5 Reasons Why Your Display Ad Conversions Are Suffering

Have your display ads been producing lackluster results? Are you experiencing embarrassingly low conversion rates? If your current display advertising campaign leaves much to be desired, below are five common reasons why your conversions are suffering.

1. Ads Are Too Text-Heavy

When it comes to using text in display ads, less is definitely more. If your ad is loaded with text, and you’re saying in 10 words what could be said in five, pare down your usage of text in order to make your message more succinct.

2. Boring or Uninspired Images

Advertising is all about resonating with people on an emotional level, and there’s nothing emotional about that boring, uninspired “stock photo” look. Avoid generic images, and instead go for images that not only stand out, but also highlight your product or service in the context of its use. Need inspiration? Ask yourself how what you’re offering benefits your target consumer emotionally. Find a way to express that with an eye-catching image, so that users connect with your brand, and thus feel compelled to click.

3. Poor Ad Positioning

Sometimes it’s not the image or copy of your ad that needs changing, but rather the position of the ad on the page. For example, ads placed “below the fold”–i.e., the area of the web page that’s only visible after scrolling down–generally perform worse than those above the fold. While below-the-fold ad positions cost less, you could be wasting valuable marketing dollars by placing your ad in a virtual no man’s land.

4. Irrelevant Landing Pages for Campaigns

When someone sees your ad and clicks, they want the pay-off to be relevant, logical, and easy to understand. For example, a large retailer might run a display ad for a certain food processor, but when you click on the ad, you’re taken to the home page where there are dozens of product categories to sort through. This creates a hassle for the customer, and often leads to poor conversion rates for the advertiser.

Make sure your landing page is highly relevant to the image, copy, and call-to-action found in your ad, so customers follow an integrated path to purchase that has a logical flow from beginning to end.

5. Insufficient A/B Testing

A/B testing is one of the most tried-and-true methods in existence for optimizing display ads. You never know how changing a background color, an image, the position of the text, the language of the call-to-action, or any other number of variables might have a positive impact on your click-through rates.

Sometimes it’s the very small tweaks that make a huge difference, so test everything from the ad copy to the landing page elements. Just be sure to only change one variable at a time, so you can keep track of which adjustment is responsible for any changes in traffic levels and conversion rates. Need some help deciphering why your display ads aren’t performing how you’d like? Drop us a line!