How ad placement can influence your advertising strategy

According to reports, the ad spending in the Digital Advertising market is projected to reach USD 679.80bn in 2023. This number is expected to cross the USD 1 trillion mark in the next few years. With the number of internet users and social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and more, gaining popularity, businesses today are keen to make the most of their investments in digital advertising. Although advanced digital advertising technologies enable advertisers to target their ads more effectively, brands and businesses still need expert help to navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and ensure their ads are seen by the right audience at the right time and place.

Needless to state, but being seen more often means consumers are more likely to interact with your ads and eventually purchase your product or service. Optimal ad placement on a website requires the careful consideration of several factors, including ad viewability, user experience, ad size, and more. Without a fundamental grasp of web design and experience, this process can become quite laborious. For example, Google discovered that ads placed ‘above the fold (ATF)’, which is the area a user sees the moment they log into your webpage, are 73% viewable while ads ‘below the fold (BTF)’ are only 45% viewable. However, this does not mean that one overpopulates all the ad spots that are ATF. It’s pertinent to continuously keep testing and fine tuning where your ads are placed on a certain webpage to maximize returns.

One of the most fundamental things to consider where to place an ad, would be the profile of the audience you would be ‘audience targeting’. There are tools available today that help understand monthly users and page views and map the correct size and ad format to enable businesses to tweak their advertising strategy. Mapping the end-consumer’s behavior to what you want your ad to do, whether it is ensuring a higher click-through rate or boosting impression numbers is the first step to placing ads online. This is applicable to consumers browsing on the phone or a laptop.

Businesses and publishers need to prioritize user experience and ensure that ads are integrated smoothly into the digital channel and minimize disruption to the overall browsing experience. Intrusive ads, even if placed perfectly, could result in ad-blocking and negative user sentiment. While all the stats indicate that video-based ads garner higher engagement, it’s paramount to know what ad type to place where. This balance of investing in prime ad spaces, ensuring brand suitability and delivering engaging ads needs to be constantly reviewed and tweaked based on consumer response.  As one delves deeper into the digital ad space, terms like anchor ads, sticky sidebar ads and more, would crop up. Knowing what format works where, makes all the difference.

An integral part of the user experience is ‘contextual relevance’. Brands need to ensure that ads appear in relevant contexts. Ads placed alongside content that aligns with brand values and target audience's interests enhance the chances of engagement and conversion. It helps to create a connection between the ad message and the surrounding content, increasing the ad's effectiveness. Ensuring ‘contextual relevance’ is built into the advertising strategy helps enhance brand safety and brand suitability. The last thing a brand wants is to see its ad next to content that promotes violence, terrorism, fake news and more. It’s also important for companies running websites to ensure the ads on their webpages don’t promote fake news or fraud.

To summarize, here’s why ad placement is integral to your advertising strategy and can make or break the investments made in the space – 

1. Ad placement is all about location, location, location. Choosing the correct mix of ATF and BTF is locations helps improve viewability
2. Understanding the nature of the consumer in the region and their behavior on a webpage plays a key role on whether your ad will drive engagement
3. The quality of the ad and the format of the ad, whether a still ad, animation or video plays an important role to maximize the value of the location of the ad
4. Ads need to also seamlessly blend into the overall digital channel and must match the context of the page to ensure positive brand sentiment
5. Continuously test ad formats and constantly monitor ad performance to make incremental changes to the strategy to maximize returns

To understand the various factors that go into choosing the placement of ads, and to put together an impactful digital advertising strategy, do get in touch with us at Seedtag.