When it comes to internet advertising, there are many tools available to achieve this. Search ads and display ads are the best types of ads in the field. There are many ad formats to choose from and the possibilities of reaching target audiences using them are almost limitless. But when it comes to online advertising, there are two important types of advertising to choose from.
Search Ads and Display Ads
Can we use both to maximize the benefits of online advertising? Search Ads and Display Ads play important roles in campaigns, so it is important to know when and how to use them for our own marketing. In this article, we will talk about all the details you need to know about search ads and display ads and how you can use them for your marketing.
Believe it or not, when executed correctly, using the two together yields better results than either of them individually, but it’s important to know how each works separately before combining search and display marketing strategies. In the rest of the article, we’ll talk about the unique strengths of each of these two ad types and how you can use them to your advantage.
1- Search Ads (Google Ads)
If you are not a well-known business, how interesting your business is, how optimized your site is, or how much your customers like you may not be enough to rank high on the search engine results page. In this case you will probably have to make a serious effort to rank on the first pages or even the first positions of search engine results. Search engine advertising will rank you high in the results for highly competitive search words for which specific products are searched. This doesn’t change the fact that you need to optimize your site for search results.
Search engine advertising is a type of paid advertising, also known as PPC, that gets your business found on search engine results pages (SERPs). This type of advertising is a great way to get in front of your target audience through search engines like Google, which allows potential customers to find your products and services.
Think of Search Networks like the old yellow pages!
Search engine advertising is very easy to implement; for example, let’s say you own a clothing company that finds customized sayings on shirts. With a clever idea, you wanted to advertise on Google during the winter season for the wedding season coming in the spring and you worked on search engines for the words “bachelorette party shirts”.
If someone comes to a search engine looking for something to wear to a bachelorette party and we hope they type in a keyword that says “bachelorette party shirts”, they will see your ad in the sponsored section of the search results. If your ad is professionally created with high quality images and engaging copy, the searcher will click on your ad, visit your site and take action to make a purchase.
As in this example, this ad will give you quick and cost-effective visibility on the search page, as well as a ton of additional benefits. These are;
- Competitive disadvantage,
- The possibility to optimize the effectiveness of your marketing,
- Possibility to “target audiences” based on interests and locations,
- It allows you to quickly see whether your website and all the work you’ve done to mobilize is effective or ineffective.
- The advantage of turning your advertising budget into revenue by making fast data-driven decisions,
Search advertising is like providing quick answers to online questions or problems. You can bypass the search network for direct solutions!
First of all, we need to answer the question: who should manage search campaigns? To find the answer to this question and understand if it is right for you, let’s take a look at some of the things you need to consider:
If you have a small advertising budget: In general, when clients are limited to a small budget, we strongly recommend starting with Search, as this ad format can deliver easily trackable direct conversions. Once you have mastered search ads, you can increase your visibility by spreading your PPC efforts to display ads.
If you don’t have hope in Organic Traffic: Organic results focus on comparative content, while ads really have the potential to connect people directly to solutions.
You are marketing a specific product and want to sell it immediately: Generally, the best businesses to call are those that sell specific and tailored products. If you are a plumber, a locksmith, a lawyer or a service provider that needs to be reached at certain times, advertising on the Search Network is almost mandatory.
If you want to have quality leads: Search ads are an excellent option for acquiring customers with intent to buy.
2- Display Network
While search ads are all about Google, the display network is completely different and unrelated to searching on a search engine platform. Search Ads run in the AdWords interface, while display ads work differently. The biggest difference is that your ads are not limited to appearing in one place, but are shown on different websites that users browse on the web. Display ads allow you to be more active in the discovery phase of the sales pyramid by putting your ad directly in front of customers without waiting for them to search to find you, putting your product in front of people even if they don’t realize they need it.
What is the Difference Between Search Ads and Display Ads?
The difference between Search Ads and Display Ads is that display ads are not for direct sales, but to increase awareness of your brand! Display ads are not only for websites and can also be prepared in the following formats:
- Text: Title, two lines of text and a URL; you’ve often seen this in website sidebars.
- Banner: These types of ads feature visuals and rich media content. So you can use animations and custom layouts.
- Gmail: These are the types of ads that appear in personal inboxes.
- Application: Ads targeting specific categories of mobile apps.
Google offers various and detailed targeting options, from the placement of display ads on specific sites selected by the advertiser to the selection of groups of websites based on the characteristics of the target audience.
For example, if you have bought a shirt from a site that sells clothes in the last few weeks, you will start to see ads for that site somewhere on every website you visit. This is because that site wants to remind itself when you need to buy an outfit or other related accessories for some event.
This is a good example of how powerful display advertising can be!
When people are online, you should keep your brand in front of them as much as possible! Not all advertising needs to be purely purposeful, it is also a good option to reach customers while browsing forums or looking at match results from time to time. And why? While people spend most of their time surfing the Internet, they do not conduct detailed searches. At such times, appearing in front of users with ads that will remind them of your brand will provide you with additional opportunities to promote your brand. In this way, you will also benefit from this kind of time for your potential customers.
After all these explanations, let’s evaluate who display ad network campaigns may be suitable for. If you’re wondering whether display ads are right for you, here are some things to consider:
Creating Brand Awareness!
Many advertisers see display ads as a way to familiarize people with their brand. Because the Google Display Network is so big, it offers a lot of spaces where people can advertise their ads to their target audience, so it helps them drive a lot of traffic. You can make a good impression for customers by appearing on reputable sites that are popular among your target audience!
Unless you have products that you can sell immediately;
Many businesses offer services and products that are not immediately available for purchase. With display ads, you can ensure that your brand stays at the top. You can be there when they are thinking about making a purchase. This can be achieved through retargeting thanks to Google Display ads.
If you have Product Images;
The key to using the Google Display Network is that you can use images in your ads! This is the best way to advertise for products that need more visual exposure than text-only search ads, such as home decor, clothing or events.
Keyword coverage: Display ads help advertisers quickly close the gap between keyword coverage and product inventory.
How Search Ads and Display Ads Work Together
In this case, you may want to learn the differences between Search Ads and Display Ads, both of which can offer great options to reach the customers you need to increase sales. However, what you need to be aware of here is that when you combine these two types of ads incorrectly, there is a danger of doing more harm than good. You want to make sure you take the appropriate steps to ensure the reliability of the data you collect, not just for your customers!
The biggest mistake many businesses make is targeting search ads and display ads together in the same ad campaign.
The problem that arises when you do this is that you cannot evaluate the results separately. That’s why you need to differentiate between the two types of ads to ensure they are effective. To take full advantage of the benefits of a combined advertising effort, you should split search and display ads into separate, network-specific campaigns. In this way;
- Your message has reached them in the best ways to reach the people who see your ad,
- It has set specific budgets and bids per network,
- You can let it help you keep your data organized to make effective optimizations in any format.
For example, if you look at the click-through rate (CTR) of an ad, you can see that screen and search are shown and tell different things about your campaign. Display will often show lower CTRs than search results as there is no context for the ads being shown, so CTR analytics can render it useless for analyzing performance if campaigns are not segmented!
For example, if you look at the click-through rate (CTR) of an ad, you can see that screen and search are shown and tell different things about your campaign. Display will often show lower CTRs than search results as there is no context for the ads being shown, so CTR analytics can render it useless for analyzing performance if campaigns are not segmented!
1- How to Set Search Ads Settings?
First, open Google AdWords. From the “Campaigns” dashboard, press the blue ‘+’.
Now choose the type of campaign that best suits your goals. From here, select the “Search Ads” campaign type.
Whether it’s a phone call or a purchase, you can now set goals for your campaign based on your own success rates. If you choose to use goals, Google Ads will provide suggestions for features and settings that can help you achieve those goals. This is Google’s way of steering advertisers to make more use of automated machine learning optimizations, which can be useful for beginners. Creating an untargeted campaign gives access to all the features of a search campaign. This is the option that provides the most flexibility and personalization opportunities for experienced advertisers.
After selecting the campaign objective, you must enter a name for your campaign. By choosing a name that clearly defines the theme of the campaign, you can avoid confusion in the future.
Then select your ad type network. The ad type network setting is where you specify where you want your ad to appear based on the campaign type you have selected. With the Google Search Network, your ad can appear on Google’s search sites and non-Google search sites (such as CNN). These sites are called “Search Partners”. For optimal results, run Search campaigns only on the Search Network.
Next, select your locations. If you want to add multiple locations or target a radius around a specific geography, you can select “Advanced Features” and add your targeting.
Once you have chosen where you want your ads to appear, set your budget and distribution method. You have two options when choosing your delivery type: standard and expedited.
- Standard delivery spends your budget evenly over a given day
- Accelerated deployment eats up your budget as quickly as possible, meaning your budget may run out at the end of the day.
- Then, set your offer. Choose the main optimization focus of your campaign:
- Conversions: The action measured by interacting with your ad. For example, it refers to an act of enrollment or purchase.
- Conversion value: Refers to the financial value of each conversion.
- Clicks Represents the value counted as your page is clicked.
Tips to Consider:
Various tools will help you find specific keywords or phrases used by your audience. You can pay extra to use tools like Keyword Discovery, but a free and easy way is to use Google’s Keyword Tool – accessible when you log in to AdWords. However, a great PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign generates sales beyond generating leads. To get the most out of your PPC advertising, you must determine what is the right quantity and quality optimal value for your business Leading feeds can significantly increase the profitability of your PPC efforts. Simply implementing an email blast campaign can benefit you with many additional sales.
1- How to Set Display Ads?
Setting up display in Google ads is simpler.
You can start by going through the process of creating a text campaign as you would any other campaign. When scrolling through the campaign settings, there is a checkbox at the bottom where you can check “Enable Dynamic Search Network for this campaign”:
If you need more detailed settings than this, you can follow these steps on how to start advertising on the Google Display Network:
- Log in to your “Google Ads” account at adwords.google.com.
- From the “Campaigns” tab, click on “New Campaign”.
- Do not check the Google search box. In your campaign settings, go to Networks, devices and extensions, under networks click “Let Me Choose”. Make sure that the display network box is checked and the search network and partners box is unchecked.
- If you want your ads to be automatically placed on common pages related to your products, select relevant pages across the entire ad network.
- Select your preferred offer option, then set an amount that suits you for your campaign budget.
- Click Save and continue. You can go back and change your settings when you need to.
Tips to Consider:
- Since dynamic search campaigns use automated goals and automated goals are published in ad groups, make sure you configure your automated goals to be published in the most appropriate ad groups possible. Creating separate campaigns for different product groups will help you organize and manage your account, as well as analyze the success of your ads more accurately.
- You can choose to show your ads in both Search and Display or only in Display. You can then choose whether you want your ads to be automatically placed on partner pages related to your products on the Display Network, or you can specify the target sites yourself.
- Bidding options allow you to focus on clicks (to drive traffic to your site), impressions (to increase the visibility of your ad) or conversions (to set a maximum cost-per-acquisition bid). You will also need to set a maximum daily budget for your campaign.
1- How does it work?
Your “Search with Display Select” campaigns are managed in the same way as a “Search” campaign, where you set a budget, select relevant keywords, create ads and set bids.
Your ads can appear when people search for terms on Google Search and partner sites that match your keywords. It may also appear on relevant pages across the web on the Google Display Network. However, your ads are selectively displayed on the Display Network and bidding is automated, helping you reach the people who are most interested in the products and services you advertise.
2- Compare Campaign Types!
Search Network Only
- Ad Placement: Standard and All features, Google Search results, Search partner sites Ad Formats: Standard Text ads (Shopping ads, Dynamic Search ads, App/digital content ads with keyword insertion)
- Targeting: Standard Keywords, remarketing lists for Searches only
- Bidding: Manual and automatic bidding for Standard and All features, Search Network.
Selection of Display Ads with Search Ads Network
- Ad Placement: Standard and All features, Google Search results, Search partner sites, Google Display Network sites and video
- Ad Formats: Standard Text ads (Text ads, Image ads, Display creator ads, App/digital content ads with keyword insertion)
- Targeting: Standard Keywords, Placements Remarketing listings for search only, Site category options
- Bidding: Manual and automatic bidding for Standard and All features, Search Network. Automatic bidding for Display Network.
- If you are running “Search Only” campaigns and you switch to “Search with Display Selection”, you can see an increase in conversions (up to 15% on average) at a higher cost (up to 15% in most cases).
Conclusion
Knowing when to use the right advertising platform is key to any marketing success. As explained in this article, you know that Search Ads and Display Ads work in very different versions. With this knowledge, you now know your strengths and how to use them optimally. Display ads excel at building brand awareness on Display Web sites, while Search excels at developing highly targeted, “Targeted Searches” that are likely to convert.
Transformation and awareness are concepts that can be used together for the greater good! Search ads and display ads are great for driving sales. All you need to do is provide the right offer and advertisement for each one. Contact us if you need help setting up such campaigns in your Google Ads accounts. We can help you compartmentalize the campaigns that will be successful for you.
We hope you find it useful, please leave your comments in the comments section below!
