Step 4: Deploy Your Campaign
As I said before, you should decide early on whether you want to deploy your ads to a small number of high-traffic-but-more-expensive sites, to a large number of low-traffic-but-less-expensive sites, or to a mix of both. How you execute your campaign depends on the method you use to deploy the ads on websites. If you’re working directly with the websites or content networks, you will probably send them the ads so that they can post them on the assigned pages for you.
If you’re working with an ad network, you will probably send them the ads (or they may help you to create the ads), and the network or agency will use their ad-serving software to post your ads on different websites. In some cases, the ad network may have full-service ad-serving software that lets you automatically post your own ads on their different partner websites.
Some websites and ad network companies require a hard copy for certain types of ads. For example, for video, rich media, and some mobile files, the company may require you to deliver your ad on a CD disk, instead of sending it to them by e-mail.
WHAT KIND OF CLICK-THROUGH RATE CAN YOU EXPECT
The biggest problem that advertisers face with display ads is consumer indifference. Over the past decade, even as display ads have become more innovative and more fun to look at, the economics of display advertising have actually gotten worse. In the early days of the Internet, display advertising was new and interesting and rich. People had never seen these ads before and were curious about them, so they clicked on them quite often. You could sometimes see a phenomenal 15% CTR on an ad!
Now, if you’re lucky, your display ad may get a CTR of between two-tenths of 1% to half a percent. In other words, for every 1,000 people who see your ad, only two to five people will actually click on it. As everyday Internet users, we’ve become so used to seeing display ads on websites that most people just ignore them. (I personally haven’t clicked on a display ad in the last decade or so.)
In the early days of the Internet, it might have taken a hundred views of a display ad on a webpage to get one click on the ad. Today, it might take a thousand views. The good news for marketers is, people are spending more time online, and a popular website may have a million or more visitors every day. Therefore, an ad featured on a popular site may receive the million views per day that it needs to gain a CTR that makes it a cost-effective lead-generation tool. (Even if Web users don’t click on it, they still gain some awareness of your brand or product just by viewing the ad.)
The other good news is, with the introduction of mobile devices, marketers are now creating innovative and fun-to-use display ads for iPhones, iPads, and Androids. These ads provide interesting and engaging interactive experiences for mobile device users. In addition to video and animation, marketers are now serving mobile ads that allow smartphone or tablet users to watch a movie, run a sample application or mini program, or even play a game. Mobile ads are now getting the same high response rates that regular display ads received in the early days of Internet browsing. Today, an innovative mobile display ad may get a 10–15% CTR!