Display advertising has the worst reputation in paid media and mostly deserves it, because most display campaigns are run on defaults. Left alone, Google will happily place your brand next to autoplay video on a mobile game and count the accidental taps as clicks.
Run with discipline, display does two things well: cheap remarketing that keeps you present through long consideration cycles, and prospecting against tightly defined audiences when you need reach that search volume cannot supply.
What disciplined display looks like
- Aggressive placement exclusions: apps, made-for-ads sites, irrelevant categories, from day one
- Audience-first targeting rather than broad topic buckets
- Frequency capping, because the tenth impression this week is annoying rather than persuasive
- Creative sized and written for the format, not resized print assets
- Judged on assisted conversions and view-through with sane windows, never last-click alone
- Weekly placement review, which is where the waste is actually found