Display advertising. It's the digital equivalent of traditional print and out-of-home advertising tactics. After all, display advertising can be neatly tucked into and alongside articles, pop up like a billboard before content loads, or be tucked so seamlessly into content that it is almost imperceptible.

However, given the extraordinary rate of change in the advertising industry in the last several years, it can be difficult to know where you should invest your ad dollars.   Well, you've come to the right place. While we can expect to see past years’ trends continuing in 2024, the new year will also bring more technological innovations, market changes, and privacy concerns.

In this post, we’ll take a look at the top 13 display advertising trends that are commanding attention and that you might want to include in your marketing strategy.

What is Display Advertising and Why It Might Be a Potential Growth Marketing Channel for Your Business in 2024?

Display advertising is a form of online marketing that uses visuals, such as images or videos, along with engaging copy and a compelling call-to-action (CTA) to promote products, services, or content. It can increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and generate leads for your business. 

It's a well-rounded advertising medium that can support virtually any of your marketing goals but is often overlooked. 

In addition to their varied applications, display ads come in various formats like banner ads, native ads, and video ads. They can be found everywhere: on websites, apps, social media platforms, and email. Display advertising is a form of online marketing that uses visuals, such as images or videos, along with engaging copy and a compelling call-to-action (CTA) to promote products, services, or content. It can increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and generate leads for your business. 

Its flexible nature is one of the key advantages of display advertising, allowing your business to potentially be supported in virtually any of your marketing goals. 

This versatility is one of the key advantages of display advertising. However, so much flexibility can also be a challenge for some marketers. It can be difficult to craft an effective display ad, let alone an entire display ad campaign.  To do so, you need to understand the elements of a display ad and how each delivers your message.

Today, we will go through a significant run-through of the need-to-know elements of display advertising and cover why it is still a useful tactic to advertise your business in 2024. 

Key components of display ads

The three main elements of display ads are visuals, copy, and a CTA. These components work together to capture the attention of your target audience and persuade them to take the desired action, such as visiting your website or making a purchase. 

Each of these elements should align and adhere to your brand standards for visual effect and tonality. 

Let's first take a bit of time to break down each of the three main components of a display ad.     

The Visual

You can't have a display ad without some form of visual. You'll need static imagery, video, or stylized copy treatments to grab your audience's attention. Your visual choice will likely depend on the format, size, and application. 

Display banner ads, for instance, generally come in three sizes: large rectangle (336 x 280), medium rectangle (300 x 250), and leaderboard (728 x 90). They are often placed on various media websites around articles in prominent places. While this is good for grabbing attention, you don't have a lot of space to work with. Your creatives will have to be adapted to work with these sizes. 

Visuals aren't just about grabbing attention, either. They should deliver part of your story and message.

The Copy

Like other forms of advertising, the copy in your display ads should be concise and engaging. In image-based or video-based ads, the copy is what the audience will notice second. 

Copy needs to translate the interest of the visual toward the action (expressed in the CTA) that you'd like the audience to take. Essentially, it also needs to deliver features or advantages of your product or service. It also needs to convey what the brand stands for. All in a handful of words. 

Call-to-action (CTA)

A strong CTA is essential to your display ads. What good is grabbing the precious attention of your audience if you don't tell them to do something?

Your CTA should be clear and prompt the user to take action. Using action words that inspire urgency is normally a good idea. Examples include "Buy Now," "Sign Up Today," or "Learn More." 

Ensure that the CTA aligns with the visuals and copy in your ad, creating a cohesive and persuasive message that drives users to take action.

Their other display ad formats have a consistent look and feel. In the same campaign, they also have two square display ads that use emojis creatively to replace letters in the copy.

Display ad formats

Display advertising comprises a variety of ad formats and sizes to cater to different marketing goals and target audiences. Banner ads, for example, are a mainstay of display advertising and are available in various types (like .jpg, .gif, HTML5, .mp4) and sizes. 

Native ads, however, are designed to blend in with the content of the websites or apps they're displayed on, providing a less intrusive advertising experience.

Video ads are another common type of display ad that can either take full control of the screen for some time (in-stream) or run alongside the video experience (nonlinear).

By understanding the different display ad formats and sizes available, you can choose the most suitable options for your target audience and the specific marketing objectives involved allowing you to optimize the effectiveness of your display advertising campaigns.

How to Create a Successful Display Advertising Campaign As Part of Your Growth Marketing Process?

To successfully pull off a display advertising campaign takes more than just a few ad creatives, though. You need to start strategically by defining your audience, identifying your goals, setting your budget, and then designing your ads.

Just think about any consumer brand you've come into contact with. They aren't hitting you with a single ad creative over and over. That would lead to ad fatigue. Instead, they deliver multiple display ad creatives, united by a common concept, which vary a bit over time

Define your target audience

Defining a target audience for your display ad campaign is crucial. How can you craft the best message if you don't know who you're speaking to? 

You should understand what inspires and drives your target customer. How much can they spend? What emotional triggers would get them to invest in your goods or services? What are their other interests?

Based on this profile, you can then target your display ad campaign in different ways. This includes demographic targeting, geographic targeting, interest-based targeting, and retargeting. 

Keep in mind targeting is an ongoing initiative.   You should continuously analyze your targeting data and refine your campaign to ensure the most effective audience targeting and overall campaign performance.

Set campaign goals and budget

Start by setting at least one main goal. This could be a certain amount of organic traffic to a website, an increase in click-through rates, an increase in net promoter score (NPS), or another key metric. 

You'll then need a plan for how you will hit your mark. How many people will you need to reach? How many platforms or outlets will you need to advertise on?  What portion of your budget will be devoted to each specific platform?  How long will this campaign have to run? 

The answers to these questions will help you determine how much you should invest in this campaign.

Design engaging ads

Once your strategy is in place, it's time to make a kick-ass brief and hand it off to your creative team. With a deep understanding of the audience they are trying to reach, the methods they have to reach that audience, and the allocated budget, your team can create much more engaging and effective display ads. 

Similar to audience targeting, designing effective display ads should be considered an iterative process. Take the opportunity to test different versions of your ads to optimize your campaign quickly.

Display Advertising Networks

Now several platforms enable advertisers to purchase ads on websites and apps, reaching a wide audience across numerous platforms. Some of the most widely used display advertising networks include Google Ads, AdRoll, Stackadapt, and Amazon Ads. These networks offer various targeting options, ad formats, and sizes to help you create tailored and effective display ad campaigns.

By leveraging popular display advertising networks, you can access a larger potential at a more effective price than buying all those placements individually. You'll also have access to advanced targeting capabilities, performance analytics, and optimization tools.
With that said, here are 7 display ad networks that you should be aware of.

1. Google AdSense

Google AdSense is one of the largest display ad networks in the world. It has nearly 2 million advertisers and billions of customers. It’s also incredibly effective at driving traffic to websites.

As one of the most distinguished ad networks in the world, Google AdSense holds its advertisers to strict standards of quality.

Those strict standards may seem unreasonable at times, but they’re in place to ensure that only serious advertisers get involved with Google AdSense.

Keep in mind, that Google doesn’t just deal with websites.  They also serve Google Ads to apps and other mobile-based programs, so you can reach the biggest possible audience.

2. Facebook Audience Network Ads

With more than 1 billion worldwide users and millions of advertisers, Facebook also has a formidable display network known as the Audience Network.

Facebook also serves ads throughout a wide network of apps and non-website media as well. Overall, it’s an excellent way for you to reach out to potential customers using Facebook’s extensive cache of user data.

Plus, if you already advertise on Facebook, the transition to using their Audience Network should be fairly simple.

3. mMedia

mMedia is one of the best display networks for companies that are new to this form of advertising.

There is no minimum investment for advertisers, which means you can get started with as little as $20.

While that investment may not get you very good results, your actual minimum investment will be whatever other companies in your industry are bidding for certain ads.

Even if you want to dominate one kind of ad for one kind of customer, you can still see great results with a lower-than-average investment in mMedia.

4. Apple Advertising

Apple Advertising is one of the leading mobile display advertisers.

This is partly because Apple controls the world’s largest app store, which means they can make it easy for their developers to make money by including ads.

That simple system allows developers to make money, and it also allows you to consistently reach new customers who might’ve never heard of your website.

In addition to that, Apple Advertising has an intuitive bidding and targeting system that allows advertisers to pick and choose how they want their ads to appear.

5. Adknowledge

Adknowledge may not be as big as some other ad networks, but it’s still a great way to reach out to new customers.

Adknowledge’s main selling point is versatility. It lets businesses advertise on video sites, social networks, and mobile apps.

Also worth noting is that Adknowledge also has a proprietary system for gauging customer interest, which means you can quickly, easily, and accurately target users in your customer demographic.

6. Yahoo!

Yahoo! may not be as popular as it once was as a search engine, but it still has a robust display network that reaches millions of users every month.

It also has a targeting system that gauges potential customers by geography and age, among a wide variety of other demographic factors.

The search engine may not be as big as Google, but it’s still an affordable and viable option for reaching new customers.

7. Taboola

Taboola isn’t one of the most recognized names in the display advertising world.  That being said its base of giant clients is enough to pull in new advertisers every day.

Taboola serves ads to publications like The Motley Fool, The Atlantic, and even Netflix.

Netflix alone is enough to attract any advertiser, from beginners to established corporations.

On the upside, that means you have a lot of opportunities to reach out to customers. On the downside, it means you’re competing with companies that have huge advertising budgets.

8. Epom

 Epom is one of the few display ad networks that lets users try their service before paying. Sort of a pay-for-play.

That free trial may not sound like much, but it’s a great perk for any company that hasn’t used display advertising before.

Beyond that, Epom has its merits. It’s a versatile network that offers display, video, and mobile app ads. It’s also partnered with multiple other networks to give you lots of different options to reach customers.

Above all, Epom is affordable.

So if you’re looking to start in display advertising affordably, Epom is possibly the best solution for your needs.

13 Display Advertising Trends to Keep an Eye On in 2024

Now that we have established some basics of getting started with display advertising and some display advertising networks that might be worth considering for your growing business in 2024, let us now examine some of the prevalent trends in display advertising to keep an eye out for this year.

1) Increased Spending

In 2023, display ad spending reached 63.5 billion USD:

What’s more, display ad spending is expected to surpass search advertising. 

What’s causing this trend? A few things, such as:

• Video advertising, particularly with newer formats becoming more popular.

• Programmatic advertising is available on multiple display channels and can help your brand stay on budget.

What’s more, is that other forms of social media advertising including in-app, and influencer advertising are helping to further push this trend..

2) Dynamic Creatives

With dynamic creatives, advertisers use consumer data to implement creative elements that appeal to the audience better. Creatives may vary by ad but usually include a combination of copy, visuals, and the products featured.

There are many reasons to invest in dynamic creatives. Most notably though, creative display ads integrate better into various social media platforms, notably Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. These social media channels offer limitless opportunities to create eye-catching ads to increase conversions.

3) Multichannel Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic ads allow marketers to automate the process of buying ad space. This way, you can use programmatic ad spending to stay on budget while making your ROI.

Creating a display ad budget is essential for all businesses, especially SMBs. The average small business spends 35%-40% of its entire budget on various marketing activities, and programmatic advertising will ensure that SMBs don’t overspend on their ad campaigns.

With so many advertising channels to choose from, businesses must use a multichannel approach to programmatic advertising. These channels include social media, email, Google, and in-app ads all within one programmatic ad platform.

4) In-App Ads

21% of Millennials open an app over 50X a day

In part due to this, app advertising spending reached $356 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow 14% YOY. Advertisers would do well to switch their display dollars from responsive websites to app ad campaigns.

Which apps should advertisers invest in?

You should devote your display ad dollars to more than social media apps: 59% of Gen Zs use their mobile phone to access entertainment, with YouTube (surprisingly not TikTok or Instagram) being the most popular app among the age group. Beyond entertainment, Gen Zs use apps to play games and even do their homework.

There are multiple display ad formats you can use on all these apps. If you invest in YouTube ads, you can choose to partake in display image advertising.  HelloFresh is a great example. They serve ads while users scroll through their suggested feed, enabling them to reach YouTube viewers without creating and uploading video ads.

5) Emerging Video Formats

The number of online video viewers is expected to reach 3.5 billion in 2024.

What’s changing? In 2024 and beyond, advertisers should pay attention to the style of videos they’re creating:  Some trends to take note of.

• 68% of marketers create live-action videos

• 57% create screen-recorded videos

• 55% create animated videos

Live-action video ads are particularly noteworthy because they capture real people, events, and settings, which makes the video ad more relatable. Since 86% of consumers prefer an authentic brand image, live-action videos will create more trust between you and your audience.

Depending on your brand, screen-recorded video ads are also effective. These are better ad types for explainer and testimonial ads since they tell more than show. This allows you to convey your brand message without the hefty video production budget.

Create animated video ads if you have a bigger video ad budget. These videos are entertaining while also informative, attracting and retaining more viewers.

With numerous social media channels, you have more options than ever to post your video ads. However, advertisers should create these video ad formats:

• Rewarded

• Outstream

• CTV

• Bumper pre-rolls

Outstream videos are becoming a common display video ad on blogs and news websites. These videos appear within the text, capturing their attention while reading an article. Since users skip ads on YouTube, bumper ads are popular among advertisers. These are non-skippable and short ads, increasing brand awareness.

6) Contextual Targeting

One of the issues that advertisers face with display advertising is how few people click on the ads. Display ads have an average CTR of 0.1%, so advertisers must be innovative when targeting prospects. One of the ways that advertisers can do this is by using contextual targeting. This is when the advertising platforms place the ads on specific websites that correlate with the advertiser’s audience.  

This is done with the idea of ensuring that the ad stays relevant and engages users.

Popular ad platforms such as Google Ads can optimize your campaign for contextual advertising.

7) Augmented and Virtual Reality

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) continue to be two of the biggest trends in display advertising. By 2024, the AR and VR market is estimated to be worth $296.9 billion:

Using these technologies in your advertising strategy will create an immersive experience, that engages your consumers.

With display ads, your AR and VR options are limitless. Your consumers don’t need additional tech, like a VR headset, to view your ads.

Take 360 video ads as an example. Portable video company GoPro  uses 360  to  demonstrate people using their products in action, especially when surfing, skydiving or parasailing to promote their products

Brands can also get creative when using AR in advertising. Visa teamed up with various shopping malls in Poland to create AR animals. The AR technology makes it look like giraffes, elephants, and panda bears are in the mall, leaving guests in awe. Users were taking photos of the animal and posting them on social media, helping Visa improve its social proof.

8) E-Commerce Display Advertising

In 2024, it’s estimated that e-commerce sales will exceed USD 8.5 trillion. Since e-commerce is so prevalent, online stores have many options when using display advertising based on the marketplace.

Amazon is a global e-commerce giant, and the website generates 1.1 billion visits. If you list your products here, it is worth noting that Amazon ads’ CTRs are 0.36%.

Sponsored display ads are some of the most effective of all of Amazon’s advertising options. Brands that use sponsored display ads see a +15% YOY increase in sales.

In addition to Amazon, e-commerce stores should also take advantage of Google Shopping. While Google Shopping will crawl organic listings and place the best results on the SERPs, there’s an ad section at the top of the results. Google Shopping ads can generate an average CTR of 0.86.

How will these marketplaces deliver these ads? While they’re all different, most will show your listings based on keywords, geolocation, demographics, interest, and retargeting.

9) Interactive Ads

 81% of marketers believe interactive ads grab users’ attention.  It can be the perfect solution to banner overload.

Advertisers have no creative limits when it comes to interactive ads. While polls, quizzes, games, and animations are common examples of interactive ads, you can make an ad interactive using the right ad copy and visuals in a way that allows you to more directly display the benefits of your products.

Crocs does this well.  One of their ads simply shows a text box over various pink Crocs and accessories. The text requires that  users fill in the blank as to why they love their Crocs sandals. This type of interactive ad increases engagement by enticing followers to comment with their responses, and share the ad as well as their specific answers in these ads.

10) 5G Technology

In 2019, global operators launched 5G technology. Today, 5G is becoming the new norm on mobile devices. With more users jumping on this trend and networks expanding to this technology, it’s estimated there will be 290.5 million 5G-enabled devices.

5G results in faster internet speeds, which improves the user experience in many ways. Advertisers can benefit from 5G because, thanks to high speeds and low latency, display ads will be more sophisticated and less intrusive.

How can advertisers take advantage of 5G display ads?

Because of faster load times, there’s more room for creativity. Live streaming, gaming, AR/VR, and even short film advertising will become more popular.

Certain demographics use 5G more than others, including families, young people, and those with higher incomes. These are factors that advertisers need to consider when creating effective display ads.

11) AI and Machine Learning

Last but not least, it’s essential to cover the influence that AI and machine learning will have on advertising. Already, 61.4% of marketers use AI in various marketing activities.

One of the most effective ways to use AI is to collect and deliver data: 4 in 10 marketers use AI for decision-making since AI can deliver data such as budget, performance, and past trends.

Advertisers also use AI for these other important aspects of display advertising including:

• Create ad creatives

• Identify and segment audiences

• Improve ad performance

While creating ads is one of the top ways marketers use AI, there are some setbacks. You can create unique and branded ads with the right keywords, but there are potential copyright issues to note. Using ChatGPT for ad copy can result in non-creative and inaccurate copy.

Display Advertising:  Not to Be Overlooked as Part of Your Growth Marketing Framework in 2024

2024 is here, and your competitors are already planning next year’s display advertising campaign. You’ll need to kee up with the latest display advertising trends to ensure you’re using your ad dollars toward an effective strategy that allows you to keep pace or move ahead of your competitors.

With the insights within this article,  you are well on your way to getting the most out of your display advertising efforts in 2024.

However, if display advertising strategy and execution in 2024 is something that you are struggling with, why not access the support of our display ads specialists? Our analysts will examine your past campaigns,creatives, and messaging,  and provide a tailored strategy to help better leverage display advertising as a way of driving growth in your business.

Whether specific to display advertising or your marketing efforts as a whole, growth marketing consulting is a service that is available on demand to businesses looking to achieve rapid growth.  In addition to examining your current campaigns and tactics, we will provide you with specific recommendations (and work with you in tandem to implement them)  This is an organizational asset that few businesses take advantage of.

Whether display advertising is a significant driver for growth in your business or not, speaking with our team can help you determine whether it ought to be.  So why not reach out to our growth marketing experts for a free initial consultation today?