Display advertising is a very difficult channel (strategy) to get right. There are a set of challenges that it faces (ad blockers, ad blindness, viewability, etc.). Even if your audience do get a chance to see the ad, it is very difficult to attribute the impact of seeing the ad on your business goals. Yes, we have View Through Impression tracking, but that frankly tells nothing.

Having said that, there are benefits as well. It allows a brand to reach users at the right place and context and can have a role to play in specific product categories (high lead times, multiple visits, high value).

Once you have decided that you want to run a display advertising campaign, there are a few elements you need to think carefully about – your audience targeting strategy, pricing / bidding strategy, measurement strategy and, very importantly, your creative strategy.

Simply putting up an attractive banner is not going to cut it anymore. The message has to be relevant to the user and communicating something of value. And this is where I felt that the below creative failed.

Yes, it was contextual, as I was served this banner on a travel related site. But I was left confused by what the banner was trying to communicate. To begin with, notice the price of the first flight. Rs. 45,000 for Delhi to Dharamshala? No, thanks! It looks like the banner has been dynamically created. If yes, then the advertiser should have put a rule in place to not display flights over a certain price.

Then notice the destinations mentioned – Chennai, Madurai, Bangalore, Jammu, Dehradun, Delhi, Dharamshala. In this day and age of data, the least an advertiser can do is to personalise their message as much as possible. In this instance, the advertiser could have leveraged IP to show me flights to and from my destination.

Finally, there is no mention of any reason as to why I should click on the banner. I do not wish to ‘Learn more’ about flights from random point A to random point B. There was another banner from the same advertiser elsewhere on the page with the message ‘Your flight is a click away’. Dear advertiser, I am seeing your banner on a website in late 2019, yes, I do know that I can book flights through clicking! This space could have been better utilised by talking about what makes you unique or different, or some other statement to drive more immediate action.

I would love to know how this campaign performed, but my sense is that they will struggle to see any meaningful impact.

Please contact me if you would like any help with your Digital Marketing.