Passed on 22 May, 2025

7. Implementing display ads

It’s time to cover the different components that make display advertising work, including how you’ll find and target the right audience, how you’ll build your adverts, and how you’ll organise your campaigns.

✅ Learning objectivesBy the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:Understand how ad networks work.Target specific audiences for your display ads.Identify and implement the best ad formats for your campaigns.Organise and manage ad campaigns to ensure they reach the right audience at the right time.

Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, you’ll be able to:

Understand how ad networks work.

Target specific audiences for your display ads.

Identify and implement the best ad formats for your campaigns.

Organise and manage ad campaigns to ensure they reach the right audience at the right time.

Ad networks

If you want to use display advertising to promote your brand across the web, advertising networks are a great place to start.

How ad networks work

Ad networks help your brand find and advertise on websites that attract your ideal audience. Platforms like Google Display Network or Yahoo make it easier to reach the right people, ensuring your ads appear where they’re most likely to engage potential customers.

Time–savers

Arranging direct display ad deals with multiple website publishers can get pretty time-consuming. Advertising networks handle both the buying and the selling of display ads, giving you more time to work on other things.

Ad bidding

Your business or brand bids for ad placements across websites in the network, setting a maximum budget for each spot. Every time a page loads, the ad network matches advertisers with available spaces, and the highest bid that meets the criteria is displayed.

Audience targeting

Networks can also help you target specific audiences through two main routes: The topics of the web pages where the ads appear, and general information about the people viewing the content.

Handling transactions

Another thing networks handle is the payment process. When you set a maximum bid for an ad, the network deducts the cost from your account when your ad is shown. The network then pays the websites hosting your ads, so you don’t need to manage payments to publishers directly.

Ad tracking

Finally, ad networks collect and share data. They show you how often your ads are seen, clicked on, and what they cost. You can even see which websites work best and track if people are buying things on your site after clicking your ad.

Audience targeting

Ad networks will allow you to decide where your adverts will show up and who will see them.

Targeting criteria

Display advertising offers many options to tailor your ads to the right people. You can even combine multiple things together. Remember, data privacy plays a crucial role in targeting display ads, as advertisers must comply with regulations and use privacy-friendly methods like first-party data and contextual targeting.Let’s think about the criteria we’d target for a movie podcast.

Let’s think about the criteria we’d target for a movie podcast.

Let’s think about the criteria we’d target for a movie podcast.

Time and location

Display ads let you target specific times and places. For your movie podcast, you might show ads during peak commute hours in major cities where people are likely to listen to podcasts, like New York or London.

Demographic

You can target your ads based on gender, age, or language. For a movie podcast, you could focus on English-speaking men and women who are likely 18-35, as this group may have a stronger interest in film discussions and reviews.

Behaviour

You can target people based on their online behaviour. For a movie podcast, you might reach users who frequently visit movie review sites, stream films, or read articles about upcoming releases.

Placement

Choose where your ads appear. For your podcast, you could place ads on cinema-related websites, movie blogs, or even entertainment sections of major news sites to reach people already interested in films.

Check your knowledge

It's time for you to check and reflect on what you've learned so far.

Question 1 of 1

You’re promoting an online cooking class with display ads. You want to target busy parents interested in quick meal prep and food enthusiasts who love gourmet recipes. Which two audience targeting options should you choose?

Use behavioural targeting for food lovers on gourmet recipe websites.

Target parents by age and family-focused sites.

Show ads only on weekends when people cook more.

Run the same ads for both groups to save the budget.

Submit

Submit

Display ad formats

From banners to video ads, choosing the right format helps capture attention and engage your audience.

Common formats

With display advertising, you have several options for how your ads look and where they appear. Let’s explore some common ad formats and how they can be used effectively with our movie podcast scenario.

Banner

Banner ads come in different shapes and sizes, perfect for grabbing attention. For your movie podcast, use bold visuals or film stills to stand out on websites.

Video

Video ads bring your podcast to life. A short clip featuring behind-the-scenes moments or snippets from episodes can engage viewers with motion and sound.

Interactive

Interactive ads encourage user engagement. For a movie podcast, try a quiz on movie trivia or polls on favourite films, making your ad more fun and memorable.

Native

Native ads fit seamlessly into websites and apps. For your podcast, they could appear as recommended content on movie blogs or within relevant apps, blending into the reader’s experience while promoting your show.

Multi-format campaign

There’s no reason why you can’t use many different kinds of adverts. In fact, you’ll be maximising all the potential places where your adverts might appear. Just remember: You’ll want to match the content with the audience you are targeting.

Ad campaigns

Keep your ads organised by creating and managing ad campaigns.

Why campaign organisation matters

With multiple ad goals, keeping your campaigns organised is key. Think about the audience you want to reach and what message to send, so your campaigns stay focused and effective.

Audiences

For example, you might have a campaign aimed at indie film fans, featuring interviews with up-and-coming directors. Meanwhile, another campaign could target everyday moviegoers with film recommendations.

Timing

Target your campaigns by running ads at the right times. For moviegoers, you might show ads on cinema review sites during weekends when people are looking for films to watch.

Messaging

Different audiences need different messages. For indie film fans, focus on exclusive content. For mainstream audiences, suggest what films to watch this weekend. Your tone and style should match each group.

Reach

Display ads allow you to target multiple audiences at the same time. With the right messaging and targeting, you can run campaigns side-by-side, each with a tailored focus to reach specific groups.

✅ ActivityLet’s put things into practice: Take a moment to write down a few possible display campaigns you might be able to run for your own business or a business of your choosing.Check the items off as you go.Make a list of the groups of people you’d want to target with your display ads.Next, list the targeting criteria for these groups (time and location, demographic, etc.)Suggest a message tailored to each of these groups.Think about the format that would best suit each campaign.

Activity

Let’s put things into practice: Take a moment to write down a few possible display campaigns you might be able to run for your own business or a business of your choosing.

Make a list of the groups of people you’d want to target with your display ads.

Next, list the targeting criteria for these groups (time and location, demographic, etc.)

Suggest a message tailored to each of these groups.

Think about the format that would best suit each campaign.

Download PDF

Download PDF

Lesson complete

Great job!You’ve now learned how to implement display ad campaigns using ad networks.Next, we’ll dive into retargeting—a powerful way to re-engage visitors who’ve already shown interest in your content. Stay tuned!

You’ve now learned how to implement display ad campaigns using ad networks.Next, we’ll dive into retargeting—a powerful way to re-engage visitors who’ve already shown interest in your content. Stay tuned!

Next, we’ll dive into retargeting—a powerful way to re-engage visitors who’ve already shown interest in your content. Stay tuned!

Next, we’ll dive into retargeting—a powerful way to re-engage visitors who’ve already shown interest in your content. Stay tuned!