Synergy between Display and Search – what you really need to know!

 

“Search gives me ROI. What can Display give me?”

I’m sure, you might have heard this many times from clients – who are all so focussed on their search ROI, Cost Per Acquisition or Return On Ad Spend. I can empathise that it’s not always easy to tell them – “No, you really should trial display/banner advertising as it can positively impact your search ROI”.

We know that the two networks – Search and Display – have different dynamics, outcomes and benchmarking metrics. Search is a pull medium and is run to deliver cost-effective clicks and responses / actions. On the other hand, Display being a push medium is targeted more for delivering brand awareness and reach which can result in a high brand recall when people who were exposed to the banners online, actually go on to search for those products or brands. 

The objective of Display is to expand and broadcast the reach of on-line advertising. The core here is the cost effective impressions.  

“So, impressions are what Display can give me – that’s it!”

Not really, there’s definitely more to it than what meets the eye and this is what the industry has been researching for some time. There are some very definitive and concrete studies that show exactly that. The Latent Impact of Display Advertising on Search clearly brings out the synergy between display advertising and search. The study suggests that display actually impacts search by:

• Contributing to a lift in searches for both branded and generic terms
• Incremental clicks on advertiser’s paid or organic ads
• Direct visits to the website

Running an effective display campaign can cause statistically significant increase in search traffic by increasing brand awareness, brand recognition and brand preference. This brand affinity causes users to be more attracted to the brand website and can help SEM and other channels run more efficiently, boosting overall ROI.

“Sounds good but the Display click-throughs are so low – is it really being effective”?

Evidence shows that the success of online advertising has paradoxically been the prime cause for the decline in click through rate (CTR) performance. MediaMind says:

“as users are exposed to more & more ads, they probably are not going to keep clicking at the same vigour and as a result, their CTR  will seemingly drop!”

Building on this theory, Google has announced another tracking metric for comparison of display campaigns vs. those running on the Google Display Network. (View throughs). This is similar to Post-impression tracking, which is a step ahead of click throughs. These can show how exposure to a banner ad, without clicking on it, can positively impact both Search or direct website visits, hence increasing the overall performance of the campaign. They can also help you better measure the value of your display advertising campaigns.

A recent study by comScore and MediaMind, shows the positive impact of banner exposure (with or without clicks) on Search metrics.

Included in the MediaMind paper is research by comScore that has shown that two-thirds of Internet users do not click on any display ads over the course of a month, and that only 16% of Internet users account for 80% of all clicks. comScore confirmed that there is a latency effect and branding effect to online advertising, in which users arrive at the advertiser’s website even without clicking.

In the research, which included 139 display campaigns from seven verticals, comScore has shown substantial effects on traffic, sales and branding despite a lack of clicks.

According to comScore:

• The display campaigns yielded a 46% lift in advertiser websites visits, over a four week period
• Exposed users are 38% more likely to conduct an advertiser related branded keyword search over a four week period, and are 27% more likely to make a purchase online
• Exposed users are 17% more likely to make a purchase at the advertiser’s retail store

MediaMind has found similar results to those of comScore. An analysis of more than 100 million conversions from thousands of campaigns worldwide confirms that only about 20% of conversions are the result of a click, while the vast majority is the result of viewing the banner without clicking.

These results, together with comScore’s research, show that clicks are only a partial measure of online advertising effectiveness. About 80% of the traffic of users that were exposed to the ads is not accounted for when measuring only clicks.

So, in summary, an effective Display campaign is a very potent tool to lift the overall metrics of a Search campaign and impact the integrated bottom-line.

What is your experience of running Display campaigns? Have you seen positive impacts on your Search activity? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Tags: Display, google search, search, sem