While our firm has developed a specialty in, and has gotten well known locally for search engine optimization (SEO), i.e., both paid and organic tactics that drive individuals who are actively searching to identify someone who offers the products, services, and solutions to products you do to your website, we also have a lot of experience with “push marketing.” Unlike SEO-related marketing and tactics (pull marketing), push marketing is all about putting the idea about your organization’s products, services, and solutions into the heads of individuals who aren’t actively searching to identify someone like you, but who still might be a great fit for your product, service or solution, based on various demographics and behaviors. And, our blog post is focused on one form of push marketing — display advertising.

Who Does Display Advertising Target?

Like all forms of push marketing (think print, e-mail, and radio marketing), display advertising (advertising that includes an image vs. just text) allows you to target individuals and/or businesses based on one or more of these criteria about the individual or business:

• the geography in which they live or are located
• their age, gender, and household income, if an individual
• key life events, such as graduating from college, having a baby or retiring, if an individual
• their hobbies or interests
• their role at a company
• their recent purchase, or research conducted related to a potential purchase
• the size or nature, if a company

So, What Is The Biggest Challenge Of Display Targeting?

Over the years, in both corporate marketing and consulting/agency roles, we’ve run a decent number of Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram, Reddit, Nextdoor.com and other “display campaigns” that have employed the targeting detailed above. But, with recent campaigns, it’s really struck us what one of the biggest challenges is related to running such campaigns to pursue individuals who aren’t necessarily looking to buy your products, services or solutions, but who might be a good fit for them.

And, that display advertising challenge is this. Many consumers and/or individuals associated with a business often click on ads, not because they have an immediate need for the product, service, or solution advertised nor will they ever have such a need. But rather, they click on ads out of what we call “the curiosity factor.” Something about the language and/or image in the ad — known as the “ad creative” sounds interesting or intriguing to them and they click on the ad to learn more just because they are curious.

How Does The Curiosity Factor Impact Display Advertising Results?

Here’s how individuals clicking on display ads simply out of curiosity impacts display advertising results:

• Since for display ads, you often pay for ad “click,” you often pay for clicks that will never become a lead or sale.
• The conversion rate for your ads is far lower than what you see with “paid search” campaigns (where ad clickers are in active search mode to identify someone like you) and your cost-per-conversion may end up being far higher than what you see with push marketing. The last statement depends on how much your cost-per-click is for your display campaign since often the cost-per-click is far lower than for a paid search campaign.
• Ultimately your campaign ROI or ROAS (return on ad spend) ends up being quite low and doesn’t warrant continuing to spend on the campaign even though you’ve generated a lot of awareness of your products, services, and solutions thru your display ad spend.

Need Help Determining Whether Or Not It Makes Sense To Run A Display Advertising Campaign?

Our team is glad to chat with you on a complimentary basis about whether or not piloting a display campaign would make sense for your organization. Schedule a complimentary display advertising discussion today!