Online display advertising – have you tried it yet?

Alison
Head of projects
Friday, April 28, 2023

So you’ve discovered online display advertising and want to understand how it can help boost your brand awareness and sales? Join us as we discuss the ins and outs of online display advertising, including its challenges and how to achieve the highest return on investment (ROI) with the help of AI.

What value does display advertising hold?

Online display advertising helps you reach your target audience in a more focused and effective way, as it has the ability to affect consumers along every stage of the marketing funnel – from awareness and information to the evaluation of its purpose. When used well, online advertising can help build your brand, target your audience, create purchase intent and show real time conversion rates.

What are the challenges surrounding display advertising?

Although beneficial, online display advertising does come with its challenges. The rise of digital advertising has become highly competitive with brand’s advancing their online presence. It’s essential that your ad creative captures attention and clearly conveys your message to the target audience. Working with an agency that has experience in the online advertising industry will ensure your ads are created and backed by insight and know-how, maximising the success of your ads and ROI. Read our case study to find out how we worked with The Good Garage Scheme on a super money saving digital campaign that raised brand awareness and showcased their vehicle services.

Another challenge users experience when faced with digital ads is banner blindess. Banner blindness refers to what happens when there’s an influx of online ads and general content. The amount of ads out there can make it difficult to cut through the noise and get your ad seen by the right audience, at the right time. Understanding how to capture your audience’s attention with your ads and making them as punchy and creative as possible, in both copy and design, is essential if you want to drive results.

Further to this, online display advertising works so well because you’re able to target pre-defined audiences, but if you don’t know who you’re targeting, your message won’t be received or understood, meaning you won’t achieve the desired interest. One way to combat this is to invest into a brand and marketing audit, this provides valuable insight into who your target audience are and their true needs. Our audits equip us with the insight to provide you with strategic marketing recommendations and help get the most ROI for your budget. Find out more about our audits here.

Making online display advertising more effective with AI

The development of technology, specifically AI, over the last few years has had a huge impact on display advertising as we know it.

When it comes to ad personalisation and targeting, thanks to AI, advertising teams have unlocked new levels of consumer insight that can target relevant ads directly to interested audiences. It’s now possible to segment populations into targeted groups to create higher ROI. These groups are selected by machine learning algorithms that recognise patterns in consumer behaviour and determine which messages resonate best with each individual. This has led to 14% of marketers already using AI for customer segmentation today.

As humans, we all have our limits, which is why estimating an ad campaign’s success has been a challenge, until now. AI technology and its predictive analytics have finally made it possible to predict how a campaign will do, providing advertising teams with more insight into what they need to make effective decisions. Based on patterns found in historical data, predictions on a campaign’s future outcomes can be determined and applied. The useful thing about this process is that it allows brands to “test” the efficiency of campaigns before they distribute them. AI’s predictive methods ensure brands can pinpoint which audiences are most likely to be converted by their campaigns, and so far have enabled brands to lift their average conversion rates by more than 22%.

It seems that AI technology is certainly shaping the future of advertising for the better. However we must acknowledge a place for human intervention alongside emerging tools. After all, no-one knows your brand better than the people who market them and use them. A combination of the two is bound to be the best mix.

Having read our take on online display advertising and considering the application of AI, is this something you’d like to try to help boost your brand?

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