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The Various Types of Display Advertising

Author bio: Guest post is submitted by Ted Dhanik, the president and co-founder of engage:BDR.  engage: BDR is a leading media company that offers marketing solutions for direct response marketers and advertisers.  Ted Dhanik has his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Marketing from California State University, Hayward.  Ted Dhanik was previously the VP of Strategic Marketing for Myspace for over five years.

Display advertising online has become more and more popular in recent years.  Many researchers and experts have claimed that display ads are some of the most successful marketing tools on the market today.  There are four major types of display advertising, which include category, contextual, behavioral and retargeting.  This article will explain the various types of these ads and the benefits of each.

Category display ads are used quite often.  For example, if you were advertising a new makeup product, you would advertise on websites that are related to that category.  With this example, you would want to publish your display ads on sites that target female audiences, such as fashion or beauty sites.  Category display ads are essentially focused on your target audience.  Category display ads help to create brand recognition and usually include a wide variety of websites to choose from.

Retargeting display ads function slightly differently.  For example, if you were on Yelp earlier, you might see more Yelp ads while you search other websites.  Retargeting involves targeting previous visitors to a company’s website.  This type of advertising is normally more expensive than other kinds of advertising, and tends to target a smaller audience.  However, due to the established interest of the viewer, there is typically a greater ROI (return on investment).

Contextual display advertisements are somewhat similar to category ads.  For example, this might include an ad of the newest bag from a company that makes purses on a handbag forum.  In these examples, the display ad lines up directly with the content on the website, and it’s of direct interest to the visitors.  Contextual and category display ads are often combined for the best results.

Behavioral display advertising targets a specific demographic based on their web history.  Behavior display ads rely on cookies in order to function properly.  This type of advertising focuses on a small and specific audience, but there are more guaranteed customers due to the focus.  Many advertisers use behavioral targeting due to the higher rates of success.

Some companies will use all the various types of display advertising in order to ensure the highest amount of new customers and sales.  Display ads do require some thought and research, because they need to be interesting enough to entice the viewers.  Everything, from the message to the colors used in the ad, can have an impact on the viewers.