Display puts your advertisement in front of people doing something else, which makes it cheap per impression and expensive per customer. It suits remarketing and visual products, and rarely suits a local service business seeking enquiries.

What display actually is

Advertisements shown on websites, apps, and videos to people who are reading, watching, or doing something unrelated.

That is the entire difference from search. Nobody asked for it, nobody is looking for you, and the advertisement is an interruption competing with whatever they came for.

It follows that response rates are very low, that the clicks you do get are lower intent, and that the cheap numbers on the report describe activity rather than interest.

Why the metrics flatter it

The trap that keeps small businesses spending on this.

Impressions are enormous, because showing an advertisement is easy. Cost per click is low, because clicks are plentiful. Both figures look excellent beside a search campaign.

Cost per enquiry is usually the reverse, and that is the number that matters. A campaign producing tens of thousands of impressions and one enquiry has excellent reach metrics and terrible economics.

The other distortion is accidental clicks. A meaningful share of display clicks on mobile are people trying to close the advertisement or scroll past it, and those cost the same as intentional ones.

Where display genuinely works

Remarketing to people who visited

The one use that reliably justifies itself for a small business. Showing advertisements to somebody who already came to your site is reaching a person who has demonstrated interest.

It works particularly for considered purchases with a long decision period, where a reminder during the deciding weeks is genuinely useful.

Visual products where seeing creates the want

Where the advertisement can do the selling: finished renovations, landscaping, furniture, anything with an aesthetic result.

Building recognition before demand exists

For a business whose customers decide over months, being familiar before they start searching has value. That is a brand objective rather than an enquiry objective and should be judged as one.

Reaching a narrow audience search cannot find

Where your customers share a characteristic rather than a search term, and the targeting can locate them.

Where it does not

Remarketing, done proportionately

Since this is the case that works, it is worth doing carefully.

Cap the frequency, because the same person seeing your advertisement repeatedly across a fortnight becomes irritated rather than persuaded, and irritation attaches to your name.

Set a sensible window. Somebody who visited two months ago is not still deciding, and continuing to show them advertisements wastes money and creates the impression of following them around.

Exclude people who already enquired or bought, which is straightforward and frequently not done.

Note the privacy dimension. Remarketing depends on tracking, consent requirements apply, and the technical basis for it has been narrowing. That is a reason to treat it as a useful tactic rather than a foundation.

Where the advertisements appear

Worth controlling, because the default is broad.

Placement reports show which sites and apps your advertisements ran on, and the list frequently contains low-quality sites, apps aimed at children, and content unrelated to anything.

Excluding poor placements, and excluding mobile app inventory entirely, removes a large share of the wasted spend and the accidental clicks for most small businesses.

That report is worth reading monthly, and almost nobody opens it.

Judging it honestly

Decide in advance what the campaign is for, because the two objectives are measured differently.

If it is for enquiries, judge on cost per enquiry against your other channels, and be prepared to stop.

If it is for recognition, judge on whether searches for your business name increased and whether direct traffic rose, and accept that the attribution is loose.

What produces waste is running it for enquiries, measuring it on impressions, and concluding it is working, and separating a real decline from ordinary variation is its own discipline, as covered in when an advertisement stops working.

Frequently asked questions

What is display advertising?

Advertisements shown to people doing something unrelated. Nobody asked for it, which is why response is low and the clicks are lower intent than search.

Why do the metrics look so good?

Impressions are enormous and cost per click is low, because both are easy to produce. Cost per enquiry is usually the reverse, and that is the number that matters.

What about accidental clicks?

A meaningful share of mobile display clicks are people trying to close the advertisement or scroll past, and they cost the same as intentional ones.

Where does display genuinely work?

Remarketing to people who already visited your site, visual products where seeing creates the want, recognition before demand exists, and narrow audiences search cannot find.

How should remarketing be set up?

Cap the frequency, set a sensible window since somebody from two months ago is not still deciding, and exclude people who already enquired or bought.

What is the most overlooked control?

The placement report. It shows which sites and apps ran your advertisements, and excluding poor placements and app inventory removes much of the wasted spend.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Display campaign with huge impressions and no enquiries?

We check the placement report, cap the remarketing, and compare the cost per customer against what search is producing.

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