Display Ads – How Online Advertising is missing revenue

Whenever I’m asked “what type of click-thru-rate do ads on Marketing Pilgrim receive?” my reply often suggests that the inquirer take a look at Google AdWords, if they’re only interested in CTRs. Why? Because, I know that display ads are the perfect platform for increasing brand awareness and trust, but are pretty lousy when it comes to CTR. (Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule)

In case you don’t trust my years of online marketing experience, new research from comScore supports the notion that display ads shouldn’t be measured by their CTR. As avc.com reports, comScore compared 139 display ad campaigns with a control group of ads. The findings?

It’s clear that display advertising, despite a lack of clicks, can have a significant positive impact on:
- Visitation to the advertiser’s Web site (lift of at least 46% over a four week period)
- The likelihood of consumers conducting a search query using the advertiser’s branded terms (a lift of at least 38% over a four week period)
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying the advertised brand online (an average 27% lift in online sales)
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying at the advertiser’s retail store (an average lift of 17%)

In fact, as the chart below demonstrates, display ads provide a 65% lift in site clicks the first week they are seen, and still provide a 45% uplift 4 weeks later! They’re just not that great at immediate clicks.

The moral of this story? Buy advertising on Marketing Pilgrim today! When you purchase a display ad, you have two choices:

Figure out how to measure the increase in overall site traffic, not just those that can be directly linked to your banner ads.
Forget about any kind of measurement and just trust that, with the right targeting, display ads will increase your brand awareness.