Display advertising: “WATCH THIS SPACE”

During the Mother’s Day shopping season this year, the online electronics retailer Kogan ran a special promotion for their LCD TVs, digital photo frames, and digital video cameras. They created a display ad campaign on the Google Display Network (comprising over a million partner websites, as well as Google sites like YouTube) and used a technology called remarketing to show ads to Australians who had previously visited their site as they later browsed the Web. The campaign, which ran for a month, was extremely effective. Kogan’s ads achieved click-through rates at three times the industry average for traditional banner ads. The campaign was also one of Kogan’s most successful in terms of revenue and driving sales.

We’re now proud to see thousands of great display advertising stories like this every month around the world—from advertisers large and small. In Australia alone, 17 of the top 20 advertisers as ranked by Nielsen have run display campaigns with Google. Great things happen when the science of search meets the art of display - like the world’s first round YouTube videos or a competition to discover the secret talents of Australians. And it’s just the beginning.

Starting today, we’re going to be talking about our vision for display advertising - and where we think the industry is headed - with a campaign called “WATCH THIS SPACE.” As part of this, you might see ads across the web, in print, and maybe even when you’re strolling around the CBD in Sydney. Our goal with this campaign is to highlight some of the exciting changes taking place in the display industry today and to start a conversation with agencies and marketers.

We know that the display advertising industry faces a number of technical challenges, and it’s exactly these sorts of problems that we’re excited to work with agencies and marketers to help solve. We think that we can use the technology and expertise that we’ve developed in search and search advertising to improve display advertising for users, advertisers and publishers, right across the web.

Posted by Karen Stocks, Head of Display for Google Australia