Mastering Google’s Display Network
Are you ready to dive into Google’s Display Network and make the most out of your ad spend? We’ll cover some of the top tips and tactics PPC Experts are using to make the most out of their Google Display campaigns. But first, what exactly is the Google Display Network?
Google Ads allows businesses to advertise their products or services across Google’s ever-growing search engine platform, as well as a giant network of sites all across the internet. Google Ads can be broken up into different networks. Mainly that being the Search Network where text ads show up in search engine results, and the Display Network where businesses insert Display Ads onto a network of sites across the internet.
Here is an example of display ads being displayed on a site:
Push & Pull Marketing Strategies For The Display Network
So how does the Display Network actually work? In contrast to the Search Network where people are intentionally searching on Google’s search engine, the Display Network is similar to a more traditional way of advertising where you push your message out.
Imagine renting a giant billboard that hangs over a major highway. Thousands of people will drive by that billboard every single day. Some people will acknowledge it, some may even pursue your services, or the majority will drive right by not even acknowledging your advertisement. Display ads are similar. However, instead of drivers passing a billboard, it’s website visitors seeing your ad throughout their online searches. Most importantly, unlike not being able to control who sees your billboard, the display networks allows advertisers to target their audience.
Now you may be asking yourself, if the majority of viewers will be skimming right by, then why would I ever spend my money on the Display Network? Well, it’s simple, unlike the cost of a billboard and having thousands of people drive by without noticing your advertisement, on Google’s Display network, there is no cost for the number of impressions your ad receives. The only cost that comes to your Display Ad is when web users physically click on your ad, meaning that you are only paying for those who have actually shown interest in your products or services.
In addition, Display ads generally have much lower overall Cost Per Clicks which allows more room for your budget to reach more people.
You can spend hundreds upon thousands of dollars on billboards or newspapers and receive the same amount of impressions as Google Display Ads, however, the biggest difference is that with Google Display Ads, you pay absolutely nothing for impressions.
What are the Experts Saying About Display Ads?
It is easy to understand why Google Display Ads are a great source of advertisement that generates real results at an even better price, but what methods in the Display Network are recommended to ensure actual success from these campaigns? I spoke with a few PPC Experts at LSEO who are deep into Google Ad accounts daily, and we discussed our past experiences with Display campaigns, what works best, and where businesses could get started in Google Display Campaigns.
Our PPC team at LSEO manages Google Ads accounts and helps businesses reach their online marketing goals. Ultimately, our PPC Experts are optimizing accounts 40+ hours a week and have countless experience in Search and Display campaigns across numerous industries. So to sum it all up, they know what they’re talking about!
Here are a few tips that our PPC Experts recommend for advertising on the Display Network.
Tip #1 – Begin With Remarketing
The best place to start your Display campaigns is to target your Remarketing audience. Head of Paid Media Mark Dymond says, “If you want the best chance of return on your Display ad spend, begin with your Remarketing list. They’ve explored your business once, they’ll do it again!”
Your Remarketing audience is simply all those who have visited your website before and have been cookied. When the web visitors are cookied, we are able to follow them around and push our display ads towards them to bring them back to pursuing our services or making a purchase. The expectation here is that these potential customers have shown an interest in our business before so they will most likely return.
Having a Remarketing audience also allows you to make ad copy specific to past visitors, suggesting they return to your site. Overall, experts say they tend to see the lowest Cost Per Conversions come from their Remarketing Display campaigns.
Tip #2 – Utilize Smart Display Campaigns
One of Google’s more recently implemented Display Network options is Smart Display Campaigns. These Smart Display campaigns take into account your Website Remarketing list, your accounts past keyword performance, as well as an overall scrape of your website’s information. Google’s algorithm then uses the information it has collected to specifically target an audience that is most likely to convert.
So you may be asking what are the benefits of using Smart Display campaigns? Why use this style when I can just use Remarketing? Well, the reason is that Smart Display campaigns are able to bring in new customers who have never been cookied on your site. Across several accounts in multiple industries, experts have seen Smart Display campaigns bring in a large number of new clicks to the site at a very low Cost Per Click. These new clicks to the website are then added to our Remarketing list. In addition, experts say that in most cases, Smart Display generates similar Cost Per Conversions as a Remarketing campaign. This is a good Display campaign option for those who are maybe new to Google Ads and are looking to generate as many clicks to their site as possible at a low Cost Per Click.
See the screenshot below of how to set up a Smart Display campaign when you want to create a new campaign in your Google Ads account.
Tip #3 – Look into Managed Placements
Using Managed Placements is the only Display targeting method that actually gives the advertiser majority of control on their ads placements. Instead of Google using its methods to target based on interests and topics, you can choose which sites you would like your ads to appear on.
When beginning this style of Display advertising, the best way to approach it is by first establishing at least 10 websites that relate to the advertiser’s service or product. Begin running your ads to those sites and analyze the overall volume being accumulated. If there is not much volume coming through, begin adding additional sites to target to boost your overall engagement.
Having problems finding domains that relate to your product/service? Try utilizing Google Analytics and analyze your top referral sites.
Tip #4 – Start Small & Adjust Your Budget Accordingly
When setting up your Display campaigns, begin with a comfortable budget to begin your campaign. Different audiences will all see their own unique performance, so it is important to start your new Display campaigns at a comfortable budget, and then based on performance, begin to enhance your budget.
When setting up a budget for the Display campaigns, the size of the audience must be taken into consideration. For your larger audiences, they will need a larger daily budget in order to reach the entire audience without running out of daily spend. There have been some instances at LSEO where clients saw such great success from their Display campaigns, they had to take budget from the search campaigns just to boost the Display campaigns even further!
Mark stated, “When Remarketing campaigns, as well as Display campaigns in general hit their sweet spot, you can just keep feeding it money and continue to see a great return.”
Tip #5 – Never Stop Testing New Ad Variations
Similar to the method our experts recommend for Search campaigns, you must continuously AB test your ad copy and keep working to find the most successful ad copy you can. Display Campaigns offer Image Ads, which allows the advertiser to have control over all creative of the ad and choose which size ads they would prefer to use. In addition, Responsive Display Ads are the second option which requires the advertiser to insert multiple headlines, descriptions, and images so Google can generate multiple ad variations in order to find the top performer. One quick piece of advice here is to remember to match your ad’s headline with the message of the landing page. This will give you the best shot at converting the traffic.
Having fresh ad copy is so important for ensuring that your ads stay relevant and do not face ad fatigue. PPC expert Jack Trapani stated the following, “I recommend that you consistently have 2-3 variations of your ads competing against each other in order to find the top performer. Let those ads compete until they’ve generated enough volume to make a decisive decision on who the winner clearly is.”
To sum it all up, consistently test new variations of your ad copy by making new ads with different headlines, descriptions, and images. Let your creativity run wild and find what message attracts potential customers to your business the most.
Now that you have heard from the experts, it’s time to expand your Google Display campaigns and take advantage of the endless audience available on the Display Network. Need help getting started on the Display Network? Get in touch with one of our PPC experts and get started!