Research studies show that display and social advertising positively influence site visits and purchasing behavior. To that end, AdRoll offers an impressive variety of ad types you can leverage for business growth.
Use this guide to learn about the ad types AdRoll offers, best practices for implementation and strategies for optimizing return on ad spend.
Purpose
The choices you make about ad creative affect user engagement with the ad and purchases on your website. The “right” ad may differ depending on factors like the awareness level of your audience, the ad channel you choose, past purchases, or the level of understanding your value proposition requires.
Finding the right ad requires testing, but some foundational knowledge and strategy from the start will help achieve your goals more quickly.
Strategy
When strategizing for your ad campaigns, segment the customer journey into distinct stages to make ads more relevant. A simple journey for ecommerce might involve Awareness of your brand or products, Intent to purchase from you or from your product category, and an Existing Customer stage after purchase. Reactions to a specific ad may differ depending on the customer journey stage. You can account for this by modifying the ad creative, message, and channel you choose to focus on.
“Familiarity with a brand influences a consumer's confidence toward the brand, which in turn affects intention to buy the same brand”
“Subjects … showed an overwhelming preference for the high awareness brand, despite quality and price differentials. They also made their decisions faster … and sampled fewer brands.”
Brand awareness advertising creates a memory of, establishes familiarity with and fosters affinity for your brand. Repetition over time may convince viewers they want your products or make you the preferred choice during a purchase decision. You can increase the effectiveness of your ads with creativity or by providing some value to the viewer. Creativity might include a combination of elements that are elaborative, original, unusual, or contain artistic value. Providing value might include offering entertainment or making your message informative. You should use care with how unusual you choose to be. When products are functional or utilitarian, unorthodox approaches may not work as well as products that are in a category of similar items, easily understood or tied to user preferences.
Advertising to audiences in the Intent stage serves several purposes. Repeated ad exposures can nudge viewers past indecision, can remind them of a purchase they intended to make, and can hoard attention to minimize risk of losing out to competitors. Advertising across display and social using images and video offers your best opportunity to effectively nudge, remind and hoard attention. Use ad creative that features your product in use or in a situation related to use. This eases viewers ability to imagine themselves using your product. A persuasive message with a strong call-to-action for purchase in this stage may prove more effective if accompanied by emotional appeals where appropriate.
High intent individuals might add something to the cart or view multiple products. You can re-engage those visitors with the exact products they interacted with using dynamic ads that pull images from product feeds right into your ads. Similarly, you can re-engage existing customers with retargeting or dynamic ads at some period of time after they make a purchase. Use this opportunity to promote accessories or products that complement their purchase or encourage them to renew at the expected end of product life.
Types
There are several different types of ads that can be used in the AdRoll. Depending on the inventory you are serving these ads, such as websites and apps or social media placements like Facebook and Instagram, this will define the ads you have at your disposal.
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Native Ads |
Video Ads |
Ad Creation and Uploading
You can create or upload ads either during the process of creating a campaign, or from your ads library. Any ads created through either option will be available to add to future campaigns. You can edit, copy, or delete all of your ads within the ad library.
Uploading/Creating Static Web, Social & Native Ads
Creating Web, Social, & Native Dynamic Ads
Creative Best Practices
In order to grow a loyal customer base, you need to serve the right messages and designs to the right audiences. Use these ad creative best practices for each stage in the customer lifecycle to create repeat customers and grow revenue.