Beyond the Banner: How Display Ads Are Getting Smarter, Sleeker, and Stronger

Digital Display ads, commonly known as banners, are everywhere, and because of this they are routinely underestimated as an effective tactic. Any advances in Display advertising are usually associated with targeting, as programmatic media has improved in leaps and bounds, including expansive segments, lookalike generation, dynamic retargeting, and more. However, there have also been innovations to Display ads themselves, resulting in banners that are not only more noticeable for awareness goals, but also more engaging and effective in driving onsite conversions.

Display Ads: A Brief History

The first display ad (below) appeared in 1994 and was sponsored by AT&T. Visually, it was not much, given the limited pixels it had to work with. It did little to raise awareness, as the brand is not even mentioned in the ad, which was maybe part of its appeal. Its messaging was almost ominous but prophetic. Users did click the ad in great numbers, with its clickthrough rate (CTR) measured at over 40%!

Although clickthrough rates have declined dramatically in the past 35 years, now usually around 0.3-0.4%, people have continued to purposefully click these ads. Their resilience is due in large part to programmatic targeting, the data-informed automated process of buying and placing digital ads in real time. Programmatic emerged in the late 2000s with platforms like AppNexus and Trade Desk. Today there are hundreds of such DSPs, serving several hundred trillion banner ads worldwide each year.

Rise of Rich Media

Rich Media ads have been around since the late 2010s but have seen much improvement in recent years in terms of functionality and available inventory. These Display ads, which are often expandable, feature interactive actions such as scrolling, maps, carousels, animations, quizzes, and more. Not only do they generate awareness and traffic, like regular banner ads, but they introduce micro-experiences that can provide engagement and unique retargeting opportunities, without users ever having to leave the content they are viewing.

DCW worked to bring our client, GAF Roofing’s, Display ads to the next level by developing an attractive and high-performing Rich Media campaign. We partnered with the creative agency TotalCom and the platform Airtory to create and execute a series of Rich Media ads highlight GAF’s products at Home Depot locations across the country. The result was not only scroll-stopping ads that generated curiosity, but over 41,000 clicks to shop on the Home Depot website. The overall CTR reached 0.94%, over 3 times the current banner benchmark.

Social Ads, but not on Social Media

Social Media ads have gained prominence in media plans as traffic drivers in recent years due to the relative decline in Display CTRs. CTRs on Facebook and Instagram especially seem to show no signs of slowing down, now routinely reaching rates around 2% and 1%, respectively. However, Display platforms are adapting by utilizing social creative assets and repurposing them as banner ads.

This ad type, often called “Social-Display” is growing increasingly popular and becoming more widely available on programmatic DSPs. They mimic the look and feel of Meta ads, which people are generally more comfortable in considering and clicking, by showing the usual parts of social ads, like headlines, images/videos, descriptions, and CTA buttons, as banners. These hybrids are purchased at much lower CPMs than Meta, generate higher CTRs than regular Display ads, and use granular programmatic targeting. Furthermore, putting your social assets to work across the open internet greatly expands reach outside the walled gardens of platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Take your Display Ads to the Next Level with DCW

Are you ready to elevate your Display campaigns with cutting edge tactics? Or maybe you’re an advertiser interested in learning more about these recent developments? Either way, DCW Media is your resource for planning, creating, running, and optimizing your next Display campaign that goes beyond the standard banner types.