What Two Main Ad Formats Can Be Used in a Google Display Ads Campaign?

Do you like grabbing customers’ attention and getting them on your website, dollars in hand? Then this article is also for you. This article will teach you what two main ad formats can be used in a Google Display Ads campaign. In-depth knowledge of the different Google Ads networks will give your PPC campaigns an edge and allow you to create advertising that gets clicks and conversions.

What Exactly Are Google Display Ads?

Before going into what two main ad formats can be used in a Google Display Ads campaign, it will benefit you to know what Google Display Ads are and when you should use them.

The best way to look at Display Ads is to contrast them with Google Search Ads, the other popular Google Ads network. Google Search Ads are text ads that appear when people search for relevant keywords that you provide using the Google search engine or Google Search partners’ engines. If you are looking to find best keywords for your PPC campaigns, you can use PPCexpo Keyword Planner.

Search Network ads are great because they get customers searching for your specific product or service or something like it. Unfortunately, it is difficult to make engaging text ads, so the efficacy of Search Network ads can sometimes depend on how familiar people already are with your brand. That is where Display Ads come in.

Google Display Ads are pretty much the best tool for building up branding. Unlike Search Network ads, shown to people actively looking for something specific using a search engine, Display Ads show to people that are browsing content. They can still find their way in front of people that are likely to click on them and purchase from you, which we’ll cover later.

For now, know that Display Ads are the graphics-based advertisements you see when using the internet. You have likely seen a few today and will see many more. The ads before YouTube videos are Display Ads. Banner advertisements that run along the top, bottom, or sides of websites are also Display Ads.

The Google Display Network has millions of users. Knowing what two main ad formats can be used in a Google Display Ads campaign can help you get your ads in front of the right people.

What Two Main Ad Formats Can Be Used in a Google Display Ads Campaign?

While there are many different types of Google Display Ads, there are, broadly speaking, two main formats. Google Display Ads can look like horizontal bars on the top of a webpage or 6-second unskippable videos before YouTube content, but the main difference is whether the ad was crafted by Google Ads AI or uploaded as displayed by the user. That is to say, there are Responsive Display Ads and Uploaded Display Ads.

Responsive Display Ads

The first of the two main ad formats is called Responsive Display Ads. These are Display Ads that make use of Google’s extensive data and sophisticated machine learning to serve the best ad to the right customer at the right time for the best price. It might sound too good to be true, but remember that Google Ads is invested in your ads working since the amount of money they make is usually based on a cost-per-click or cost-per-acquisition bidding structure.

For Responsive Display Ads, you upload assets like text descriptions, images, logos, and videos. Google Ads will combine your assets and dangle them in front of users. Using data on how users respond, Google learns which combinations of assets make the best-looking ads, and it learns who your target audience is. It’s pretty hard to compete with the market research done through machine learning here.

Responsive Display Ads also have the advantage of being able to show nearly anywhere. Unlike an uploaded ad of a specific size, Google Ads can change the sizes of these ads to fit any part of the network, greatly expanding your reach. Responsive Display Ads also attempt to mimic the feel of the website they show on, something called native advertising.

The way to make the best use of Responsive Display Ads is by uploading the maximum number of allowed assets. That means having 15 images, 5 logos, 5 descriptions, and 5 headlines. Besides this, focus on the quality of the individual assets and play to your strengths. If you find that your text-inclusive ads drive the most traffic, then spend time making more copy.

By using Responsive Display Ads, you are free to focus your creative efforts on individual assets. You can also spend more time tweaking the bidding structure and other performance-affecting variables. With Uploaded Ads, a lot of your time is spent remaking and re-uploading ads in different sizes to see if doing so will affect your performance.

Uploaded Display Ads

Uploaded Display Ads are the other main format. These ads are uploaded as one size, though if you use HTML5 and Google Web Designer you can make them responsive to a degree.

The main benefit of using Uploaded Display Ads is total creative control. While your reach might be limited by what you upload, it can be nice knowing exactly when and where your ads are going to show.

Wrap Up

Now you know what two main ad formats can be used in a Google Display Ads campaign. For the most part, you want to use Google Display Ads to build out your brand and build up data for remarketing. They can also be effective at driving clicks and conversions. Responsive Display Ads are much more user-friendly, though if you know exactly what you want, then use Uploaded Display Ads. In all, there is no one answer to making effective use of Google Ads. Just read, practice, advertise, and repeat.