Display advertising (display marketing)
The terms display advertising and display marketing are usually used interchangeably and refer to the general field of graphic-based online advertising. The marketing materials designed here are displayed online in a graphic format (this differs from search engine marketing, which is based solely on text displays).
Banner ads are the best known form of display advertising – they are considered the online equivalent of printed ads. This term covers banners of course, but also conventional advertising media like pop-ups, layer ads, and content ads. These forms of banner ad often contain animation as well as images and text. The other main type of advertising covered within the field of display marketing is video advertising, which resembles traditional commercials on television or at the movie theater.
The measures mentioned above are designed to turn website visitors into conversions – which means convincing potential customers who have already shown a basic interest in the product or brand to commit to a purchase after viewing a banner ad or video. There’s two more parties involved in display advertising: the advertiser and the publisher. The advertiser creates a display ad to arouse interest and attract users to an offer. This material is then sent to the publisher, who displays it on one or even several websites for visitors to see.
In recent years, there’s been a big rise in the inclusion of a third party operating between the advertiser and the publisher, known as an ad network. These ad networks mediate between a number of advertisers and providers of advertising space. An advertiser uploads the marketing material (banner, video, etc.) onto the server of the ad network and enters a maximum price before the start of a campaign. This price is usually calculated as cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, though there are other methods available. Then the ad network makes the ad available to suitable publishers who are well matched – for example ad space (also known as an inventory) on a travel blog for an online travel agent. The basic principle here is to ensure that the ads are screened on other, content-relevant sites. For more background information and strategies, please refer to our in-depth article on display marketing.