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Let’s talk about display advertising.

You know those adverts you see all over the Internet?

Some are banners, whilst others are text-based or use videos.

This is called display advertising, and we're going to explore what it is, how it works, and how it can help you attract more customers.

Think of display advertising as the digital version of a billboard, print ad, or TV advert you see offline.

Businesses pay whoever owns the ad space, hoping to get their ads seen by the right kinds of people, and then turn those people into customers.

In the online world of display advertising, ad space isn't on billboards or TV channels, but on the websites, we visit.

Display advertising gives businesses the chance to pay for their ads, to appear when the right kind of person is on the right kind of page.

And there are lots of ways to do this. You can make deals directly with the owners of a website, or you can use networks to match businesses with lots of different websites that have ad space to sell.

You can decide to show your ads on specific web pages, or to specific groups of people, or even both.

Let's imagine you're passionate about films, so you've created a podcast where you do film reviews.

Now you want to market it.

Think about the people who might be interested in a film review podcast and what else they might be looking at online, like cinema websites, official movie sites, or film forums.

The pages where your customers are, are also where you should be.

Of course, your customers won't always be looking at websites about the film.

With display advertising, you can get your ads in front of them when they're browsing other things.

So, you can target people with specific interests, like film, they're checking the weather or reading the news, perhaps they're visiting blogs and browsing around all other sorts of websites they might want to visit, even if those websites have nothing to do with the film.

So, display advertising offers businesses the ability to reach relevant audiences all across the Internet.

It's actually quite amazing, and it's one reason why display advertising is a great way to build awareness of you and your business.

For example, if you've just created your film review podcast, you'll need to make people aware that your new product exists.

With a display advert, you can get noticed by just the people you want to reach.

But display advertising isn't only about getting your name out there.

Display is also a great way to drive traffic to your website, build engagement with your visitors, and win new customers.

How?

Well, you might choose to show adverts to people who have visited your website, but who haven't yet subscribed to the podcast. So, as they browse the news, check the weather, or watch videos, your display advertising can remind them to subscribe with a special incentive or promotion customized for them.

This is called retargeting, and we'll cover this in more detail later.

The conclusion

We now know that display advertising lets you be right where your customers are

and supports many different marketing goals.

Next, we'll explore how display differs from search advertising, and how the different elements of a display campaign work.

Then we'll move on to talk about ways to find your ideal audience, using different targeting options. Finally, we'll learn a bit about how to use retargeting to reach people after they've already interacted with you

So, I hope you're ready.

It's time to explore the exciting world of display advertising.

Start placing your own ads!

Well, you've seen all those display ads all over the internet and by now you've hopefully got a pretty good understanding of how they work.

Now, you might want to start thinking about where you want your ads to appear.

How do you find the websites with advertising space to sell, and how do you connect with them?

Well, that's where display advertising networks come in.

Display advertising networks are like a middleman, connecting businesses who want to advertise with websites with ad space to sell.

Now let's find out how they can help your business find and advertise on the right websites for you.

Say you found a specific website you wanted to advertise your product on, let’s say a podcast subscription deal.

Well, you have a few options here.

First, you could contact the site directly to work out the details, and that's certainly something that happens.

But with all the websites out there that offer advertising opportunities, you can imagine that this could get pretty time-consuming.

This is where display advertising networks come in.

They handle both the buying and the selling of display ads, linking businesses to websites that want to sell advertising space.

Another way to think of it is as a marketplace that brings businesses and websites together, helping manage the transactions.

There are quite a few of these networks out there like Google Display Network or Yahoo, and they all offer different features, but there are a few things most of them have in common.

First and foremost they all offer businesses looking to advertise ad space on the websites.

Websites that offer these ad spaces can become part of these networks, and they can do things like set minimum prices for how much money they expect for showing ads.

Your business can then bid for the spots you want throughout the websites in that network, deciding how much you're willing to pay.

Buyers and sellers are connected every single time pages are loaded and the ads that win the right to fill the ad spots are shown.

Of course, each network has its own rules, its own features, and its own processes and bidding systems.

But the key is that they all match buyers and sellers to fill available ad spots.

Networks can also help you target specific audiences through two main routes-- the topics of the web pages where the ad appears, and the general information about the people viewing the content.

Whilst the exact criteria you can use to find your audience or the way you actually go about running your campaign could vary from network to network, targeting is essential to get your ads in front of the right people.

Another thing that Advertising Networks do is: handle the money involved.

Buying and selling ads happen every second of every day and the networks collect money from businesses and pay the websites that show the ads.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, advertising networks collect and share data with businesses.

They can tell you how many times your ads are shown, how many times they're clicked on, how much they cost you, and where they've been showing up, and how all this varies between websites and audiences you've been targeting.

Many networks even let you add tracking to your webpages, so you can see if your ads are resulting in conversions on your website.

If you want to use display advertising to promote your business across the web, advertising networks are a great place to start.

• They'll bring you together with the websites that want to sell you ad space.
• They'll let you decide where your ads will be seen and who will see them.
• They'll manage the money for everyone involved.
• They'll even provide you with the data you need to know how well your campaign is getting on.

Ad Networks & Ad Exchanges – What’s the difference?

In the early days of online advertising, publishers and advertisers seeking ways to efficiently manage their buying and selling needs, which led to the creation of the first ad networks. As more and more websites and apps launched, there needed to be a way to connect millions of advertisers to the billions of publishers with unsold inventory. This led to the creation of ad exchanges.

So, how exactly do they function?

An ad network is an online platform that allows publishers to sell their inventory to advertisers; think of a supermarket where shoppers can get all different kinds of goods from a single place. A publisher typically connects to multiple ad networks. For them, ad networks are a way to sell any inventory that does not get sold directly to advertisers. For advertisers, using an ad network allows them to choose from a wide range of publishers and to reach as wide an audience as possible. An ad network is also an efficient way to target specific audiences for different ad campaigns. The ad inventory on it is segmented by categories allowing advertisers to target specific audiences by age gender or location etc.

Ad Exchanges act as an online marketplace, where publishers, advertisers, agencies ad networks, DSPs, and SSPs can buy and sell their ad inventory; it works a lot like buying and selling shares on the stock market; by using a technology called real-time bidding, the exchange sells inventory on an impression-by-impression basis, meaning that advertisers have to bid against each other for any specific advert.

For publishers, ad exchanges have become an essential way in which they can maximize the value of their remaining inventory.

For advertisers, ad exchanges have maximized the value of their ad spend and have revolutionized the way inventory can be bought, based on who they're targeted towards.

Ad Networks and Ad Exchanges coexist as fundamental parts of today's advertising industry. Nowadays, almost all advertisers use a blend to ensure they reach the widest audience.

Browse through our selection of top-rated Ad Networks and Ad Exchanges and start displaying your ads to relevant users!