Display advertising: strategy, costs and best practices

Display advertising remains one of the most powerful ways brands reach audiences at scale. By combining visual formats with precise display ad targeting, brands can build awareness, drive conversions and stay visible across the entire digital landscape.

For UK advertisers, display advertising plays a crucial part in multi-channel digital strategies. With the Google Display Network (GDN) reaching more than 90 per cent of global internet users and improved targeting options, display ads help brands cut through crowded markets.

As a full-service display advertising agency, Axonn combines strategic planning and high-performance creative to deliver campaigns that are cost-efficient, measurable and aligned with your wider marketing goals. We provide the insight and execution required to grow your brand.

What is display advertising?

Display advertising is a type of digital advertising that uses visual elements such as images, graphics, video, animations or rich media to reach audiences across websites, apps and social platforms. These ads appear across large display networks, including GDN, Microsoft Audience Network and major UK publisher networks.

Today, display advertising is mostly powered by programmatic buying, where algorithms purchase impressions in real time based on audience signals, intent, demographics and behaviour. Modern display campaigns also prioritise:

• Viewability: ensuring you only pay for ads that are actually seen by users.
• Brand safety controls: protecting your ads from appearing alongside inappropriate or low-quality content using filters, exclusions and verification tools.
• First-party data activation: replacing reliance on third-party cookies by using owned audience data to improve accuracy and compliance.
• Cross-device delivery: reaching users seamlessly across desktop, mobile apps, tablets and Connected TV.
• Automated creative optimisation: using machine learning to test variations and automatically deliver the best-performing creatives at scale.

Display ads also offer flexible pricing with cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-acquisition (CPA) options, making them suitable for both awareness and performance marketing.

What are some common types of display ads?

Modern display advertising extends far beyond simple banner ads. Today’s formats are more adaptive, dynamic and tailored to different placements and devices. 

Some common types of display advertising include:

Banner ads

Classic static or animated ads typically positioned at the top, bottom or sides of webpages. They are ideal for brand awareness, high-impression campaigns and cost-efficient reach.

Rich media ads

Interactive formats featuring video, scrolling elements or animations. Rich media ads improve engagement and often deliver higher click-through rates (CTRs) due to movement and interactivity.

Interstitial ads

Full-screen ads appearing between pages or app transitions, common on mobile apps. Their high visibility makes them effective for high-impact campaigns.

Native ads

Ads that blend seamlessly into surrounding content, often labelled as “sponsored” or “promoted”. Native formats tend to feel less intrusive and often generate strong engagement.

Video display ads

Short in-feed or out-stream videos running across publisher inventory. Video is now one of the fastest-growing areas of display due to higher retention and engagement.

Programmatic display ads

Ads bought via automated bidding systems. Programmatic ensures real-time optimisation, lower wastage, stronger targeting and better scalability.

Connected TV (CTV) display and audio-visual ads

Displayed on smart TVs and streaming platforms. CTV is rapidly growing in the UK and is ideal for brand-building.

Remarketing (retargeting) ads

Show ads to users who’ve already visited your website or engaged with your brand, which is very effective for boosting conversions.

Contextual ads

Serve ads based on the content of the page (e.g. placing a running shoe ad on a fitness blog). Contextual ads are increasingly important as third-party cookies disappear.

Site placement ads

Manually choose specific UK or global websites or sections to display your ads, which is useful for relevance, niche targeting and brand safety.

Why are display ads important?

Display advertising is one of the most effective ways to improve brand awareness, engage with users who’ve already shown interest in your brand or the type of products or services you offer, or encourage individuals to complete a specific action, such as signing up for a free trial.

As such, they are a highly versatile asset that can be used at almost any stage of the marketing funnel. Because they include compelling visual elements and enable companies to incorporate key aspects of their branding, like colours and logos, they can grab the attention of viewers and stick in their minds more strongly than other types of advertising, such as search ads.

Display ads advantages and disadvantages

Some of the main advantages of using display ads in your marketing include:

• Visual appeal: Strong, impactful imagery, video or animation can catch users’ attention and help you stand out from the crowd.
• Reach: Google Display Network alone covers 90 per cent of internet users, while social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn also enable you to be seen by potentially hundreds of millions of users.
• Targeting: Display ad networks such as Google and Facebook offer a huge range of targeting criteria, enabling you to tailor your ad appearances to as wide or specific an audience as you like.
• Measurement: Similarly, these platforms provide many tools and metrics you can refer to in order to gauge the effectiveness of campaigns.

Of course, there are also some downsides that these advantages must be weighed against. Some key cons to consider include:

• Disruption: The more overt a display ad is, the higher the likelihood that a user will find it intrusive or disruptive. This can be especially true for interstitial or pop-up ads that interrupt a user’s browsing experience,
• Cookies/ad-blocking: Some types of display ad tactics, such as retargeting, rely on users accepting cookies to work, which is no longer as certain as it once was. Use of ad blocking software may also impact their reach to some target audiences.
• Conversion rates: Even the best display ads can expect to see a lower conversion rate than options such as search ads. By their nature, display ads are outbound marketing, making them better for brand awareness than direct sales or lead gen.
• Control: Unless you’re using site placement advertising, you may have little control over where your ads appear or what content they’re seen alongside. This may mean appearing on irrelevant websites or, in worst-case scenarios, in places that could damage your reputation.
• Viewability: Not all served ads are actually seen, meaning impressions can be wasted if ads load below the fold or on low-engagement placements. Without proper optimisation, a large portion of your budget may go toward impressions that deliver no real impact.
• Ad fraud/invalid traffic: Display campaigns can be vulnerable to bots, fraudulent websites or low-quality traffic, which can inflate metrics and waste spend. Without verification tools, advertisers risk paying for impressions that never reach real users.

Why should you use display advertising?

If you get your campaign strategy right, display advertising can play a crucial and highly productive role in your broader digital marketing efforts. Reasons to use display ads include:

• Grow and maintain your audience: Becoming more familiar with your brand name will make users more likely to buy from you or take other positive actions in the future. Display advertising also helps you strengthen existing customer relationships by showcasing offers or new products.
• Instant impact: Display advertising can help you quickly engage audiences with content that is visually compelling and attention-grabbing, such as a well-designed banner ad.
• Ease of use: Platforms like Google Display Network and Meta make it quick and easy to plan, target and launch a display ad campaign. They also provide the tools you need to measure performance and track how much you’re spending on advertising, so you can ensure you’re getting good value for money.
• Reach customers at different stages: Whether you want to start building relationships with customers who are still researching, or secure conversions when users are ready to purchase, display advertising is versatile enough to help you get results.

How much do display ads cost?

Display advertising cost varies depending on format, audience, placement, and creative assets. Typical cost drivers include:

• Audience targeting: Niche B2B audiences have a higher cost per thousand impressions (CPM), while broad consumer audiences have a lower CPM.
• Ad format: Banner ads are cheaper, while rich media, video and interstitials cost more.
• Placement quality: Open exchange inventory is more affordable than premium UK publishers, which can be quite expensive.
• Device and location: Mobile is often cheaper than desktop.

A UK retail campaign targeting in-market audiences across display and remarketing might allocate:

• £1,500–£3,000/month for awareness (CPM)
• £1,000–£2,000/month for remarketing (CPC optimisation)

Working with a display advertising agency like Axonn ensures you set realistic budgets and optimise spend based on your goals.

Display ad targeting

Targeting is one of the most important aspects of display advertising. You need to ensure your ads are in the right place at the right time to ensure your ads reach and engage relevant audiences. 

Targeting has become more sophisticated, allowing you to specify who sees your ad. Key options include:

• Affinity audiences: Reach users based on long-term interests and lifestyle behaviours, using Google’s predefined audience groups aligned with topics and passions.
• Custom affinity audiences: Build more precise audience groups using specific keywords, URLs or competitor sites to reach niche interests. For example using a niche keyword like “marathon training” instead of broad “sports fans”.
• In-market audiences: Reach users who are actively researching or comparing products similar to yours, based on recent browsing and purchase-intent behaviours.
• Facebook audience insights: Use Facebook’s audience analysis tools to understand demographics, interests, job titles and lifestyle signals, helping you shape more relevant targeting.

• Demographic targeting: Target ads based on age, gender, income, education, household status, which is helpful for broad audience shaping.
• Location targeting: Postcode-level targeting for regions, cities or radius-based campaigns.
• Device targeting: Optimise for mobile, desktop, tablets or CTV, depending on behaviour.
• Lookalike audiences: Platforms like Meta and Google use your existing customers to find similar users.
• Dayparting and scheduling: Serve ads only during high-conversion times (e.g. weekday evenings, lunch hours).
• Contextual targeting (privacy-friendly): Target pages where content matches your keywords, which is ideal for a cookieless world.
• First-party data targeting: Use your CRM data, email lists or website behaviour to accurately target audiences.

How to measure display advertising

To run a successful display advertisement campaign, you need to look ahead and consider how you will measure results and gauge your ROI.

That will involve collecting data on key metrics that will give you insights into how your ads are performing on various fronts. Things to consider include:

• Impressions: Shows how many times your ad was served.
• Click-through rate (CTR): Helps evaluate creative performance and user curiosity.
• Viewability: Measures whether the ad was actually seen (50% of pixels in view for 1 second).
• Average cost-per-click (CPC): Tracks cost-efficiency of your clicks.
• Conversions: Measures completed actions directly linked to your display ads.
• View-through conversions: Captures people who saw the ad but came back later, crucial for awareness-driven campaigns.
• Attribution models: Multi-touch, time-decay, first-interaction and last-click models help show the true impact of display ads.
• Ad fraud/invalid traffic monitoring: Ensure traffic is genuine using verification tools like IAS, DV or MOAT.
• Bounce rate and engagement: Assess landing page quality and post-click behaviour.
• Creative testing (A/B and multivariate): Test visuals, messaging, colours, CTAs and formats to continually improve performance.

Display advertising vs other channels 

Each advertising format comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Here is a side by side comparison of different ad channels to help you choose the best strategy for your goals:

Channel	Strengths	Limitations
Display Ads	Visual, scalable, great for awareness + remarketing	Lower direct conversion rates
Search Ads	High intent, strong conversions	More expensive, limited reach
Social Ads	Highly targeted, great creative formats	Smaller network than GDN
Video Ads	High engagement, strong storytelling	Higher production cost
Email	Strong retention + CRM targeting	Limited to existing lists

Common mistakes in display advertising and how to avoid them

To ensure a successful campaign, pay attention to these common pitfalls to prevent making these mistakes:

1. Overly broad targeting

Mistake: Targeting everyone results in wasted spend and low engagement because your ads reach users who have little interest in your offering.
How to avoid it: Combine interest, demographic and contextual filters to narrow the audience without limiting scale too aggressively.

2. Weak or generic creative

Mistake: Ads without clear branding or compelling visuals get ignored, especially in crowded display environments.
How to avoid it: Use strong imagery, concise copy and consistent brand elements, and always include a clear CTA.

3. Ignoring viewability

Mistake: Ads may technically “serve” but never appear in a viewable position, wasting impressions.
How to avoid it: Optimise for viewable CPMs and use trusted platforms that provide viewability reporting.

4. Not monitoring ad fraud or invalid traffic

Mistake: Without verification tools, you risk paying for bots, low-quality sites or fraudulent impressions.
How to avoid it: Use brand-safe placements, verified inventory and third-party tools such as IAS or DoubleVerify.

5. Driving traffic to poor landing pages

Mistake: Even strong ads fail when the landing page is slow, confusing or mismatched to the message.
How to avoid it: Align your ad and landing page messaging, improve loading times and optimise for mobile.

FAQs: display advertising

What is a good CTR for display ads?

In the UK, average CTRs range from 0.35 per cent to one per cent, depending on industry and format.

How long should a display ad campaign run?

For meaningful results, run campaigns for at least 30 to 60 days, with ongoing optimisation.

What is programmatic display advertising?

Programmatic uses automated technology to buy ad placements in real time, improving efficiency and targeting accuracy.

Are display ads still effective without cookies?

Yes, contextual targeting, first-party data and AI-driven modelling keep performance strong without cookies.

What is a typical display advertising budget?

Small businesses may start from £1,000–£3,000 per month, while enterprise brands often spend £10k+ depending on reach and goals.