A look at how display drives performance for marketers today

(Cross-posted from the AdWords Agency Blog and the Inside AdWords Blog)

Few would argue that online display advertising is playing an increasingly important role in the marketing mix. While we frequently talk about how the vast majority of our top advertisers have run a Google display campaign in the last year while continuing to increase their investment, today we’re shining a light on some specific examples.

For each brand we’re highlighting today, display was an integral part of their broader marketing strategy. To make it work, they tapped into a robust display advertising toolbox and applied targeting, creative, measurement and optimization solutions that made the most sense for their campaign objective. Let’s take a look at the results.

Airbnb increased the number of nights booked from 800,000 to 2 million with help from remarketing on the Google Display Network and TrueView video ads on YouTube. (Read case study)

Groupon acquired millions of subscribers with the help of contextual targeting and auto-optimization on the Google Display Network. (Read case study)

ShoeDazzle got 45% of their conversions from the Google Display Network by applying a variety of targeting and optimization tools. (Read case study)

At the heart of each success lies a common theme: Great display advertising happens when smart strategies are applied in three key areas: Finding the right customer, showing them the perfect ad, and measuring and optimizing effectively.

Find the right customer. Reaching just the right audience is at the crux of any successful campaign. In fact, marketers are saying the biggest driver of increased display budgets is the availability of better targeting technologies. (1) From remarketing strategies that reach 84% of users on a typical list, to interest categories that show interested users your message while respecting user privacy, we’re constantly innovating to precisely connect your message with your audience. And just last month, we shared strategies for applying the right targeting mix to extract the most out of direct response campaigns on the GDN.

Show them the perfect ad. You can find the right audience, but what do you tell them? With display, marketers have a wide-open canvas to connect with consumers to drive the results they care about. And an effective ad can come in any format. In fact, many of the brands we’re highlighting today used Standard IAB display ad units but with compelling messaging and beautiful creative that really resonated with their audience.

Measure and optimize based on real-time insights. Advertisers have always benefited from transparency into exactly where ads run, their costs, and the right metrics to measure campaign performance, providing actionable insights to optimize their campaigns. Our recent investments in measurement and optimization take this further. Marketers can now see a complete picture of the chain of impressions and clicks that drives campaign performance with Multi-Channel Funnels. And applying Google’s 10 years of experience in developing optimization algorithms, we’ve launched tools like Display Campaign Optimizer, which can be used to do fully automated bidding and targeting to boost conversions and ROI.

So today, while we’re celebrating these successes, more than that, there is a valuable insight here. The display toolbox is a rich one. It’s the agencies and marketers who tap into that toolbox and apply it in ways that make sense for their campaigns, who will greatly benefit from display as a medium. So.. will your campaign be the next one we shine a light on?

Watch this space.

google.com/watchthisspace

(1) Effective Audience Targeting Leads To Bigger Display Budgets, eMarketer, May 2011

Posted by Emel Mutlu, Product Marketing Manager, Google Display, Client Communications