Online Display Advertising

Online Display Advertising

Online display advertising continues to grow at a rapid pace. By 2017, Forrester Research anticipates that the online advertising market will reach $28 billion, with 17% annual average growth over the next five years. Online display advertising is growing because it’s working. It offers a unique combination of reach and targeting. Online display has extensive reach, because it enables marketers to serve ads to a select audience no matter where that audience travels on the Web. And it offers precise targeting, because of the availability of data on Internet users.

Online display advertising is all about building brand familiarity with your target audience to ultimately move prospects down your marketing funnel.  For high-level branding campaigns, this may be as simple as encouraging prospects to visit your website. For mid-funnel targets, the ad could offer a white paper in exchange for the target’s contact information. For prospects near the bottom of the funnel, the offer might be a discount promotion on a specific product.
Additionally, marketing professionals encourage integration of banners with other marketing efforts, such as print advertising. But these marketing pros also counsel against simply converting the print ad to banner format. Online display is a specialized medium and can often require its own creative approach – as opposed to shoehorning a print approach into a banner.
Beyond the creation of the banner, a landing page that delivers on the promise of that banner is essential. For instance, if you’re offering a white paper in the banner, make sure that white paper is easy to find and downloadable on the landing page.