Podcast Episode 18: Display Advertising - What is it and how do we use it
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. I'm Pip from Seymour Digital Media. You're listening to Know How Marketing Lab podcast. This podcast brings together different experts in marketing from our Facebook group, cyberpunk Geeks, marketing Mixer. Each week we get on here and we talk. About something. Search marketing like Google Ads or seo, social media marketing from Facebook to TikTok or website marketing.
[00:00:24] If you're a marketer or aspiring marketer, a business owner or entrepreneur, this podcast for you, we're gonna share the best seo, search, social and website strategies. We share tips and. Google ad strategies, what's going on in the current market. Each week we discuss something exciting and awesome in marketing.
[00:00:47] It is time for geek's week and today we are talking about display advertising and what is it in, how do we use it to our advantage and it's right and will we introduce [00:01:00] ourselves? Yes. And so my name is Valen and I work at Seymour Digital Media, where we focus on SEO and Google Ads. And I'm Rena Little from Little Works Indie Media, and we run a little agency in Vancouver.
[00:01:15] Awesome. And so I guess the place to get started first is gonna be like definition, like what is it, Ethan? And I know that when we were putting together the notes, it. Trying to find some boundaries because a lot of stuff is really display advertising when you get into it of Yeah, basic.
[00:01:32] It can be Facebook ads, it can be Google display ads. Okay. It can be. . Let's wind that back just for one second because I need a starting place before we expand it out. So typically, it used to be, or most people thought of display ads as being the kind that you set up on Google, where you get the images, so the banners and on websites.
[00:01:55] It doesn't have to be Google either. You can do it through other advertising [00:02:00] platforms where you get Google. Banners and little boxes on websites when you go to visit them. So that's generally that was what display. Started out as mostly because most platforms like Google AdWords and Facebook and all of those social media advertising places, they didn't really support those platforms.
[00:02:23] Really didn't support images very well in the olden days. Yeah, so we really think of that display ads as being a very particular thing that you either do through web platform, where it goes out on websites. Or Google re remarketing where it goes out on websites again. But we can also start to think about display ads as being what Fain was getting into all sorts of ads because really the basics are that you are served up images and the visual content is really what dis display ads.
[00:02:59] I [00:03:00] think. Yeah, and I think I, we did a little brief look to see how other people were thinking about that online too, and it seems like that's the basics for display ads, whether or not it's visually arresting. . Yeah. Yeah. And I think that last word is the really important one is arresting because yeah, it's you going about doing, whether you're scrolling a feed or you're going through a website that is trying to catch your attention to be like, Hey, remember those shoes you were looking at earlier?
[00:03:26] I bet you'd 10% off those shoes. And so That's right. It's gonna be, it's that like the idea, it's like you're trying to get someone to all of a sudden be looking at your content and then take the action to actually go through and go over to the website. . Yeah, I like to call that, I don't know if this is a marketing term that I've just taken a liking to and forgotten, or if I just made it up, but interruption marketing.
[00:03:49] It's like when people are doing their own thing. And that works really well. The way that I would describe it on Facebook is not so much you were on the site and here's what you were looking at. More [00:04:00] here's a problem that you didn't know you had. So you can also use it in higher up on your funnel to warm up traffic.
[00:04:06] So it might. Here you are. This is who you are and this is what your problem is. And you may have already noticed that you have this problem and haven't done anything about it, or you may not even have realized that you have this problem. And that is what will hopefully interrupt your scrolling in enough to interest you to go and check out the website and then you can be retargeted from there.
[00:04:31] Also, two things, I don't know. I was gonna segue into the. Section of that, which is beyond the definition. Did you have anything else to add to the definition before I co-opt and move on ? Oh no, it's, I, the only thing I was gonna add was just that part of yeah. Thinking about it in terms of where they fit into the funnel and gain Yes.
[00:04:49] Getting, making sure your content kind of matches that, where you're and so making sure that you're finding those people at those moments in the journey where they're like showing interest [00:05:00] and now you're gonna do a here's you have an opportunity to be like, here's what people are saying about my awesome business.
[00:05:06] And it's you might have testimonials, like you're trying to match to that part of the journey, and you're having ads that match that content as well. . That's right. That's super important. And that's done both through targeting the right people and then creating the right message for that person.
[00:05:22] So when coaches and marketers talk about nicheing down, you don't necessarily have to niche down your business, but you definitely wanna niche down. , your marketing . Yeah. How you do the marketing so that you have one, one very clear avatar and they're at this point in the buyer's journey and they have these qualities that you can target for, and then this messaging makes them take action.
[00:05:46] That's what you wanna be doing when they talk about nicheing down. I think nicheing down your business is the most misunderstood and thrown about term in business. Complet. Because it's you don't have to just service [00:06:00] natural paths, for example, but you could create an entire ad campaign just for natural paths, yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. We have a client that does Google sheets, building scripts and like building in them into like really complex systems and he. construction people that have like specific things out of it. So while the service is generalizable to a lot of people the problem solving and who it is could be targeted to like a specific group of people because he's found that like construction people really good, they just don't even know that they have this issue.
[00:06:33] And it's oh, hey, are you looking to save time and headache? With the construction business, and so like the, yes. The ads themselves are niched versus the service itself. Yes. Which is customizable to many people. It's just, yes, this is a specific use case that you're showing to people. So a great example is instead of saying, are you a contractor and want more leads, it would be, are you a contractor and would you like to be doing [00:07:00] more renovations?
[00:07:00] So you would actually fix. Messaging to appeal only to contractors and be super specific. And same with the benefits. You can do that with the benefits and the problem, but we should probably get back to display ads because that's almost like we're doing it again. sliding out. Yeah, and I think it's important for people to also Totally, because we're covering how to think about it as well.
[00:07:21] Like when you gonna sit down and I'm gonna launch a Facebook ads campaign. Yes. It's not just like you're gonna sit down and cuz that's a really good way to just give money over to meta. Without you getting any results. That's so the, because Meta likes it when you're quite general.
[00:07:35] In fact, I found that when I work with their people on the backend, sometimes you get those little notes that says, Hey, do you wanna get some feedback from a Facebook expert? And it's I always say, yes, please, to see what they're gonna say. If they give me any extra really great tips on the campaigns that I.
[00:07:51] and sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. But what I find in general is that they want you to be as general as possible, maybe [00:08:00] because you're only running one campaign, which could be an issue. But I feel like making a hundred really narrow campaigns is so much better than one really general campaign.
[00:08:11] Oh, yeah. Because it's just a great way for them to fill all their ad placements that they need is if you, the more generalizable you are, the easier that it, it's gonna be. And it's also the same for Google now as well, right? Yeah. Where they're, they've got a new campaign type where it like, oh, it, it uses display YouTube discovery, and Gmail ads, which all the ad placements, they were having the hardest time filling and they just happened to make it into this new campaign type.
[00:08:35] And they gives you no insights as to what's going on. And yeah, it's definitely one where Google and Facebook are trying to, Google's looking at Facebook going, wow, you really give them like so few options on what they can control. We'd really like that as well. Yeah. But yeah. And so one of the other ones getting back to where what we were talking about is what the display is like.
[00:08:55] So how are we using it? And I think you touched on one of the big ones that I know we [00:09:00] use it for, which is the retargeting. And so that's a really big one that you tag someone with a cookie that says, like they've been to the product page, but they didn't make it to the checkout page. So they did one action, but they didn't take the second action you were really hoping for.
[00:09:13] Okay. And then you can serve people ads. And so that. Targets down. Again, because it's niche, it's gonna be targeted to people who are these people who have shown interests, right? They've been there. Yeah. So we know that they're interested. It's just maybe that you need to show them a logical ad of Hey, by buying this, you're gonna save 30% at a time.
[00:09:35] Most people who purchase this. Product. Like they save a bunch of time. Yeah. So I tie in what things should look like. So it's not just conceptual, it actually has some grounding in it. Yeah. So what Bailin is talking about when somebody goes and makes a partial purchase , which doesn't really do anything for us, or if they show some interest on your website of any kind, or if you've got a new launch, it doesn't matter if you're retargeting or not.
[00:09:57] Retargeting. This point is really [00:10:00] important. What does the image need to do? And number one is we brought up this word and I think it's the perfect word, arresting. You need to have something that's gonna jump out. So generally, if you've left something on the website, then it's going to be that thing that follows you around.
[00:10:16] So if it's a pair of shoes, If it's a red pair of shoes, if it's the pair of shoes that you are loving, that pair of shoes should be following you around for a little while. And if it's not, sometimes I got one the other day that was brilliant. I've had it three times, and it wasn't in an ad in particular, but it was as an email.
[00:10:35] So what I had done was initiated some kind of email that served me up. Save 30%. , 30% is going away tomorrow. 30% is going away. Today, 30% is available for one more day, and the actual image was arresting it. Like this particular website does not have sales of 30% O very often, only twice a year from what I can see, cuz I've been pulling them [00:11:00] for a while.
[00:11:01] So I want to make my purchases, if I'm a budget shopper, during those two 30% off times of the year, I wanna stack up on. So that is really arresting. It gets my attention. It's oh, okay, I gotta do this now because I am a customer of these people, repeat customers. So that is the thing that speaks to me in my buying journey.
[00:11:23] A new buyer, what we were talking about before is I've gone to a new site, I'm not really sure about this company. I've never bought from them before. Boy, do I love those red shoes, right? So those red shoes follow me around for a while and maybe it'll warm me up, maybe not on this time, but maybe they'll retarget to me six months later or three months later or something after Christmas, when I get my Christmas money, maybe they'll decide to target me again.
[00:11:49] and that would be a top funnel retargeting effort or maybe as a more of a mid funnel. Actually, when I think about it, cuz what I do in Facebook would be top funnel, and that would be getting brand new [00:12:00] people that don't know that you have a website with beautiful red shoes on it that I'm going to want.
[00:12:05] And so what that needs to look is also really arresting in the newsfeed. It needs to pop or on Instagram or wherever I'm looking at it. So it might be those really great red. Because if you have a product, it's a lot easier if you have a real sexy image of your product, that's going to grab people's attention.
[00:12:23] If they're interested in red shoes or kettles, for example, that's another thing. If they want slick design kettles and they are designed forward thinkers, then as a marketer, I would target people who like that kind of design and. Might be interested in brand loyalty, then I would target those people and focus on the sleek design of the thing.
[00:12:45] If you're a service provider, you have a bit of a disadvantage because you don't really have a sexy thing to show. And one of the things that I think most people make a mistake on is they try and be descriptive and they use stock photography. . So [00:13:00] using stock photography is not terrible, and sometimes that's what we start out with in our marketing efforts because it's accessible to us.
[00:13:08] But what you wanna think about is being descriptive. Like for example if I put Facebook into the search engine of a stock photography site, I'm gonna get up those pictures with. Facebook icons and social media icons and things like that. Do I really wanna do that? Probably not. That's not gonna stop anyone in their tracks, right?
[00:13:30] Yeah. But there was one really amazing campaign I saw, and I don't even remember what the service was, but they used these wacky photos that have absolutely nothing to do with the product or service or whatever they were selling. It was like they were brightly colored. They were. , like these wacko guys with these cr crazy hair.
[00:13:50] It wasn't weird or threatening or anything. It was actually just goofy is the word I would use. And that those photos popped [00:14:00] out of the newsfeed for me. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. What the heck is that? And since they're targeting people like me, because it was an advertisement, I know that they're targeting me.
[00:14:09] It's gonna be something that's relevant to me, whether I realize it at that point or not. Photo arrested me in my scrolling and oh, there was a term that I saw on TikTok. Thumb stopping. Thumb stopping. We want our images to be thumb stopping, and I think that's just brilliant, right? That's the best way to, to describe what you want to have happen.
[00:14:33] So being descriptive is not always the best thing. Showing happy people, showing the effects of your service that we'll have on the person. Showing people that people can imagine that they are. So you might wanna consider diversity in. In your imagery, showing photos where people can insert themselves into the scenario, into the story, into the brand story, and [00:15:00] feel the effects and the benefits of what you're offering, those photos are probably gonna be good.
[00:15:07] Want to know more about seo? We've got a class for that. Our mission is to educate students about the right tools, techniques, and strategies to grow their businesses using the most up-to-date search engine marketing optimization techniques and tools. Find out [email protected]. I think the opposite of what I'm talking about is there was this.
[00:15:30] Phase on Instagram where all the women mostly were doing like beautiful, gorgeous photos of lifestyle photos. And they were either in the light blue hue. Or they were in the light pink queue and I, there was zero brand differentiation between those accounts. So they, I don't like as, even though I think, oh, that's pretty I couldn't remember which is which company I couldn't, there was [00:16:00] no sort of unique. positioning in that imagery. It was just and it was limited to Vancouver. It was a really weird Vancouver fad or trend or whatever you wanna call it that happened on Instagram. So arresting images. Is really the game. Okay, I'm gonna stop talking. I just had coffee and I realized fail.
[00:16:19] It's not talking. Okay. pH do you have something to say? ? Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say it was a fun pro tip. Once you've set up one like that as well, you can also do one that's like a logical counterpart. So that one, like a warm, fuzzy feeling. And so say maybe that doesn't work but you say people that use my service save 10 hours a.
[00:16:39] Yeah. And so you're using much more logical, like you can hit Yeah, hit someone. If they don't respond to one type of ad, you can respond with a logical type of ad. And then it's like you could do testimonial and it's oh, I've saved blah, blah, blah. My hiring so-and-so to take care of all of my accounting, whatever it happens to be.
[00:16:55] And so that way you're. Hitting someone with the logical as well. So [00:17:00] it's a yes. That way you can mix and match and then it, you're covering your bases. Cuz not everyone's gonna respond as well to something that makes them more fuzzy. Maybe they need something that's I just need to save time this week.
[00:17:13] Yeah. And how am I gonna do that? Yeah. And so in Facebook, I'm not sure if you can do this in Google Ads, but in Facebook you can actually create a whole bunch of ads. under the same campaign and Facebook will push them all out. And then based on the algorithm, they'll push out the one that gets the better engagement or the better results.
[00:17:34] They'll push, start pushing that out more than the others. And so within a few days, if you wanted to do some tests, This is a great way to test. I test all of my imagery. That's where I start with, I test my images, which is the most arresting, and then you can finesse and optimize the display ads for their title and their description and all the other stuff.
[00:17:56] And then you, of course, we've had previous. Lives on this where [00:18:00] you also need to address your landing page or whatever page the ad takes you to. But start with the arresting imagery. Try a diff a different selection, of course, remain within your brand guidelines. If you haven't organized a brand, then perhaps this is one way where the brand can.
[00:18:19] Reveal itself. So that's the other thing. Branding is done ongoing. It's not something that you get done and it's finished. Brand includes a lot of things. Primarily imagery and other things, or maybe not primarily that's not very fair. So people think of the imagery first. When they think of branding, they think of their logo, and then they think of the imagery that goes with their logo and their website and all that stuff.
[00:18:43] But really, when you test and tweak and test and tweak, your brand sort of evolves over time. And it should. You wanna remain consistent with your brand and work, maybe work with somebody that knows a little bit more about brand, but your brand if you're trying. The brand on [00:19:00] the thing, and it's not speaking to your audience, then that's might be a su suggestion where you might wanna change a few things, like maybe your color palette isn't sufficient.
[00:19:11] Maybe your language needs to change because you're speaking like the B the best way of. thinking about this is the language that you're using going to work with Gen Z or boomers? Because the same language is not gonna work for both. That's all I know. So you might need some help working on finessing your messaging on your ads also.
[00:19:33] So display ads are really a lot. When we talk about display ads, we're talking. about all aspects of most ads . You know what I mean? Yeah. There aren't that many ads that are outside of the term display ad anymore if we're considering them to be about imagery. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like even as I said at the start the Google's moving towards Performance Max, which is like very visually you're putting in videos, you're [00:20:00] putting in images, your logo.
[00:20:02] They're taking in a lot more stuff these days. With the Google, yeah, with Google ads, obviously the text adss are still gonna be the text ads, so they're just, but that's a different one altogether cuz that's more intent based versus what we've been talking about is like arresting. So that's the biggest difference is you're gonna have people that are like going to Google and literally typing in, I wanna know about plumbers near me.
[00:20:22] And then that's where you're gonna be advertising. I'm a really good plumber. I've been doing it for 30 years. That's a very different Yeah. Setup than what we're talking about, which is more. I need to take someone who's not on my website, not even looking for my website and say, Hey, I bet that I can solve problems for you.
[00:20:40] Here's the problems that I solve. I bet you have them, and and you're hoping that's why these systems collect like information about us because they want to know, they're gonna make estimations on things that are happening to us at that time, and they're gonna do some sort of predictive modeling.
[00:20:55] And there's like millions of points of data that go into it. The funny part that I have [00:21:00] learned about those algorithms, they're much, they're guessing a lot more than you think. So if you ever feel like, oh, it's spooky, it's listening to me really what it is that they're like the Hadron Collider.
[00:21:10] They're just. Launching predict million data points and like they're gonna get some like dead on and then I'm just gonna get a bunch that are just off. It's not predictive, it's just more they're using the scale of the people that they're talking to is just so big that when you're talking to a billion people, it's easy to get your mark perfectly once in a while because like it's the number of swings that they're taking is so many.
[00:21:33] Also, like you were saying about the brand most people. You can probably change just about everything about your brand and no one's really gonna remember things move so quickly and people have such short memories that you can, you definitely have the opportunity to experiment with it. And don't be afraid because you think that everyone's looking at it and remembering it really well if they're not especially if you are the business owner, cuz you are thinking about it all the time doesn't mean everyone [00:22:00] else's and it's a really tough.
[00:22:02] And if you scroll down on most professional like designer, I like to go to the designer Instagram accounts. If you actually scroll down, you'll see that they do things in series and seasons. Yeah. So they might have a bunch that all go nicely together and then they kind of transition outta that and create something completely else that's different.
[00:22:22] And the most important part is that there is strategy thought and a visual transition that actually happens that makes it really. That's pretty much what I have to say about that. And people do get really uptight about their brand . It's really funny. Yeah. And it's oh, you're not even big enough to really be doing branding.
[00:22:40] You're focused, you should be focused on lead generation, . Yeah, exactly. And a lot of people, like when they get kind of perfectionists and they get in their own way where they think that everyone's paying attention, it has to be perfect out of the gate. And it's just like you really at this point, you just need to launch and then just go for it.
[00:22:58] Yes. And start experimenting. [00:23:00] What you think people want and what people respond to not, aren't always the same thing. And display advertising. I know Google Display advertising is also dirt cheap, so experimenting with it really costs you, it's 10 cents a click and you can get like thousands of impressions cuz the clickthrough rates are, it's half a percentage considered good.
[00:23:20] So is that right? Oh yeah. It's I'll get 20,000 views on a, an ad. and I'll be like, yes, I got 200 clicks . And that's considered to be really good, but it's 20,000 people saw it. And so that's, it gives you a chance to really experiment because it is so cheap on their platform.
[00:23:39] And one other thing to keep in mind as well is that Facebook does advertise on Google. So you may be running a Facebook campaign, you're also probably getting some placements on the Google display network. Oh, I didn't realize. Yeah. Yeah. I won't go into it here, but there's something called Project Bernanke where they actually they got caught in a little bit of a little bit of trouble cuz it turned out they were [00:24:00] colluding and they were slowing all the websites down so that Facebook could get into every auction.
[00:24:04] Oh. And oh no. Yeah. And it turned out it, they they were bad boys and they were ex they were they're supposed to be like opposing each other, but then they're like, yeah, we're so big. Why don't we just work together? And so to let people know that usually where you're gonna see that it.
[00:24:20] Placements in Facebook, it's called interstitial. Those are almost always gonna show up on the Google Display Network. Okay, I'm gonna look at that. I'm very careful about where I place my ads because I find that they're just some places that it just all it does, and in my opinion, what I've seen the most of what it does is to reduce the cost per click over all your campaign.
[00:24:43] It doesn't actually produce any. Because it's and it reduces it because it's cheaper. But usually when people are clicking in games, they're playing games. So if they click in a game, usually it's a mistake. Like they've accidentally hit that button, and Yes. And everybody does it. I do it [00:25:00] all the time.
[00:25:00] It's oh, how did that happen? And you find the X and you have to wait for the, it drives me mental. But anyways, yeah. That's good to know. And I also wanted to say if you have done some display ads Facebook ads or retargeting ads, then pop your questions in the comments below. Let us know what you were struggling on with the most, and we'll create some topics for the new year.
[00:25:24] And if you have any topic suggestions or any challenges that you've been facing as a marketer or business owner, pop those in the. Below also because we are trying to organize topics for next year and we want some input, we wanna be valuable to you. basically. Yeah, exactly. Basically. Yeah. It's definitely, yeah we're gonna be open to suggestion.
[00:25:45] I just had an idea. I might set up like a Google form as well, so if anyone has like any topics or anything and just Oh, that's a good idea and honestly just drop off. Cuz all we're looking for is just Hey, I think. This would make a, or I'm interested in [00:26:00] this, what do you guys think? And so I'll probably create just a quick Google form just so that people can fill it out.
[00:26:06] Terrific. Yeah, because I think that would be a good one for us. I wanted to touch on something now. I remember that you had said that something about when you're doing the display ads, that it's like the funnel, but it's breaking down how to look at them and see what's doing well is like I start off looking with, did I get impressions yes or no?
[00:26:26] Okay, I got impressions, did I get clicks? Yes. Is the click through rate like it's. The dividing clicks by the impressions, the click-through rate, is that good? 2%? Yes. If it's not, I need to improve the quality of the ad because it's obviously, it's not speaking to the person. For me, yes, that's the first step.
[00:26:43] If it's not speaking to the person, that's step number one. Yeah. For me, in Facebook we get an opportunity to optimize for landing page. , that means that they'll only send it if you want someone to go to a landing page, they'll only send it to people [00:27:00] who have previously clicked links and landed on a page.
[00:27:03] And I find when I optimize for that, the numbers are better. I get better data because I don't really care about clicks. In a sense I do, because that tells me that the messaging is correct. But if I lose the clicks through the landing page views, like if there's a huge distinction between clicks and landing page views, sometimes that means that your landing page doesn't load fast enough and people move away.
[00:27:28] So that's the first clue that there's a tech issue in your funnel. So that's my biggest tip for now, is try optimizing for landing page views and see if that changes. If you're looking for clicks to something that doesn't include landing page views, I'm not even sure what that would be. I can't think of a good example.
[00:27:47] But you might, what would you click? You could click to shop. That's a new one I just got advertised. So there's the, cuz they have the checkout in Facebook and Instagram, but I forget. Oh that's right. [00:28:00] I don't have any, yeah, I don't have any clients that are doing that shop on Facebook anymore, but that is true.
[00:28:05] So that in that case, a click would probably be fine and probably cheaper than lending page views. But landing page views, I find the Google Analytics matches up better. So the results on the Google Analytics match much better to, to the Facebook insights. And if you are waiting until the end of your campaign or the to check your Google Analytics numbers, that's probably not the best.
[00:28:32] I usually check the insights, check the Google Analytics. So I can see what's happening and where we're going. Not quite right. Anyways. Yeah. For starting to, we've gone way over. We've gone over I could talk about this forever. . Yeah. Yeah. I as well. Yeah. But definitely we're super excited to answer any questions people have.
[00:28:51] Keep an eye out for that Google form for any topic questions or ideas that you guys might have. I'm more than happy to take feedback from you [00:29:00] guys in the new year for the These Geek Speaks. And that's all to say that my name is Phen and I, Rita. And that's it. Good for now. Okay, , join us next week. We are actually going live in Facebook group, the Cyberpunk Geek Speak.
[00:29:16] So if you're viewing this elsewhere, please join us there and we go live every Thursday with some tips for you. And that's all I have to say because obviously I didn't practice. Yeah, no problem. That's it. Bye for now.
[00:29:30] The conversation never stops in our Facebook group, cyberpunk Geeks. Join us at facebook.com/groups/cyberpunk geeks to ask your questions, meet new friends, and learn even more about search, social and websites.
