Display ads versus PPC - what would you choose?
There are a number of different ways to advertise online - Pay Per Click, SEO (combined for search marketing), Affiliate marketing, and Display advertising. But what is the best to do and how would you invest your money? Well there isn't a right or wrong answer but there are certain guides and techniques that should be applied.
In the long run, your best bet is the search marketing avenue. Over any other form of marketing (apart from viral marketing), Pay Per Click and SEO can drive huge volumes of business through your site. Pay Per Click, done correctly, can be very targeted and up within minutes. Our clients benefit from instant advertising where adverts can drive return within minutes. According to statistics, though, PPC only drives one in every three clicks from search engines. Therefore it is important to have an SEO strategy in place or if you are lucky enough to have good positioning already on your key terms then you will benefit greatly.
But what about the others? Surely there is more that can be done to bolster it up?
Well Display Advertising was the first form of advertising online back in 1994 / 1995. There is still some debate as to who had the very first banner ad on their site, however in the grand scheme of things it is very trivial!! Display ads, or rich media, drive awareness in products, services and brands. You will have seen these adverts all over the place on many websites. Google has an extensive content network of partner sites where you can place PPC adverts strategically positioned next to relevant content. For example, an insurance broker will want to position an advert on timesonline.com next to an article about the growth in the insurance market. The advert can be in text, image, or video format. You may have also heard of Affiliate marketing which again is another version of display advertising, but you pay for every acquisition through the site as opposed to each click through the ad.
There are pros and cons to each type of display advertising but the overall question is what would you use.
Well, I would always start with search because this drives the interest. If someone is looking for beech shelving units. Where would you go? Clearly to a dominant search engine, Google most likely. Display advertising would not feature greatly unless you have the money to invest in your brand or product building. However, if
you were setting up a business on a new business idea that no-one knows of then you are best to use display to build up awareness.
The benefits of display are clear. Display advertising drives 3 times more reach than PPC ads. However PPC and SEO drive 3 times more lift (i.e. revenue or enquiries).
You want to be successful, you have to do both display and PPC in the long run.
