What Types Of Display Ads Should You Run? — Part 2

Published in

Inside Revenue

9 min readOct 19, 2018

The Intermediate Guide

In Part 1, I spoke about the different Display ads and some of the advantages of advertising on the display network. This was to give you insights into why you should consider using display ads for your brand. If you missed this article you can click here to read “What Types Of Display Ads Should You Run? — Part 1 (The Beginner’s Guide)”.

In this article, I will go over the types of ads you will need to advertise on AdWords and Adroll. These are two platforms that we have used in our business to get the best results. I will be covering the types of ads and which perform best on the web.

“ Not providing valuable content will simply push you out of the ring online. Make this your first priority!” — Melonie Dodaro ( Keynote Speaker | #1 Bestselling Author, LinkedIn Unlocked and The LinkedIn Code) @MelonieDodaro

How Can Different Display Ad Types Help Me Hit My Company’s Revenue Targets?

In this article we will cover:

#1 AdWords Display Banners

#2 Adroll Display Ads

Let’s get going…
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#1 AdWords Display Banners

The Google Display Network is the largest advertising network available on the Internet today. Consisting of millions of websites, advertisers can choose to display their adverts in multiple formats to a range of audiences across the globe using a wide variety of targeting methods.

The Google Display Network accounts for 20% of all AdWords traffic, and reaches 92% of all Internet users in the US. These figures will continue to rise as the network expands in the future, so it is important that advertisers understand exactly how to utilize the power of Display Advertising to promote their business to relevant audiences across the web.

It is a common misconception that the Display Network only provides you with the option of displaying image ads. In fact, the Google Display Network lets you advertise in a variety of formats and sizes with text ads, static and animated image ads, rich media and video ads.

Text Ads:The GDN allows you to run the same text ads on display as you would on the search network. Text ads consist of a headline and two lines of text, and allow advertisers to create a range of ads to text which copy is generating the most clicks.
Image Ads: A static image that would fill the entire ad block on the website it appears upon. You can include custom imagery, layouts and background colours on image ads.
Rich Media Ads: Rich Media Ads include interactive elements, animations or other aspects that change depending on who is looking at the ad and how they interact with it. For example, a moving carousel of products.
Video Ads: Video ads have become more popular since YouTube is included on the Display Network. You can now use AdWords to place your ads next to YouTube videos.

Image, Video And Mobile Advert Sizes

There are more than 20 different ad block sizes within the GDN. Each site that signs up to carry Google ads will choose the ad block that fits their website layout best, so if you want your ads to be able to show on a variety of websites irrelevant of ad block size, then it is best practice to create display ads in a variety of sizes.

Advertisers are able to upload both animated and non-animated image ads on the Google Display network as well as HTML5 ads in the following sizes:

Square And Rectangle

200 × 200 Small square
240 × 400 Vertical rectangle
250 × 250 Square
250 × 360 Triple widescreen
300 × 250 Inline rectangle
336 × 280 Large rectangle
580 × 400 Netboard

Skyscraper

120 × 600 Skyscraper
160 × 600 Wide skyscraper
300 × 600 Half-page ad
300 × 1050 Portrait

Leaderboard

468 × 60 Banner
728 × 90 Leaderboard
930 × 180 Top banner
970 × 90 Large leaderboard
970 × 250 Billboard
980 × 120 Panorama

Mobile

300 × 50 Mobile banner
320 × 50 Mobile banner
320 × 100 Large mobile banner

Supported File Size · 150 KB or smaller

It is imperative that you create ads to fit all the different ad blocks listed above. Failure to do so will limit your reach on the display network and stop your ads from showing on certain websites.

You should expect image or rich media ads to have roughly twice the click-through rate of text ads, but they will show less often. Because Google can’t fit more than one text ad into a single block but only one image ad into the same space, you will therefore need to outbid the combined max CPC of the text ads sharing a block to display an image in that position.

If you don’t have the resources to create image ads then you could use Google’s Display Ad Builder, but you should include a clear call-to-action or branding message within each of your ads and use a design that is consistent with the look and feel of your website.

Text For Display Advert Sizes

To reach people with easily edited messaging while they’re browsing websites or using apps, create text ads. You can run new text ads by creating either responsive ads or expanded text ads. This section gives you an overview of types of text ads that can run on Display, and the way that display text ads are enhanced with formatting and even images.

Types Of Ads

Responsive Ads
Responsive ads can show as several different formats, including text ads. They adapt seamlessly to fit across millions of possible placements, automatically transforming from text ads to image ads to fit available ad spaces. Responsive ads are an easy way to enter into the world of image ads. With responsive ads, you have the option of scanning your website for images, using our free library of images, or uploading images from your computer.
Expanded Text Ads
Expanded text ads (ETAs), which are the next generation of Google text ads, can run on the Display Network in a different format than in Search. To boost their impact, display ETAs may, for instance, have a different layout for description lines. They may also appear in native formats or image formats. When you create an expanded text ad for Display, therefore, the preview will not represent what customers will actually see.

A successful direct-to-customer building materials company, BuildDirect, was looking to build awareness and spread the word about its offerings. Turning to the Google Display Network, the 15-year-old company employed a variety of remarketing and advertising tools. Fully achieving its goals, BuildDirect’s display campaigns generated 10% of its revenue. Read how here.

“Take a long, hard look at your lead generation methodologies. It’s really all about the leads. Do your best to always move from less assertive methodologies to those that are more assertive and more effective. That’s where the results are.” — Ken Krogue ( Founder of InsideSales.com. Top blog on Inside Sales) @kenkrogue

#2 Adroll Display Ads

Adroll is a platform that you can use to load your ads onto, and they will then be distributed onto the web to your selected audience. The types of ads that can be used on Adroll are web ads, dynamic web ads and native ads.

Web Ads

A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser. Adroll recommends that you include all 6 of the most popular ad sizes detailed below

Most Popular Ad Sizes

The more ad sizes you upload, the more inventory Adroll be able to buy for you. At minimum, they recommend the following popular ad sizes:

Medium rectangle: 300×250
Leaderboard: 728×90
Wide skyscraper: 160×600
Half Page: 300x600
Mobile leaderboard: 320×50
Billboard: 970x250

Additional Ad Sizes

Adroll also supports these additional ad sizes.

Full Banner: 468×60
Square: 250×250
Mid square: 200×200
Large Rectangle: 336×280
Skyscraper: 120×600
Small Rectangle: 180×150
Vertical Banner: 120×240
Square Button: 125×125
Rectangular Button: 180x60
Tiny Rectangle: 120x60
3:1 Rectangle: 300x100

Adroll will accept JPG, GIF and HTML5 ad formats as long as the file is under 150KB in size. Below are a couple of additional requirements that Adroll has on it’s banner ads

Animation

Animated ads are restricted to a maximum of 30 seconds (at a 15–20 fps frame rate), after which point automated animations must come to a complete stop. You are permitted to give the viewer the option to restart the animation.

Destination URL:

Web banners are not permitted to use redirecting URLs. Track campaign analytics with UTM tracking codes instead.
Banners cannot link directly into a payment processor (e.g., PayPal). Visitors must be able to review terms of the offer prior to entering purchasing/sign-up flows.
Your destination URL can’t link to a YouTube video.

Dynamic Web Ads

Dynamic web ads are personalized ads that appear across devices. Dynamic ads feature previously-viewed, recommended, and top products based on a visitor’s activity on your site. Product information comes from the product feed that you provide or that Adroll can access via Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop or Magento.

Dynamic web ads see up to a 2.5x increase in click-through rate (CTR) and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) — up to 50% lower when compared to static retargeting.

Formatting Your Dynamic Web Ads
Required Assets:

Company logo
Product feed (learn how to create and structure a product feed)

Resulting Ad Sizes:

Medium rectangle: 300×250
Leaderboard: 728×90
Wide skyscraper: 160×600
Large rectangle: 300x600

Additional Guidelines

Images used in your product feed should be at least 200x300 pixels

Native Web Ads

A native ad fits the natural form and function of the environment where it appears. For example, an Instagram ad is made to look like an Instagram post, but on a content publishing site, such as The Atlantic, an ad resembles a featured story within the news stream.

Native ads are 23% more viewable than traditional display ads. On average, we’ve seen a 39% lower CPC and a 33% lower CPA for Native Ads compared to general Web ads.

Formatting Your Native ads
Image Sizes:

600x500, 600x600, 600x315

Native Ad Requirements:

No text in your ad image
Your brand name
A catchy title (90 characters max)
A catchy description (140 characters max)

To succeed in the competitive food subscription market, Freshly needs to constantly be in front of their audiences with messaging targeted to different segments. They found Adroll has the technology and account service team that can help them meet — and beat — their marketing goals. See how Jordan Finger, Vice President of Growth Marketing at Freshly, uses the Adroll platform to bring in more conversions at lower costs — Read how here.

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Above I have gone through the types of ads that are available to you on Google AdWords and Adroll. These can help you to get your brand in front of your targeted audiences across the general web. This can help you to close deals quicker and get the right people to see your message.

In my next article, “What Types Of Display Ads Should You Run? — Part 3 (The Advanced Guide)”, I will cover some of the best practices for Display ads and some tips on optimizing your display ads for success.