Will Display Advertising Pale the Growth of Search?

Display Marketing has been growing immensely for last few years but its ad spend was always lower than search advertising ad spend. Marketers believed in search more because it was the good source of direct response from the audience. eMarketer’s report says that display advertising ad spend will surpass search in 2016 created an unconventional ambiance among marketers as it never happened before.

It doesn’t mean that search advertising is not growing but it proclaims that display advertising is growing at a faster pace and the objective of marketers have changed. Now, marketers may not be looking for just direct response, they are changing their strategies with the passage of time. Let’s analyze it discussing ‘will display advertising pale the growth of search?’ and start with details of eMarketer’s Report.

• eMarketer’s Report

Ad spend format released by eMarketer shows that in 2014, the search advertising spend was more than display and then it became approximately equal in 2015 in the US. Now, in 2016, it is expected to surpass by getting 47.9 percent of total digital marketing spend worth $32.17 billion while search ad spend will be $29.24 billion in the US. According to the report, it is also expected that the difference will continue to grow in coming years.

• Brand Awareness

Digital Marketing is not limited to industry giants these days, it has been proliferated well and is now accessible to all. Especially, start-ups are making the most of the digital marketing but they cannot look for a direct response since their inception. They have to do branding in the beginning and make people aware of their products or services to which display marketing is picture perfect and economical option.

Native ads help them reach their audience with detailed product description in less intrusive ambiance. Banner and rich media ads help to give stronger visibility to logo and brand name and video is the most interactive method to reach and engage the audience.

The display provides more opportunities to reach the audience as search ads help the brand reach audience only on the basis of the keyword entered in search bar while display ads catch the glimpse or complete attention of the audience based on their search history and previous online shopping.

• Dynamic Marketing Strategy

Search ads have a limited format to grab the attention of the audience and that is text but display marketing is very dynamic and continuously evolving every day. Along with placing simple text it also resorts on banners, rich media, video, native ads, flash ads, pop-ups and many other types of ads being served in affiliate marketing.

• Programmatic Advertising

Breaking the shackles of reaching the inventory of a handful of publishers, programmatic advertising is giving freedom to reach a wide range of inventory through RTB (Real-Time Bidding). There is no human intervention and the process is completely automatic which is gaining traction among marketers.

Conclusion:-

The prediction of eMarketer is for the marketing strategies in the US but India is also influenced by the display marketing ups and downs. Such reports do affect the promotional strategies of digital marketers in India as well. The significant rise in display marketing is fuelling the growth of Affiliate Ad Networks in India making them strive to provide better services to their partners.