Google Display Ads are a great way for a business or a brand to gain more recognition or awareness. This tool helps place ads on millions of websites that may be independently owned. This type of ad is very different from the commonly used Google search campaigns. However, with the use of these ads there is also a need for Google display ads optimization so that you get the most out of your ad campaigns.

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What are Google Display Ads?

A Google Display Ad is an ad format that consists of images, video and texts and can be displayed across many websites. The main aim of this kind of advertising is to increase brand awareness and website traffic. The Google Display Network (GDN) is a big network of websites and mobile applications that are independently owned and give Google permission to display their advertisements across the network. With access to so many websites, it helps to create some amount of display campaign optimization so that you get the best out of this tool.

Tips on How to Optimize Google Display Ads

Improving the ads that you create over time, can help your ads reach more people and perform better. Here are some ways you can optimize display ads:

1. Choose the right audience

This is a form or ad targeting that enables you to target the right people within the GDN. This type of GDN optimization helps you reach your target audience by using strategies like specific keywords in the ad and placing them on webpages similar to what the ad targets. This will help you reduce costs of displaying ads. A more targeted approach can increase conversions. Displaying ads on websites with similar content can capture potential customers that are interested in what your brand may be selling.

2. Remarketing display ads

To truly understand remarketing ad services, you should understand the behaviour of online consumers. On an average, it is likely for a consumer to return to a website on GDN multiple times. This provides us with ample opportunities to target these return audiences to see display ads on other websites on the GDN. It is a great marketing strategy for small business that have a smaller budget to spend on advertisements. Google allows you to add a remarketing tag to all your websites so that you can track the visitors coming to your page and also how many times they come there.  This type of tool helps you track your remarketing campaigns and gives you a higher chance of a conversion.

3. Automated Bidding strategy

Automated bidding is a way to place bids on Google ads and keywords that have a likelihood to result in a click or conversion. This strategy allows you to increase your visibility and conversions automatically without you having to do it manually. In the context of Google display ads optimization, this helps you improve the performance of your display ads. You can implement this in 3 ways:

• Set the bids to increase site visits by maximizing clicks
• ‘Target impression share’ sets bids to increase visibility
• ‘Target CPA’ sets bids so that you can get as many conversions as possible

4. In-market audiences

An in-market audience is a group of potential customers that are browsing through similar webpages and product pages. Google is able to take this type of data and set up an ad campaign that will attract these people to your brand. A feature called ‘similar segments’ helps to target these potential customers and simplifies audience targeting dramatically. Google is able to take into account the number of clicks on similar ads and the frequency of visits to a particular site. It is just another way to retarget audiences and contribute to display campaigns optimization.

5. Content exclusions

This feature prevents your ads from being shown alongside certain categories of websites that are found on the GDN. This is done to further optimize the type of people who can see your ads.  Content exclusion gives you more control over an individual campaign setting.  For example, if you do not wish for ads to be displayed on sites that have mature content or are unrelated in any way to your business, there are ways to exclude ads from being displayed on these sites. This is also where GDN optimization can help as websites categorization can make content exclusions easier.

6. Responsive Display Ads

Responsive ads are easy to create and helps to create an ad that is a combination of inputs that you put into the ad campaign in Google. Different variants of an ad can be created so that you can fit the given ad space on the GDN. They usually contain a headline and short description coupled with image and video elements. Using a feature like this is easy on the budget especially if you are a small business owner who can’t afford to hire a designer to give you different options. Your ads can be evaluated regularly to ensure that they have a high-performance rating.

Benefits of display ad optimization

• Optimization gives you an advantage over the data that you have already procured from existing ads so you can create more.
• Using remarketing ad services can help you capture potential customers so that your business thrives.
• With new features such as a Google Ads Optimization Score you will be able to see how well the Google algorithm works and understand more about your ad’s performance.
• Optimization helps you save money. For small businesses, every penny counts. By having more control on where and how your ad is displayed, you can cut costs.
• Automation of Google Ads help you save time as you can manually control different aspects of a Google display ad.
• Targeting strategies can be exhausting. By placing clear goals for your business, you will be able to capture the target audience and increase visibility.
• Can provide an increased online presence for your brand which can ultimately lead to increased sales and brand awareness.