Online Display Advertising

it has long been argued that display advertising is less effective than search. whilst this can't be denied - the facts are there to be compared - the effect of online display is nonetheless an important element of the media mix.

we generally use search as a support medium for TV, print or radio advertising, and we can measure the effect of this activity with overall site analytics - particularly if we are testing a regional campaign.

we have recently run a TV campaign for a client in the north west and have seen web visits increase by over 200% since the campaign went live. we have also seen brand related search terms increase and therefore the cpc's have lowered as a result by up to 30%.

can online display have a similar effect? there have been very few studies undertaken on this subject, and it's an area that we're looking at researching, but display is a vital ingredient in the media mix. not only does it drive brand awareness, but it also works with search to deliver results.

there are few mediums that have the reach of the internet, and being able to buy millions of quality impressions at low cpm's is surely an advantage especially when you compare to tv costs of buying premium programming.

the targeting technologies involved with many of the networks are also now very sophisticated, so it's important that the industry understands the impact of online display which we're able to track in a lot more depth than we can with, say TV advertising.

getting view based conversion data (or conversions from people that have seen the display activity) demonstrates how people are using the web - click based conversions are less prevalent these days and some London agencies are starting to dismiss view based conversions as part of their CPA deals.

cpa deals are no longer what they were a year or two ago, working to effective cpa's are a better way of working. getting our clients to understand this and the fact that view based conversions are important and does demonstrate the effectiveness of online display.

it's our job to educate our clients on this effectiveness and having online display support tv or radio campaigns is vitally important as it provides another gateway to clients' sites.

the effectiveness of search won't be questioned for sometime in the same way that online display has been, but used in the right way and in line with other media, it can be an extremely powerful tool that delivers results.