5 simple Google Display Network (GDN) tips for digital marketers

Google Ads allows digital marketers to run two types of ads:

• Search Network ads that appear on the search engine results pages whenever someone searches for relevant keywords.
• Google Display Networks that display text and image ads on websites across the internet.

And although the focus is almost always on Google Search Network, the Google Display Network is also an excellent tool for creating brand awareness and increasing conversions & ROI.

Here are five simple Google Display Network tips for digital marketers to get started with Google display ads.

1. Use Google Display Network for remarketing ads

Although you can use search ads for remarketing, Google Display Network ads sometimes perform better than search ads when it comes to brand awareness, brand recognition, and bringing people back to your site.

Remarketing allows you to follow people who visited your website — or certain pages on your site — and display targeted ads.

For example, if someone put items in the shopping cart and later abandoned the cart, you can display a GDN ad to her that offers free shipping or a limited-time 10% discount.

They were clearly interested in buying the items, but something “surprised” them, and they abandoned the cart.

Remarketing can lead to a much higher conversion rate and amp your ROI significantly. And Google Display Network is often the perfect medium for running remarketing ads.

2. Use managed placements

The Managed Placements feature allows you to direct your ads to certain websites that your potential leads and customers visit most often.

Analysing data and turning them into actionable insights is a key part of digital marketing success. By being more informed and basing your decisions on data with managed placements, you can drive targeted traffic to your site.

For example, if you sell SEO software, like Ahrefs or SEMRush, showing an ad about it on SEO-related blogs would get you more targeted traffic with potentially a higher conversion rate.

3. Don’t forget image ads

It is highly recommended to use all types of ads because it is possible that some websites would only support one format.

Having said that, it is important to reiterate that you must not forget image ads.

Approximately, 67.5 percent of ads on the Google Display Network are plain text ads. This is despite the lower click-through rate these ads get. According to a study, text ads get an average click-through rate of 0.23 percent. On the other hand, image ads get an average CTR of 0.31 percent.

This makes image ads kind of a necessity. Even if you are testing different ads (which you should), we would recommend testing your CTA in an image format for GDN ads.

4. Monitor, tweak, and improve

Just like search ad campaigns, you will have to spend some time collecting important data, monitoring the account for any major and minor changes, and make your tweaking decisions accordingly.

Your Google Display Network campaigns demand and deserve the same kind of love you give to your search ad campaigns.

Set aside some time for reviewing display ads, just like you do for search ads. Instead of adding negative keywords with search, exclude placements with display network campaigns.

When analysing your data, also pay special attention to websites that get you the most traffic. Are those websites relevant? Will they bring you targeted traffic? Are people on those websites expected to spend enough time on your site to become a lead?

Apart from the number of conversions, other metrics such as time-on-site should also be considered.

By looking at everything and spending time analysing data on a regular basis, you can make data-driven decisions to improve display network ads and the ROI you get from it.

5. Set aside some budget for testing

Just like with search ads, you might have to test many different elements and variables before you find that winning formula for your campaigns.

We recommend setting aside 10-20 percent of your total budget for testing.

You can try different ad groups for topics, interests, contextual targeting, managed placements, etc. You can also try different types of ads and different variations of text and image ads for your Google Display Network campaigns.

Conclusion

It is very easy to waste thousands of dollars in Google Network Display ads.  But when done right, it can deliver an excellent ROI for the right campaigns.

Use the tips mentioned in this article to make your display ads campaigns more effective and efficient.