. Display ads are meant to not only encourage purchases, but also to promote brand awareness and recognition. Branding online is all about exposing a viewer to an ad, which means that the primary goal is not always whether people click on it or not. Part of display advertising is to influence the user’s future actions. Therefore, even if the viewer doesn’t buy a product right away, the ad is intended to leave an impression about the product or service. This can eventually lead to a purchase down the line.
Research has shown that display advertising has a big impact on the behavior and actions of the viewer, even with low click rates. In a WSI (We Simplify the Internet) paper, it was shown that display campaigns have a powerful effect. One hundred and thirty-nine display campaigns were tracked to see if the amount of clicks has significant meaning. The results were quite impressive. They showed that traffic, sales and branding were all impacted by display ads, even in cases where there were a low number of clicks. The campaigns helped to increase website views by 46% on average, viewers were 27% more likely to purchase the item online, and 17% were more likely to purchase the item in the retail store. Also, viewers were 38% more likely to search for the brand or related brands in a keyword search after being exposed to an ad.
This important research shows that display ads can be extremely beneficial for businesses of all different kinds. While it can be an initial financial investment, it’s often worth it in the long run.