B2B Display Advertising

1. Objectives

Refer back to the ‘Level 3 – Marketing Team Objectives’ (Part #1: B2B Marketing Objectives) you set and build your specific Display Advertising objectives around these (along with general best-practice/secondary objectives).

2. Targeting

When building your B2B display advertising campaigns, it’s important to match your target audiences with the correct targeting options.

2.1 – Display Ad Focus

Display advertising can be used for various different purposes, but in the B2B space, there are three key ‘focuses’ for your display ad campaigns.

• Company/Brand: Creating display ads and campaigns that use your company/brand as the key focus in a way of driving mindshare of your core value proposition and preference amongst key competitors.
• Product/Service: Creating display ads and campaigns that use your products/services as the key focus in a way of driving awareness and interest in your key offerings.
• Premium Content: Creating display ads and campaigns that use premium content marketing assets as the key focus in a way of driving credibility in your value proposition and capabilities.

2.2 – Display Ad Targeting Categories

There are three key categories for defining when and where to show your display ads to target audiences.

• Placement: This is where you can specifically choose the websites and web entities where you want your ads to display.
• Contextual: This is where your ads display across websites and web entities that closely match the keywords and topics you assign to your campaign (and the ads).
• Remarketing: This is where your ads display across website and web entities after a user has visited (and exited) your own website (or performed certain actions when there).

2.3 – Display Ad Targeting Parameters

There are several key parameters for focussing in on who to show your display ads to.

• Location: Choose which geographic location you want your display ads to show in.
• Language: Choose which language preference you want your ads to show for (English speakers, French speakers etc).
• Device: Define what devices you want your displays ad to show on including desktop, tablet, and smartphone.
• Frequency Capping: Define how many times you want your display ads to show for the same user.
• Demographics: Define basic demographic information such as the age and gender of your users you want to display ads to.

2.4 – Remarketing

Remarketing is the process whereby ads are triggered after a user exists your website on a particular page or after several actions. This is a simplified description as this mechanism has grown significantly in complexity over the years (but you can still use it for simple website exit ad triggers).

The key to building your remarketing campaigns is deciding what actions or page views would be deemed as valuable (or having potential value) for your business. An obvious example here is where a user visits your ‘Free Trial’ page for your SaaS product and spends significant time on the page (potentially watching an embedded video), but then exits the website on that page and fails to input details for a free trial.

When used strategically, remarketing is a highly effective mechanism for recapturing the interest of your users, directing them back to your website and converting them.

3. Ad Creative

Similar to B2B PPC, in B2B Display Advertising, the actual ads you create will act as the conduit between your user and your landing pages (where they can convert). There are a number of elements to keep in mind whilst building your campaigns.

3.1 – Display Ad Types

There are three key types of display ads that can be used to attract and engage your target audiences.

• Image: The standard type is a simple image-based ad that embeds both text and CTA button.
• Rich Media: These ads are like image ads in terms of size dimensions, but the ad itself will contain functionality allowing user interaction with the ad itself. A common example here is where you could list several products in a carousel, that enables the user to toggle between the products (within the display ad) and click the product they want to learn more about.
• Video: These ads are again like image ads in terms of size dimensions, but the key ad creative is video based that can either auto play or require the user to click.

3.2 – Display Ad Components

When creating your ads, you need to consider the persona you are targeting, the key focus of the display ad campaign, the targeting category and the display ad type – only then can you create an effective display ad and relevant CTA.

• Headline: With display ads needing to instantly engage your audience, your headline must relay the value of whatever it is focussing on.
• Description: You can use a description to do exactly that, add further description and context to your headline. This should be crafted strategically using your campaign as the foundation.
• Logo: You should always use your company/brand logo as a way of building awareness and recognition for easier brand recall.
• Creative Visual: Whether image, rich media or video based – your creative visual needs to be aesthetically pleasing and feature your brand identity.
• CTA: Your embedded call-to-action will almost always feature within a simple button element and should clearly explain what you want the user to do next or what they can expect after clicking through on the ad.

3.3 – Landing Pages

Again, very similar to B2B PPC, in B2B Display Advertising your landing page will be the location in which users convert and thus you need to ensure that once a user clicks on an ad, they are directed to a highly relevant landing page to align their journey.

4. Measurement

A combination of hard and soft metrics should be used to allow measurement of your primary and secondary objectives in relation to the online ads channel. Jump to Part #8: B2B Marketing Measurement for ideas on what metrics and KPI’s you can utilise as part of your strategy.