How to Improve the Conversion Rate of Your Digital Display Advertising

If you’re running online display advertising, but aren’t gaining the conversions or return on investment you were hoping for, there could be a number of things wrong which are causing this. But not to worry, our PPC Specialist Nick Richards is here to the rescue.

Here Nick will talk you through a number of checks you can make to ensure your Google display advertising is the very best it can be.

1. Research and Use Ad Scheduling

If you have been running display advertising for some time and successfully tracked your results, you’ll have a wealth of data at your fingertips which can help you to optimise your ad campaigns.

Looking into the days and times that you have historically seen the most conversions is a great start. Using this data, you will be able to schedule future ads using hour of day bidding and exclude times where little to no engagement is received.

For example, if you sell baking equipment, you may do best by displaying a large proportion around broadcasts of The Great British Bake Off when many people are tempted into trying to make these sweet and savoury treats for themselves.

Sounds too simple, right? Well, check out how search volume increased for ‘how to make cannoli’ in the UK after the contestants attempted to make them on this week’s episode.

2. Set Impression Caps on Your Ads

Let’s be honest, how often do you purchase the first product you see? Not very, I bet. That’s where remarketing and running multiple ads can come in handy. However, at the same time, you don’t want to bombard potential customers or you may put them off for good.

It’s a delicate balance, so make sure to set an impression cap. That way you can ensure you stay at the forefront of customers minds, without coming across as too pushy.

3. Make Placement Exclusions to Ensure Appropriate Placement

Imagine if you ran a fast food business and your ad appeared at the bottom of an article about tackling childhood obesity, or perhaps you own a coffee shop and your ad appears on a page detailing tips for fighting insomnia. The placement wouldn’t only be a waste of your money, but it will probably be screenshotted for one of these ‘unfortunate’ Buzzfeed-style articles.

Source: Business Insider

AdWords placement exclusions helps you avoid blunders like this and ensure your ads are shown next to the most relevant content possible. I’d always recommend using these to remove error pages and it is especially important for sensitive content.

4. Create and Use Remarketing Lists

Using remarketing lists are a great way of getting your ads seen by people who have already visited your site and you can therefore assume have an interest in your products or services and are more likely to convert.

Learn more about this in our post: What is Remarketing and Why Do I Need it?

5. Test, Test and Test Again…

Whether it’s ensuring your demographic targeting is on point or trialling new imagery, it’s important to make small edits and split test your ads to see if there are any small changes that can turn your good conversion rate into an excellent one.

You could even test landing page variants to see if this has an influence on conversion rates! At the end of the day, if you don’t try, you’ll never know.

And don’t forget, digital display advertising comes in many forms. There is an abundance of options to select from (dynamic to lightbox, video to general purpose), so testing can be carried out to see if there is a performance change. I’d recommend starting with image and responsive display ads first.

Need Help with Your Online Display Advertising?

Give Nick’s points a go and make sure to read our other post ‘How to Increase Conversions While Keeping Costs Down’ by PPC Specialist Luke Ali.

Alternatively, we can manage them for you. Learn more about our display advertising services and what we can do for you by getting in touch today.