A key component of every online and offline business is how to get a brand message across to customers. One of the most successful marketing ways of doing so is display advertising. It is over thirty years since the first one appeared, but are you ready to take a step back in time and follow its early example?
The first-ever banner ad appeared in 1994 on the website hotwired.com. It was so successful, it managed to spawn an entire industry of ways to market products online. That first display ad managed to attract a click rate of 44%, a number internet marketers today can only dream about.
Source – Pexels
Why was this ad so successful and what can business owners and marketing teams learn from it?
The advert was for AT&T and the reason why that first ad banner worked so well was because it put the customer very firmly first. The ad was placed in the Arts Section of the Hotwired website and included a virtual tour of the world’s great museums, including the Andy Warhol Museum and the Louvre; taking visitors on a journey they were unlikely to have ever experienced before.
Since then, advertising has become increasingly targeted, so much so that most users of the internet have become ad-blind to the right-hand side of a website. Yet it is such a powerful market that billions of pounds are still spent each year on creating and placing them.
Focus display advertising on how it benefits the customer
What is clear is that customers the world over do like personalisation in their ads. If you can create adverts that appeal specifically to them, it will automatically create higher CTR (click-through rates).
There are three aspects to personalising your ad content. The first is developing trust, so the advert should be both meaningful and transparent, too. The second is ensuring that it is smart, so having the ability to retarget customers who show interest is key. The final component is incorporating dynamic content into banner ads in much the same way as Facebook or Instagram stories. Advertising messages always perform better when they tell a story.
We also know that Google has been monitoring ad quality for years in order to encourage advertisers to perform better and produce more meaningful ads and it has launched a new ad-blocker feature in their next Chrome rollout, too.
Identify the right tools for your display ad
Great ideas and a meaningful message are good, but you also need to ensure that you have the right predictive display advertising tools, found at growthsuperarket.com, to use which will help you with banner creation tools, display retargeting tools and cross-channel advertising software. Each and every ad space online should be specifically sized and most businesses will need to use pre-existing tools and templates to add their own personal brand and message.
Source – Pexels
Every business needs to ensure that it isn’t wasting money on its advertising budget because there is a very real fight for online ad space. Getting it right is vital for a business to attract the right customers. Increasingly, banner and display advertising have started to return to goals of increased personalisation for the customer and offer more – just like the original display ads in the 1990s with brand stories appearing. However, with more display tools available and predictive response technology, you should be carefully considering choosing the right ad for your brand right now.
