One of the most effective ways to promote an eCommerce store, while building visibility and awareness, is online advertising. At the TLG Commerce (Trilogi) marketing department we’ve studied which Google Adwords banners perform best and achieve the goal of driving sales at the lowest possible cost per conversion.
In this post we share some tips to improve the performance of your Display advertising campaigns through the quality of your Google Adwords banners. But first, let’s recap what they are.
Google AdWords Display Advertising
The Display Network is made up of two million websites, videos and mobile apps affiliated with Google where AdWords ads can be shown. We can place our ads by targeting audiences based on interests, age, location, the keywords they usually search for, etc., so our message reaches our target.
The Display Network offers many placements for text, image, video or rich media ads. Unlike the Search Network or Display text ads, image or video ads give us a much better chance of catching users’ attention. Examples:
Text ad (on the Search Network):
Text ad (on the Display Network):
Image ad (on the Display Network):
Image campaigns (banners) are more creative and grab the attention of users browsing a website. They’re also ideal for the following marketing goals:
– Drive visits to our eShop.
The main goal of any online campaign is to increase traffic and turn it into conversions. Because AdWords lets us target our audience, banner campaigns reach people who are interested in our product, and the ad creatives catch their eye. On top of that, CPC (cost per click) is usually lower than on Search Network ads, for several reasons.
– Generate conversions.
Lots of traffic to your online store is great but, as in any business, what matters is sales. As mentioned, quality visits from people interested in our products mean a higher chance of conversion.
– Branding: brand visibility and awareness.
Images make a bigger advertising impact. That’s why in these campaigns we look not only at clicks and CTR (clicks per impression) but also at impressions. Even if users don’t click, seeing the logo and message leads to much higher recall than text ads. Brand awareness is hard to measure in these campaigns, but at least impressions are free.
– Announce new eCommerce stores or new products.
Just as with branding for an existing brand, Display banner advertising is also very useful for promoting new online stores or products and raising their brand awareness.
Ready to run an advertising campaign with banners? Here are our tips.
Based on the study carried out by the TLG Commerce (Trilogi) online marketing department , we concluded that a banner that works and meets your goals must follow these 11 rules:
1. Professional, creative design.
It’s VERY important for our banners to look professional so the eCommerce store comes across as serious. Ideally, hire outside professionals or have a graphic design expert on the team who masters tools like Photoshop or Illustrator and has creative skills.
A poorly designed ad is worse than no ad at all
2. Image quality.
If we add photos to the banner, their composition must be well thought out and the focus perfect. For example, a phone photo has enough megapixels to be considered “good”, but it’s usually not high quality. We recommend hiring photographers who specialize in advertising campaigns and use quality cameras.
3. Corporate identity.
Our banner should follow the brand’s corporate style (colors, typography, look and feel…). We won’t advertise a luxury product with childish colors and fonts. Our banners must be visually consistent with the logo and the look of the eCommerce store.
4. Call to action.
The goal is to get users onto our website, so we need to make it easy and show them it’s not just an informational banner: the store has more interesting things (e.g. discounts and other products). For the call to action, use buttons with text like “Enter” or “Discover it”, or write persuasive copy.
5. Logo and products.
We recommend including the logo and the store’s top products in banners. The logo is essential to identify who’s advertising and to leverage the brand’s branding (if it already has it).
As for products, while not as essential for a banner, at TLG Commerce (Trilogi) we recommend showing them to attract higher-quality visits, meaning users who click are genuinely interested. For example, someone looking for basic sneakers probably won’t shop at a designer sneaker eCommerce store. If they don’t see the product type and don’t know the store, they might click, see the prices and leave, causing a bounce and costing us money for a low-quality click.
6. Images of people using the product work better than product-only shots.
Some products need context so we can grasp their features (size, use, etc.). It’s also more attractive and persuasive to see how a bag is used or how a dress looks when worn, which creates the desire to buy it.
7. Short, simple, creative copy (that grabs attention)
Let’s not forget that a banner on a Google partner site isn’t what users are there to see. Banners usually go unnoticed, especially ads with long, boring text. To get users to see our banners and click on them, we need short, clear, creative copy.
8. Non-intrusive formats.
Users don’t like a giant banner popping up while they’re reading an article they care about. They waste time closing it (sometimes just figuring out how) and it creates a negative image of the advertiser. Although Google’s Display Network doesn’t allow intrusive banners, keep this in mind if you decide to buy other ad space.
Each Display Network page has ad slots of different sizes. That’s why it’s important to create banners in several sizes, to increase the chances of our ad being shown. Google also provides a list of the best-performing ad sizes, split between desktop and mobile.
10. Offer discounts, gifts or deals and you’ll get twice as many clicks.
Nothing grabs attention like a 70% discount on the product we want. If you advertise discounts, promotions or gifts, you’ll likely generate much more traffic and, as a result, more conversions.
2016 made animated GIFs a trend, whether in ad formats, content shared on social media (Facebook, Boomerang…) or even WhatsApp. If we can make a GIF banner, users are more likely to notice the movement and click through to our website. We can also show a longer message (without overdoing it, remember point 7) and several images of our product. If you go for an animated GIF, the recommended maximum length is 5 seconds.
Besides our recommendations, Google also has its own image ad policies and may reject ads that don’t comply. Review them here.
We hope we’ve answered your questions and that you’ll start creating image ads on Google’s Display Network. TLG’s online marketing department creates and manages AdWords campaigns. Contact us and we’ll help you.
