What are Display Ads: Types & Benefits

Sonal Agrawal
Sonal Agrawal

Director of Growth, Airtory


Published on: 18 Jul 2021

Reading time: 4 minutes


Display advertising is a type of internet advertising wherein marketers use banner advertisements and other visual ad forms to promote their products on websites, and apps.       

With worldwide digital advertising spending estimated to reach USD 455.30 billion this year, it is critical to completely comprehend display ads. To learn how display advertising attracts people's attention, how targeting techniques are used, and what types, benefits, and examples of display ads exist, keep on reading.

What are Display Ads?

Display advertising is a popular and effective digital advertising style. Its aesthetics are entirely responsible for attracting attention and spreading brand recognition over the internet. 

Display advertising is a widely used form of advertising used to create brand awareness and reach vast audiences of the marketer's TG. It is not a "new method" per se. They make extensive use of visual media, such as texts, photos, and even videos, to pique people's interest. To stand out on the internet and get their message across to their target audience, the most effective display advertising campaigns employ a creative blend of pictures, text, animation, and videos. To develop appealing display advertising, marketers can experiment with text, style, forms, and sizes of banners.

Now that the term ‘what are display ads’ is clear let us explore the concept in depth. 

Types of Display Advertising

Effective display advertising management relies on graphics to communicate the campaign's main message to the target audience. The aim is to make sure that the user’s attention is drawn towards the ad. So, while planning your display advertising management strategy, here are 4 types of display advertising:

 1. Banner Ads

The most prevalent kind of display advertising is banner ads, which stand out on any webpage. They get their name from their banner-like form. They're nothing more than image-based, hyperlinked advertising. These ads are generally on the right side of a webpage on a desktop and on mobile devices, they are mostly on the top and could be sticky to the bottom of the screen. 

 These advertisements may be used to grab people's attention while they're browsing the web, attracting them to your website using a mix of visuals and text. Banner or Image ads can be static or incorporate moving components depending on what you want to convey.

 2. Rich Media

According to Smart Insights, standard banner ads across different placements see a cumulative CTR of just 0.05%. Yikes! 

This reality has made advertisers look for new ways to show their adverts. Rich media is a new strategy that involves incorporating interactive components such as video, music, and clickable features into advertisements to make them more engaging.

3. Text Ads

Display text advertisements are made up of lines of advertising text, similar to the paid search ads that appear on search engine results pages. With dynamic remarketing, you can personalise your messages and use dynamic keyword insertion to boost click-through rates.

4. In-Banner Video Ads

On a digital level, this sort of marketing engages your target audience. A video ad may be made by professionals from an agency or by your in-house team – even if that team is just you. There is no supplementary video content accompanying the videos. They may be generated independently, without the need to be wrapped around a blog article or another video, for example. They can be further classified as follows:

  • Collapsible in-banner ads, and 
  • Expandable in-banner ads. 

The collapsible in-banner advertisements take up a bigger area of the page at first, then shrink down to the regular banner size when the user interacts with them or automatically after a specified period. Expandable in-banner video advertisements, on the other hand, use the usual banner size while playing the video but allow the viewer to expand the video and see it in a wider area, overlaying the web page content.

Benefits Of Using Display Ads 

Given below are the benefits of using responsive display ads with examples.

 1. Aesthetically pleasing

Since these advertisements are often graphic/visual, advertisers may try out numerous styles, shapes, sizes, and formats to see what works and what doesn't. When it comes to displaying ads, you can be as classic or as unconventional as you like.     

2. Effective targeting

Display advertising targeting allows you to reach consumers based on a variety of factors, guaranteeing maximum interaction. 

Audience Targeting:

  • Demographics: 

Target your advertising to consumers with certain affinities, ages, genders, and device kinds depending on how well your products and services are trending.

  • In-Market

Show advertisements to people who are looking for items and services similar to yours. These people may be on the verge of making a purchase, or they may have already bought one and are still interested in interacting with your advertisements.

 3. Allows for retargeting

The retargeted display ad you offer them is just the push they needed to return to your website.  This could also be the next level of communication or messaging, offering consistency to the users.  

4. Gain insights from Ad Servers, DSP and publishers

Whether the ads are being hosted on an ad server, a platform like DSP, or through publishers, you can get the analytics you need to track current performance and optimize it to perform even better.

Display advertising is a strong marketing approach which, when combined with other activities as part of a larger strategy, may significantly increase the efficacy of your marketing. Display advertising is a sensible approach, Throughout the visitor's journey, users are automatically sent to an advertisement side, from boosting broad awareness early in the customer journey to luring repeat consumers back with customised bargains and offers.

With a thorough grasp of all the options available in display advertising, you can create a campaign that stays loyal to your brand voice while reaching the broadest potential audience.


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