When you’re looking to publicize your company to your target audience, you probably wish there was a way to scream digitally from the rooftops and display big banners across the city, right? I mean, to get your business moving, you need to get attention and get people to expose your brand.

Well, before you invest in airships, posters, and inks, there is good news! There are ways to give your business the visual exposure it needs without painting the city red! Know the image ads!

Think of image ads as your digital version of an online billboard!

With the visual and targeting features of the image ad, they offer many benefits for businesses, especially if you want to improve your visibility and brand awareness!

So, if you’re wondering if image ads are for you, if you need a new form of marketing, or if you’re new to digital marketing, this article is for you! Together, we’ll cover the fundamentals of image ads, how they can benefit your business, and whether they make sense for your marketing plans!

The Google Display Network and Image Ads

The Google Display Network is intended to help you find the right public. Your targeting options allow you to strategically show your content to potential customers, in the right place at the right time.

That said, it’s good to know that Google Ads is divided into two networks: the search network and the display network. When advertising on the search network, companies that are advertising are placing ads in search results, such as Google searches.

On display, however, companies are placing advertisements on a network of sites on the Internet – such as buying advertising space on a digital billboard.

Image ads are most commonly seen as ads at the top or side of a website, surrounding content. If you recently visited an e-commerce site and thought about buying one or two products, you probably saw an image ad for the same product when visiting other sites online.

Image ads are a great chance to engage your potential customers with visually appealing formats, so it’s better to know what types you can show.

Yes, they are higher than only images, so let’s take a look:

Text ads – Text ads are shown are the same as those on the search network. Text ads consist of a headline and two lines of text and allow advertisers to create a variety of text ads whose copy is generating more clicks.

Image ads – an image ad that fills the entire ad unit on the site where it appears.

Rich Media ads – add interactive elements, animations, or other aspects that exchange depending on who is looking at the ad and how they interact with it. For example, a mobile product carousel.

Video ads – becoming more popular since YouTube is opted into the Display Network. You can now use Google AdWords display advertising to place your ads next to YouTube videos.

While the search network can reach people when they are intentionally looking for something online, image ads can help you get people’s attention and introduce them to products early in the purchase cycle. In other words, you are showing visual ads to people before they start searching for what you offer, which can be critical to your overall advertising strategy.

BONUS: Display ad sizes

There are many sizes of ad units on the Google Display Network, as each site must choose the ad units that best suit its site. In that case, you need to format your ads to appear on multiple sites!

Remember that with Google AdWords show advertising, each image size should be no bigger than 150 KB and can be in GIF, JPG, PNG, SWF, or ZIP setup. Failing to format your ads correctly will prevent them from showing on certain sites!

Why use image ads?

So now that you know the difference in what constitutes an image ad, you may be wondering why you should choose this format above anything else when it comes to your marketing.

Well, for starters, Google estimates that its display network provides coverage for more than 90% of all Internet users, which in itself is reason enough for you to use it. While that number is impressive, image ads do much more than just reach incredible reach, they have incredible targeting options!

Unlike other forms of digital advertising, display advertising is highly targeted. You can use your current email contact list to create an audience of people, and then show these people very specific image ads that remind them to make a purchase or return to your site.

Therefore, display advertising and in-stream video advertising are expected to grow faster than other forms of digital advertising in the future.

Display advertising is important because this is where people spend more and more time, making it an ideal channel for reaching potential customers. If these reasons alone are not enough, check out some of the benefits of image ads:

Low initial cost

Unlike other advertising channels, such as TV or radio, which require large initial investments, it is relatively inexpensive to start running image ads. With just one image and text, you can start running image ad campaigns that will help you drive traffic back to your site.

Super Tracking

As with other forms of digital advertising, display advertising is very traceable. When your ads are live, you’ll know exactly how many times your ad was shown, how many times it was clicked, and you can link these actions to activities on your site, such as shopping.

Brand awareness

The visual component of image ads also benefits your company by facilitating brand recognition. With a PPC ad, users need to read the ad text and click on a landing page to learn about the business and its offer. Since image ads are tagged and styled, usually with an offer, the user can gather information about your brand simply by viewing your image ad, without the need to click.

 Remarketing support

In addition to the standard targeting features, display advertising also allows for remarketing. With remarketing, you can show your ad to people who have already visited your site. This is a way to reach people who have expressed interest in your company and who may still be considering your company.

7 reasons why image ads are right for you

Image ads are amazing, right? if you’re excited to try these ads on your marketing line, let’s see if they’re right for you! Next, let’s look at some questions you should ask yourself before you start:

1.     Do you have an attractive product?

First of all, you need to ask yourself: is my product attractive? Since image ads are ideal for people who have products that attract attention, you need to ask yourself if your product can make someone stop and roll.

With banner blindness becoming a common response to digital ads on websites and more, you must have visuals that are attractive enough to make people stop scrolling!

 

2.     Have you been involved with ads before?

Although image ads are digital ads that we are very familiar with, they are not the best ones to start from scratch. These are not ads to be recommended for novice digital advertisers, as they are often more complicated to set up and measure than other types of ads.

If you want your image ad to be as effective as possible, you need to take the time to understand all of the different offer delivery alternatives, which include a long list of targeting and creative options.

3.     Are you expecting a quick ROI?

If your boss is breathing on your neck for results, image ads may not be the way to go, especially if your company has not yet believed in the idea of ​​digital ads.

Image ads can drive relevant traffic to your site, yes, but for the most part, they account for just one touch throughout the customer’s buying journey. So, unless you have a detailed attribution model developed, it will be difficult to see a solid ROI from your image ads.

4.     What do you want to accomplish?

Believe it or not, like most things in marketing, if a platform doesn’t match your marketing goals, it may not be a good option. Ultimately, if your company is trying to gain more brand awareness, cultivating leads, or creating them, image ads can be useful for your marketing efforts.

See why display ads specifically help these three marketing goals:

Awareness: Image ads can be a great way to increase brand awareness and create demand for your product. While it is always a best practice to be as specific as possible with targeting, delivery can provide massive reach.

Nutrition: As long as you use smart targeting, the Display Network can also help nurture leads and potential customers in your funnel. Use strategic segmentation like retargeting, lookalike audiences, personalized audiences, or topic if nurturing is your goal.

Lead generation: Display is often a bad way to capture leads or take a specific customer action, such as filling out a form. If lead generation is your goal, target only the most relevant audience and uses CPC bidding instead of CPM.

5.     Where do you want to display it?

Although most of us “hate” the big names on the internet, if you want to show ads, you need to pay for their network.

With image ads, you can’t rely on a third-party ad network that isn’t established! You need to ensure that you are getting traffic from proven partner sites with great ad technology, like Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and LinkedIn. To move the needle, you need qualified leads, and they only come from a relevant audience.

6.     What sector are you in?

While digital advertising formats can work for virtually any company, there are some that work best for display ads, which are commonly e-commerce and b2b.

Because?

Well, in simplicity, Remarketing

Remarketing is a type of display segmentation that advertises a specific product or message to the potential customer who has already expressed interest in that product. For example, let’s say you’ve left some tissues in an online shopping cart, you’re more likely to see ads featuring those tissues!

Display ads using remarketing targeting offer e-commerce marketers a second chance with a customer they know they’re interested in and have a much higher CTR than display ads using more general targeting.

B2B, on the other hand, displays ads to potential customers that you think are in the market to buy your product. While it may be difficult to measure the impact of these ads, they will ensure that your business remains in mind throughout the buyer’s journey.

7.     Do you have incredible video content?

If you have already invested a lot of time and effort in creating amazing video content for your business, why not use it ?!

With the increase in advertising on YouTube, Google has made it easier for marketers to create video ad campaigns, and for good reason! Video ads have proven to be an irresistible way to connect with your target audience. People are more likely to engage with video content than with text or image ads, and with Google’s TrueView option, you only pay for users who show real interest in your video!

Image ads: Try

Now that we’ve let you know some image ads, it’s a good time to think about how your business can best use it to attract new customers or win back previous customers.

Display advertising is a great way to get more people familiar with your business and increase your online presence if that makes sense for your business.

If you need additional help to see if image ads are right for your marketing, contact us here! At Fator, we work with tons of companies with their paid search and we would love to help manage and create campaigns that will help your business thrive online!