If you followed our series of five articles on how to get your PPC advertising campaign up and running a few months ago, you should already have a well-tended, successful pay-per-click advertising account. So, it’s time for the next step – broadening the reach of your advertising with the Google Display Network.
What’s the Google Display Network?
First things, first! Until very recently, this was known as the Google Content Network, and it’s a way to get your advertising out to a broader market than just Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). You can use the network to display text, image, video and rich media ads across YouTube, Google properties, and display partners, so not only are you able to reach a wider audience but if you can rustle up a banner ad or promotional video you’ve a chance to use visual media to get your message across.
Isn’t that a bit of a scattergun approach?
Only if that’s how you set it up! You can target your ads on the Display Network, just as you can target your standard text ads for the SERPs. First, you can use keywords to target your ads to types of website in much the same way as you use them to target ads to search results – Google uses the example of a photography equipment seller using ‘digital camera’ to get placed on photography blogs and camera review sites. Second, you can select specific sites within the network on which you’d like your ads to be displayed – and exclude sites on which you’d rather not be! Thirdly, if you know your customers tend to be a particular demographic, there are plenty of sites within the network that allow you to bid for your ads to be shown to a particular age or sex. Finally, you can try remarketing. We’ll talk in more depth about this in a future blog article, but essentially you can use remarketing to ensure your adverts are displayed to people who have previously browsed your website, keeping you at the forefront of their minds and encouraging them to prise open their wallets.
How do I get started then?
Off to Google AdWords with you! Assuming you already have an AdWords account and have already thought a little about the types of ads you’d like to include on the Display Network, you’ll need to create a new campaign for your new activity. Generally, this works as it normally does – set your keywords, bids, ads and budget as normal – but when you add the new campaign you’ll see the following under ‘Networks and devices’:
We recommend that you select ‘Relevant pages only on the placements and audiences that I manage’ if you want maximum ability to fine tune, but ‘Relevant pages across the entire network’ will give you a broader reach and may be a good way to learn what works best for you. You’ll see there’s a ‘Networks’ tab in your ‘Campaigns’ page, too – you can check things out in more detail there.
Google also helpfully include a Display Ad Builder tool that you can try.
How do I measure and manage my Display Network activity?
Once you’ve got your campaign up and running, you can measure its effectiveness and hone your approach just as you can with standard paid search activity. We suggest that it’s worth heading to the Reports section of AdWords! For starters, once you’ve been up and running for a while, exclude any website which hasn’t generated any conversions – what’s the point in showing ‘em your ad if they’re just not interested in buying what you’re selling? As with standard PPC, of course, you can use negative keywords to exclude types of sites which aren’t relevant, adjust your bids according to performance and budget, and so on.
Interested in learning more?
Take a look at what the experts have to say – here’s some information straight from the horse’s mouth about the Google Display Network and about remarketing.