Display ads represent the oldest form of advertising online for universities and business schools.
Twenty-four years on from the internet’s first banner display, they still provide value when it comes to boosting your institution’s brand awareness.
Here are 4 facts you may not have known about display advertising.
1. Valuable investment
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It was estimated that nearly $10bn was spent on display advertisement in 2016. With such heavy investment globally, it is clear that marketers still see it as an effective strategy.
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Google’s ad revenue alone was nearly 10x more than total investment in the same calendar year. After nearly 25 years, display ads still represent great value for money overall.
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2. Targeted Campaigns
Display ads give you control to creatively personalize your posts so that you can focus on particular courses or even segment your ads geographically. If you are posting on a UK newspaper publication, for example, you may want to promote upcoming events in the UK.
More specifically, if your aim is to boost student recruitment – consider locality when advertising. Evidence suggests that 74.2% of people prefer to see online ads from local businesses over non-local.
Although this may be less applicable for students who want to study in another city or abroad, broadening your brand awareness locally is a great place to start and facilitate building an institutional reputation.
3. Budgets for display advertisement is growing
There is a consistent trend in the growth of banner ad usage and the priority placed on them in marketing budgets. Growth rates in budget allocations for display advertisement had risen from 33% to 44% between 2015 and 2016.
Despite the growing popularity of other digital marketing tools such as native ads – which are viewed 53% more than banner ads – they are still important for an institutions marketing strategy and gaining a competitive advantage. Keeping with the times is important, but not losing sight of tried and tested marketing techniques such as display ads is crucial.
4. The true measure of success for display ads is visibility
Digital advertising is one of the more difficult ad mediums to measure. Using click-through rates to measure display ad performance is far more beneficial for focus on the bottom of the funnel content – driving sales.
The main goal of display advertising is to generate impressions- the number of times your audience see your ads. The more exposure you can obtain, the more likely your marketing efforts will be rewarded. Influencing an extended target audience will lead to consideration for the products and services your institution offers and greater potential for attracting customers with genuine interest.
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It may also be of interest to you that you can leverage QS’ 144 Milion annual page views with your own display advertising.
Increase your institution’s visibility and engage more leads with a high impact display ad on TopUniversities.com.
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Even if you already have a sturdy marketing strategy and high student recruitment numbers, there is no doubting that display advertisements present the opportunity to reach new prospects.
