What Is Display Advertising? How It Differs from Search Ads, and How to Get the Most from It

There are many kinds of advertising you can run online.

This article covers display advertising, which among them is often used to reach the latent audience.

It also covers how display advertising differs from search advertising, and how to maximise its effect.
If you are not yet using display advertising, this is worth a read.

Summary
・Display advertising appears in the ad slots on websites and apps, and makes its case visually with images and video
・Search advertising suits the active audience best; display advertising suits the latent audience
・Getting results takes KPIs designed around the goal, awareness or acquisition, and fast A/B testing of creative

▼Who this is for
・Anyone who feels search advertising alone has hit a ceiling on volume
・Anyone who wants to know how to choose the right platform (GDN, YDA, DSP and so on)
・Anyone who has started display advertising but is struggling to get results

1. What display advertising is

Display advertising is the general term for ads shown in the ad slots built into websites and apps.

The large networks are built and offered mainly by Google and Yahoo!.

Google’s is called GDN (the Google Display Network) and Yahoo!’s is called YDA (the Yahoo! Display Ad Network).

1.1 Display advertising formats

Banners used to dominate, but there are now many formats, including video and responsive formats that blend into the page they appear on.
Display advertising comes in more than banner form; the types are as follows.

• Banner ads
• Text ads
• Responsive display ads
• Dynamic display ads
• Video advertising

Responsive display ads work by having Google AI combine your assets, images, headlines, video and so on, automatically and optimise them.

1.2 Where the ads appear

They appear where a user will see them while reading content: a website sidebar, the middle of an article, an app’s news feed.

The main networks (GDN and YDA) and platform-owned inventory

Running display advertising mainly means using the following two ad networks.

・GDN (the Google Display Network)
Ads can run on more than two million sites and apps partnered with Google, including Tabelog, Livedoor Blog, YouTube and Gmail.

・YDA (Yahoo! display advertising)
Ads run mainly across Yahoo! JAPAN’s own services, such as Yahoo! News and Yahoo! Chiebukuro, giving some of the widest reach in Japan.

・Platform-owned inventory
Recently, inventory that draws on a platform’s own purchase and profile data, such as LINE Ads and Rakuten Ads, has also drawn attention.

1.3 How to choose between search advertising and DSP advertising

Each method of advertising has its own strengths.
What matters is choosing according to your goal, or the stage you are at.

Method	Main target	When it runs	What stands out
Search advertising	The active audience (ready to buy now)	When the user searches	Intent to buy is high, but reach is capped by search volume.
Display advertising	The latent audience (future buyers)	While they are browsing a site	Buys a great deal of awareness cheaply.
DSP advertising	A specific target	Data-driven delivery organised around people	Runs across several networks, narrowed to a specific profile.

1.4 Differences in cost per click, click rate and conversion rate

Display advertising tends to have a far lower cost per click (CPC) than search advertising, from a few tens of yen upwards.
On the other hand, because users see the ad while enjoying content rather than while looking for something, the click rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR) come out lower than with search advertising.

2. Four advantages of display advertising

2.1 [Advantage 1] You can make your case visually

Unlike search advertising, display advertising can appeal to users with images and video. It carries more information than text-only search advertising and conveys the appeal of a product or the world of a brand in an instant, which makes it easier to produce an ad that catches the eye.

It also lets you put your brand image across.

2.2 [Advantage 2] Building awareness among the latent audience

Display advertising lets you reach users who do not know your product or service yet, the latent audience, which makes it ideal when you want to grow the market itself.
Display advertising is charged per click too, so nothing is spent until someone clicks. Prepare banners you think will work and get the latent audience interested.

2.3 [Advantage 3] A low cost per click

As mentioned above, display advertising tends to have a lower cost per click than search advertising. Roughly 50 to 100 yen per click. For the same spend, you can reach a wider group of users.

2.4 [Advantage 4] Remarketing and retargeting are possible

Display advertising allows remarketing, which is another of its advantages.
Remarketing is also called retargeting.

Remarketing (retargeting) means the following.
・Running ads to users who have visited your site
・Running ads to users who have used a service on your site

You have probably seen a product you looked up out of interest start appearing in ads.
An advantage of display advertising is that it also works for remarketing, approaching again the users who showed interest once so that you do not lose them.

3. Disadvantages of display advertising

Next, the disadvantages of display advertising.

3.1 [Disadvantage 1] A lower CVR than search advertising

Compared with search advertising, display advertising also has a lower CTR (click rate) and CVR (conversion rate).
The reason is that search advertising finds it easier to bring in users who are already interested in the product or service.
Search advertising can run to users who have searched an engine for a problem, or for a service that solves it.
Display advertising, however, runs to a wider group, so it also reaches users who are not especially interested.
The result is a lower CTR and CVR.

3.2 [Disadvantage 2] Analysis is harder

Display advertising can use images and video, but those are said to be hard to analyse and improve.
With text-only search advertising it is easy to work out which part of the copy is the problem, but with display advertising, which runs images and video, it is harder to tell which element is at fault.
Measuring and improving is vital when you run ads, so this counts as a disadvantage.

3.3 [Disadvantage 3] Targeting is harder

Targeting being harder is another disadvantage of display advertising.
That is because ads run not only to the active audience but to those partway there and to the latent audience as well.
It is the flip side of the advantage of reaching wide but shallow.

4. When to run display advertising

Beyond going after the people search advertising cannot reach, it is highly effective at the following moments.

・At the launch of a new product or service
A new product with no search keywords yet, because nobody knows it, has to be put in front of people by display advertising.

・When volume from search advertising plateaus
Search volume has a ceiling. Further growth means creating the demand itself through display advertising.

・When you want to raise brand awareness
Ideal when you want to grow market share and become the first name that comes to mind in your category.

・Publicising a particular event or campaign
It comes into its own when you want to gather a lot of traffic in a short time, for a limited-period sale or a seminar.

5. Four hard rules for display advertising that works, from the professionals

5.1 Set KPIs that match the goal: awareness, traffic or acquisition

Most people who conclude that display advertising does not sell are measuring it against the same KPI as search advertising: an immediate conversion.

・For awareness
Impressions, video completion rate

・For traffic
Clicks, time on site

・For acquisition
View-through conversions (the number who saw the ad and then converted by another route). Looking at the measure that suits your goal is what leads to sound investment decisions.

5.2 Design the target and build a persona

Display advertising has features for narrowing who the ad reaches by keyword, age, gender, area and so on.

Go beyond broad attributes such as ‘men in their thirties’ and set a persona built on real insight into users’ problems and patterns of behaviour.

Pinning down which sites they look at, and what problem they have when they do, before you produce the images and video raises the accuracy of where the ads run.

5.3 Produce and choose banner and video creative that catches the eye

More than half of whether display advertising succeeds comes down to the creative.
Unlike text, images and video contain many elements, so prepare several versions and analyse them to see what works.

• Text (the headline)
• Photography (or illustration)
• Colour
• With or without a person
• With or without a button

Vary elements like these to arrive at images and video that work.

The points to remember are

・Emphasise the benefit
Make the copy about the better future the user gets, not the features of the product.

・Keep it legible
Optimise contrast and type size so the message reads at a glance even on a small phone screen.

There are detailed rules for ad images and video, so we recommend reading the GDN and YDN specifications carefully before you start producing.

5.4 Get the most from AI optimisation with responsive display ads

Using responsive display ads is essential to running display advertising today.
Upload several images, headlines, logos, videos and descriptions, and Google AI generates the best combination for each placement automatically.

Adding video as well as still images widens reach further, and if the AI judges that video performs better it will favour it, giving users a richer experience.

Unlike the upload type, where you set the banners and videos yourself: choose the upload type when you want tight control over the design, and the responsive type when you want to leave optimisation to the AI and widen reach.

6. Frequently asked questions about display advertising (FAQ)

Here we answer the questions we are most often asked by people considering display advertising.

6.1 Q. What is the minimum budget for starting display advertising?

A. The system will run ads from a few thousand yen, but we recommend starting at around 100,000 to 300,000 yen a month.

With display advertising, AI optimisation is what separates good results from bad, so you need to build up a certain amount of data: impressions, clicks and conversions.

Spend too little and you risk never gathering enough statistical data to judge what is working, so nothing improves.

6.2 Q. Will banners produced in-house still get results?

A. Yes, they can.

Put the message ahead of the design, though.

A banner that makes someone glancing at a phone screen feel instantly that it concerns them can out-click a beautiful banner made by a professional. Start by preparing a few banners that state your strengths simply, then test them against each other.

6.3 Q. Can I specify where the ads run? (I do not want them on unsuitable sites)

A. Yes, you can control this with placement targeting and exclusions.

You can name particular websites to run on, or equally exclude adult sites or whole genres.

If brand image matters to you, vet the placements in advance, or consider using direct buys of particular slots alongside it.

6.4 Q. Should I start with search advertising or display advertising?

A. As a rule, search advertising comes first. 

Securing the active audience, the people looking for the product right now, through search advertising, and then rolling out display advertising when you want to grow volume further or raise awareness of a new product, is the tried and tested route to the best return.

7. In closing

We hope that was useful.
This article has brought together what you need to know about display advertising.

In brief, it comes to this.
▼Display advertising in summary
・It appears in the ad slots on websites and apps
・It reaches a wide target, the latent audience included
・It conveys a great deal of information through images and video
・Remarketing lets you approach people again
・It tends to keep the cost per click down

It is not a question of search advertising or display advertising being better; each has its advantages and disadvantages, so using them for different jobs is what works.
And if you are running ads for the first time, start with search advertising, then add display advertising on top.