To gain a clear idea of just how large the market is for digital display advertising now, one number paints an illuminating picture. In 2022, global advertising spend in the digital market is set to exceed $515 billion. It’s the sharpest possible illustration of just how much of our daily lives are now spent online.
And it’s not a market that behaves like others in the advertising sphere. Where traditional advertising spaces like newspapers or printed OOH struggle to fill their capacity, the opposite is true in digital display. The market is so saturated with competing sellers that there are more advertisers looking to buy space than there is space available to them.
Digital advertising is popular because it’s so effective
We hardly need to go into great detail about the main benefits of digital display ads. Their outstanding reach, demonstrably strong brand recall, effective engagement and retargeting, and the tracking options they offer make them the stand-out option. Add in the flexibility of contextual, geographic, demographic or behavioural targeting and you have a value proposition that you simply don’t get from any other medium.
The peculiar market landscape, coupled with their value, has meant brands have had to get creative to get noticed. A digital ecosystem that inundates consumers with messages every day means brands have to engage with the right people, at the right time, and in the right place, to achieve penetration and garner responses. This has led to a huge increase in programmatic buying in the last few years.
So how to make it work at scale?
Brands’ buying strategies alone won’t make their digital advertising work for them. The ads themselves have to be right. Getting a few key elements right can make a big difference.
A digital display ad needs to grab attention quickly; the average ‘gaze time’ for online advertising is under a second, so the design has to engage rapidly and hold attention if it’s to even get noticed.
Ideally, and perhaps counter-intuitively, this means they need to be simple and not too distracting. Consumers form their first impressions of a brand quickly, largely based on the design, and if a brand’s ad annoys them while they’re trying to do something else, the click-through opportunity is lost.
They need to be brand compliant. If this seems obvious, that doesn’t make it any less important. Small sizes or odd shapes in the digital space can create some bad design habits, but they’re not an excuse to bend your brand rules. Make sure your brand guidelines are sufficiently up to date to allow for what’s probably the most-used and critical advertising application currently.
And another apparently self-evident tip, use CTA buttons. What may not be so obvious is how important it is to place them correctly. New York Times writer Neil Patel has claimed that CTAs placed in the top half of digital ads decrease conversions by up to 17%. Consumers want the brand messaging first, then the call to action.
With digital display ads playing such a major role in most brands’ marketing strategies, the capacity to produce them quickly, in large numbers, to guidelines and cost effectively, has never been more important. If you have a lot of reversioning to do, and not a lot of time or money to do it, offshoring is a proven solution.
We Are Amnet are digital marketing specialists, producing static, animated and dynamic banner ads, landing pages, digital OOH or any other digital ad solution you may need. Reduce your digital overall spend and produce engaging work to tight deadlines thanks to Smartshoring®. Get in touch if you have a project in mind.
