Search vs Display Ads
Search vs display ads: what’s the difference?
Have you ever heard of the term SEM? Does it ring any bells? Well, SEM is the way to go, if we want to bring attention to our brand in a more effective and drastic way. In more details, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the act of using paid online advertising to increase visibility and traffic to our website. The tools for that are Search Ads and Display Ads. These are both part of a SEM campaign. However, there are some core differences between them.
Search Ads
Search Ads is a keyword-based targeting method. Imagine search ads as being a competitive game. We are competing with other online advertisers. Both parties are bidding on a search term. Whoever provides the highest bidding offer, wins. The prize of this game is our ad being displayed above the organic search results, which means that searchers are more likely to click on our website instead of our competitor’s. By integrating search ads into our digital marketing strategy, we gain advantage of advertising ourselves the very moment that our customers are looking for our brand. They are already about to buy our products or, at least, interested in doing so. This super targeted method provides us extra beneficial results in terms of conversions and increasing sales. It may cost more in comparison with display ads, but it is totally worth it!
Display Ads
Imagine display ads as online billboards, but way more targeted. We basically display our product in α creative way, using text, images or even videos. Our goal is to reach more people by showing our brand in other relevant niche websites. The thing with display ads is that people are not aware of our brand or the products we offer. Our potential customers might not know they need our products. In fact, they’re just surfing the net! So what we have to do is create that urge or remind them so. Display ads are more efficient when it comes to increasing visibility and raising brand awareness. They are better in terms of CPC, meaning that they cost less. However, advertisers have to deal with the so-called banner blindness; people tend to ignore banners and pop-ups while navigating through a website.
Which one performs better?
It depends on our goals at the moment. If our brand is already out there and we want to increase sales and bring conversions, we should definitely go for search ads. On the other hand, if we are new to the game and we want our brand to gain awareness and visibility, we should try display ads. There is less competition and there is a much better chance of us being displayed to thousands of websites, hence thousands of potential clients.
Always remember : we have to be sure that our website’s content is appealing, responsive and relevant to our customer’s needs, in order to achieve maximum results out of our SEM campaign!
Always with WebFlow.gr