Search is the king of ROI for online advertising, bar none. You cannot get a better response from other media because nothing is as relevant as a well written advertisement placed exactly WHERE and WHEN somebody is looking for what you offer. Perhaps that is why Google has a market cap of $174,050,000,000….

However, for many industries, people simply aren’t searching for their products and services because:

  1. They don’t know they exist
  2. They don’t have an active need for the offering
  3. They already know who they would like to do business with
  4. They are indifferent to who is providing the service
  5. They don’t anticipate that research via online will offer them any more insight  

Take for example Toilet Paper. I have never in my life felt compelled to search for Toilet Paper with the intent of researching it or buying it. I don’t read articles about toilet paper that would have Google contextual ads. Yet, our household consumes roll after roll. If I were advising Charmin on how to sell more toilet paper via the web, search would be a very minor part of the strategy.

So what other options are there? Social Media, E-mail, Video, etc… all valid. Yet for many marketing problems, good old banner advertising is the perfect solution. We don’t call it banner advertising any more of course… just like how billboards, bus benches, mall advertising and other print media can be called Display, most forms of online banners, skyscrapers, square ads etc can be referred to as Online Display Advertising.

If you measure display advertising simply by cost per click or cost per conversion, you may be missing some of the fundamental goals of a display campaign:

  • Branding
  • Awareness
  • Messaging

Impressions have ivalue/i that isn’t directly measurable as well as the very tight conversion funnel of search. They reinforce a message that can change the mind of a prospect without them necessarily ever clicking on the ad. In many cases I find myself seeing a display ad for an upcoming movie, and rather than clicking on the ad I Google the name of the movie. Search gets the credit there for traffic to that site, but display initiated the search.

In that context, Online Display Advertising can be deployed in a variety of ways to increase business:

  • Earn business from people who are happy with their current provider
  • Educate or inform on a subject that is of interest to the web visitor – something they wouldn’t have thought to search for
  • Build brand recall and awareness for products that can’t be purchased online/liliPromote an event or webinar to a targeted audience
  • In some cases drive a direct response like search – via highly contextual, well placed, well crafted ads

Again if I were helping Charmin, I would suggest they run a display campaign across mommy blogs, celebrity news sites, and use demographic targeting to find other publishers that appeal to age 25-49 women (I know men buy toilet paper too…but men also read Perez Hilton, right?). I would develop a landing page with a coupon offer ($2 off, no strings attached) and create display ads promoting $2 savings on double-ply heaven… then craft search ads with a distinctly similar message. For good measure I would also run the campaign on their Facebook page and use Wildfire to handle the coupon logistics.nbsp; Hey Charmin, if you’re out there, let’s give this a shot, eh?

The bottom line is that consumers spend 95% of their time browsing the web and only 5% searching. Display advertising can be an important first step in the conversion funnel.

I use AdReady for rapid creative prototyping and distribution for display ads. Its a fabulous system that was brilliantly conceived by Aaron Finn. You can check out a recent article from him here. If you want to start experimenting with display ads, you can use my self-serve system at Unleashed.AdReady.com and I’ll give you some free guidance on getting your first campaign started. If this interests you more, fire me back a comment. I’ll share some of my experiences with display campaigns, show how to test color and call-to-action variations, and integrate display with your web analytics- but only if you’re interested!