Best display ad examples

Question 1

Answer

Display advertising is used effectively by advertisers (or brands) across industries. But what goes into great display ads? And how can you create the best ads for your campaign? The following provides an overview of display advertising with tips, examples and ideas for how you can leverage Amazon Ads' solutions to help drive results.

Question 2

What is display advertising?

Answer

Display advertising refers to ads that are delivered online—via social media, stores like Amazon, or apps. These ads can feature text, images, animations, video, and/or audio. Display ads are often measured by cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM). CPC is the price an advertiser pays each time a customer clicks on a display ad. CPM is the price an advertiser pays per one thousand advertisement impressions.

Question 3

What is the difference between display ads and banner ads?

Answer

Some people use the terms “display ad” and “banner ad” interchangeably. Creative banner ads are just one size of display ad. The best banner ads are complemented by ads in other sizes within the same site or app. Other common sizes include square, leaderboard, skyscraper, and wide skyscraper.

Question 4

What are the benefits of display advertising?

Measurable, typically through cost per click or cost per action metrics
Flexible, so you can easily edit copy or swap out different images.
Testable, as you can try different creatives to discover which colors, images, or calls to action (CTAs) customers respond to best.
Cost-effective, particularly when comparing CPCs with other traditional advertising formats, such as search engine marketing.
Tailored to your audience.
Complementary to other marketing strategies, such as social media marketing, so you can reinforce your message.
Remarketable, as you can engage with audiences who encountered your brand or product but didn’t make a purchase.

Answer

There are many benefits. For example, display ads are:

Question 5

Five elements of effective creative for display ads

There are five basic elements of effective creative for display ads. Every element in your creative needs to be chosen carefully and strategically to align with your objective and help engage audiences.

Question 6

Three tips for creative ad design

Keep the design simple

Your product should be immediately identified, and the number of objects in the creative should be minimized. Uncluttered, simple design tends to perform better. Internal Amazon Ads research from 2019 showed that click-through rates (CTRs) were 2.4 times higher on average when creative had only one to four objects in the ad.¹ Less is more!

Use contrast and size variation

Within the design composition, use a strong contrast between the foreground and the background so the product is easy to identify. Also, vary sizes of your objects. Another interesting insight from our internal research was that the CTR was 1.6 times higher on average when an ad had a primary object four times larger than the next biggest object featured. We also saw that 70% of categories on Amazon experienced greater CTRs when important items had a bigger font size.

Keep messages concise

Use a concise message to explain the value proposition of the product. Using fewer words in an ad can help create a clearer key message and increase the likelihood that it will generate a purchase. In addition, it’s important to break up text into lines of different lengths. Our research showed that, on average, CTR increased in 74% of our categories by taking this action.

Answer

There are three main pillars that you should take into account to help achieve optimal creative ad design:

Question 7

Amazon Ads display advertising example

Features:

The brand’s logo is clear and easy to distinguish.
The headline “Shine like a Pro” is aspirational, beginning with an active verb. The body copy is short and concise. It highlights the benefits of the product and helps customers make an informed decision.
The imagery gives us a sense of what we should expect when buying the product. We know its size, color, functions and that it’s compatible with other devices.
It features a “Shop now” CTA, making it easy for customers to quickly take action upon seeing the ad.

Answer

An example of an effective creative ad that brings the key elements together is what Arlo, which makes internet-connected security cameras, did for its Arlo Pro 3 product.

Question 8

Experiment with display ads for best results

Headlines
Whether a product image outperforms a lifestyle image
Which background colors resonate best
The shape and messaging of the CTA button

When running experiments, make sure to:

Consider testing opportunities that are aligned with your campaign goal
Apply the above creative best practices
Implement insights from the experiment into your campaigns
Only alter one variable between your creatives. All other aspects of the test should be exactly the same between the treatments, in order to gather reliable results

For example, if you want to test two background colors to see which one performs better, you should make sure that only the background color changes. If you change background color and CTA button shape, you won’t be able to determine whether background color or CTA button shape impacted performance.

Answer

There are many questions that can be answered through experimentation with different creatives. Through A/B testing, you can offer two slight variants of the same display ad to see which one is more effective.

Answer

For example, you can test:

Question 9

Elements of effective display ads

Foundation

Detail page quality

Customer reviews

Inventory health

Re-engage audiences

We recommend re-engaging audiences who already had a positive interaction with your brand. You can do this through a dynamic e-commerce ad (DEA). DEAs automatically optimize to serve the highest performing creative. There are two types on Amazon Ads: custom dynamic e-commerce ads, which offer a custom creative format and either single- or multi-ASINs to rotate (up to 5); or our new responsive e-commerce ads, which are standard format and allow up to 20 different ASINs to rotate, offering even more opportunities across your portfolio. That means that not only is the ad dynamically rotating the CTA, it is also displaying the product and will automatically remove products from the rotation if they’re out of stock. The best part is that no creative assets are needed, as the image and product information pull directly form the product detail page.

Stand out

The next step is what we refer to as “owning your aisle,” which means making sure you have a prominent place on the “digital shelf” that allows shoppers to connect to your brand. In this phase, you might want to consider dynamic e-commerce ads or static ads. If you’re using dynamic e-commerce ads―where review text can be shown in the ad― carefully consider which customer review is chosen to ensure the message aligns with your campaign.

Static ads offer creative flexibility to engage your audience as they are shopping on Amazon or browsing the web. They are a great introductory step into display advertising and are effective at introducing your brand or new products.

Change perception

For consideration campaigns, customers are “in the aisle,” but are not considering your brand. Amazon Streaming TV ads can help your brand stay top of mind.

Streaming TV ads, also known as “over-the-top,” and refers to streaming video content over the internet. Streaming TV ads appear either before, during or after streaming TV content and are typically viewed until completion.

Fire tablet ads are another unique way to reach customers with a full-screen ad experience as soon as customers turn on the device. This display product is designed for brand storytelling and deeper product consideration.

Build brand discovery

Keeping your brand and products front and center in customers’ minds is key in this phase. Use solutions like Streaming TV ads and compelling static ads that highlight new products and deliver simple brand promises.

Answer

It’s important to note that before moving on to creative, you should ensure you have strong Store or Product Detail Page quality. Ensure that the destination page uses copy that informs and clearly describes products, as well as uses impactful, high-resolution images that inspire customers and tell your brand story.