Tripling Client Out-Reach With Web Banner Ads
By Hellen Lubanga
Want to reach a larger audience but you aren’t sure where to start? Well, you’ve come to the right place. This week we shall be diving into it digital advertising; specifically, web banner ads, and how they are used to increase traffic to your web and social media pages.
The basics: So, what are banner ads anyway?
If you have accessed the internet at one point or another, especially via search engines such as chrome, safari, firefox, etc. then you have more than likely interacted with a banner ad.
Banner ads are small advertisements on websites that work to attract targeted traffic to build brand awareness. It is for this reason they placed on web pages that have high viewership numbers as this is likely to increase the company’s visibility. Banner ads are basically like the billboards you see on the road, but a digital version.
Types of banner ads
So now we know what banner ads are we can now begin to look at the various types of banner ads you can choose from.
1. Interest-based Ads
When a person shows interest in a product or service by visiting specific web pages, or by placing an order in their digital shopping cart, then those websites place small text files known as cookies onto their computer browser. These cookies then gather information about the user’s interests and send this information to companies who then combine this information with the information of other users to try to create a description of the likes and dislikes of their target audience. This description is known as a customer profile.
While cookies are the most common form of data collection, web browsers can also use your face and fingerprint IDs, or mobile location. All web user’s combined data can then be used to create targeted ads that are more likely to increase clicks as they are created with the consumer’s tastes and preferences in mind.
2. Dynamic remarketing/ retargeting ads
Retargeting ads play into their name by targeting individuals previously interested in a specific product even though sometimes a purchase was never made.
How this works is that a potential customer comes to your website and views your products and services for research purposes meaning they more than likely leave your web page without purchasing anything as they are still in the decision-making phase. Once they do leave, however, they begin to see ads featuring the products exactly like, or similar to the products they showed interest in on your site, this way they are more than likely to click the banner ad and end up back at your website to complete a purchase.
This happens because while on your website a small snippet of code (known as the remarketing code) automatically adds them to a remarketing list. So, when they go to another website on the same company’s AD network they are shown your ads once more
3. Contextually targeted ads
These banner ads are a form of hyper-targeted advertising that tracks the words and phrases you use online, aka the context of your words.
How this works is that an Ad platform provider such as Google ads analyzes the keywords and phrases in your banner ad, which they then add to their display network groups based on what said key phrases were. After this, the Ad platform provider compares and matches picked out words and phrases with the various links, content, images texts found on any of the multiple websites online not related to your company products being advertised, but are very similar such as they share a purpose or are in the same industry. They place your company ads on the website with similar content to increase the chances of people clicking the Ad. For instance, say you have a bakery. To increase customer exposure, you pay for a contextually targeted ad, so the ad platform provider will place your ads on pages where consumers are searching for baking – related services such as baking for co-operative events, cupcake design, etc.
4. Placement target ads
With placement targeted ads, companies can pick and choose the specific web pages and websites that their banner ad is displayed in for as long as it is a part of the ad’s platform providers display network. It doesn’t matter the content of the site is related to your services, however, you have a higher chance of success if you pick pages with similar content.
Afterthought:
The type of ad you choose to go with should align with your company’s marketing strategy and budget. Your strategy is what defines exactly what your marketing needs are, be it to increase brand visibility, boost sales, ensure repeat customers, etc. it should always boil down to what works best for you
Designing a banner ad for your company? Talk to us today to begin your online marketing journey.
Happy Marketing!