No matter the product or service you’re trying to sell, online advertising can offer cost-effective solutions for reaching buyers.
Accurate targeting, simplified programmatic buying, and the flexibility to scale and adapt make the digital display ad campaign a must for marketers. Below are the essentials for creating successful online display campaigns that drive measurable engagement and create conversions.
Know your target audience
While this should be the starting point for any marketing campaign, it’s often overlooked as personal preferences take over throughout the decision-making process. Keep your targeting efforts on track by asking the following questions:
- Who are you trying to reach?
- What do you know about them?
- What makes them the same or different from one another?
- What are you offering them?
- Why should they care?
- Where do they consume media?
- What pain points are you solving for them?
- What motivates them?
- What entertains them?
Remember, the ad campaign isn’t designed to reflect your personal taste but to attract and connect with your target audience.
Set specific goals
Whether you’re building brand associations, leading people to a landing page, selling a specific product, launching a new promotion, or growing your subscriber base, you’ll need to determine specific metrics to measure progress toward your goals and help optimize ad performance over time. Consider the following:
- What do you want to accomplish specifically?
- Are you after impressions or clicks?
- What are your budget considerations?
- How will you know it’s working? How will you measure success?
Get attention
Your online display ads are being served not just against other ads but also alongside real-time, engaging thought leadership content like articles and videos. Your ad’s job is to win the battle for attention in that moment. You will never bore someone into buying. No matter what you’re selling, your prospects are still human—they want to be entertained and amused. Animation, emotion, tension, color, and unusual imagery can help your ads stand out from competing ads and other page content, pulling users in to your offer.
Test drive with digital
While traditional paper-based media has its place, digital media offers more options for targeting and the ability to measure and adjust on the fly as needed. Targeting can only deliver so much; your creative must be optimized to elicit the sustainable response rate you need. You can A/B test entire ad units against each other, or test elements like imagery, headers, color palettes, and calls to action so your ads can be refined to continue performing over time.
Targeting can only deliver so much; your creative must be optimized to elicit the sustainable response rate you need.
Create multi-channel connections
More channels means more effectiveness, boosting probable reach and response rates. Multichannel campaigns can deliver maximum return on investment. But low-cost marketing synergies can easily be created when your campaign is integrated into social feeds, conference materials, emails, website headers, and more. Find the right channel mix for your campaign, but also take advantage of the owned media platforms you control to extend the reach and depth of your campaign messaging.