Compare And Contrast: Programmatic Display Vs. Google Display

Programmatic Display vs. Google Display-image

Compare and Contrast:
Programmatic Display vs. Google Display

Similarities and Differences
Programmatic Display and Google Display campaigns are highly reliable, tried and true methods of digital display advertising. They share similarities such as targeting by interest, topics, keywords, and demographics. Both tactics can restrict campaign delivery to either mobile, desktop or both. They use the same apps and websites to distribute ads and can restrict advertising to multiple domains. The creative formats they share are static, HTML, Video and GIFs in various creative sizes.

Both platforms can deliver ads with static images and video, or video only. Video campaigns can run on YouTube and Google Video Partners and are an excellent option to generate awareness and drive actions.

Social Display is an innovative advertising format which converts social posts into programmatic ads

Now that we’ve identified their key similarities let’s move on to their major differences: Programmatic Display utilizes automated bidding to purchase display advertising inventory in realtime and can target display ads to a specific customer type, in a specific context. Ads can be distributed through various solutions including Geofencing, Search/Keyword Contextual Targeting, Category Contextual, Geo-Optimized, Addressable Geofence, Event Targeting, Whitelist Targeting, and OTT/CTV. These tactics can target users through customizable address lists, and mobile device IDs. In addition, they have very few restricted verticals which makes them an ideal solution across industries, geographical locations and demographic profiles. The ad units displayed in comparison to Google Display ads are Native ads, Spaceback ads (also known as Social Display), and CTV/OTV.

Google Display targeting is similar to programmatic display with the exception that targeting might be restricted for some industry verticals. Google Display utilizes the Google Display Network, Video partners, and YouTube to distribute ads. In-stream videos are available for mobile apps and YouTube TV. In contrast to programmatic display, bidding options are different, and campaigns can run on a CPC model (cost per click) and are optimized for conversions in order to deliver an efficient costper- action. Creative sizes and ad formats may also differ from programmatic display. Google Ads have facilitated the ad creation process with their responsive ads and video creation.

Compare and Contrast: Programmatic Display vs. Google Display

As discussed, there are plenty of differences to consider when selecting an advertising platform. You can also reference a real-life comparison in the page 3 diagram.

A Real Life Example:

In May of 2022, Canopy launched a Google display campaign for one of our clients. The primary objectives were to boost traffic and drive awareness. A concurrent Search campaign was already in progress and we wanted to see if increased awareness would drive an uptick in qualified traffic to their website which would then deliver quantifiable lead generation.

We compared the results before and after running the Google display campaign and noticed a significant website traffic improvement in a single month:

• 83.38% increase in page views
• Average time on page increased 30.27%
• 115.70% increase in new users
• 96.44% increase in unique page views

We also tracked an improvement in the quality of traffic resulting from PPC. The Google display campaign spiked traffic traffic and improved engagement by increasing the average time on page by a stunning 30.27% and the average page per session by 77.89%.

The key takeaways are that both platforms are effective at driving conversions and can be combined on a case-by-case basis to meet long-term strategic goals.

In 2022, 75.6% of programmatic digital display spending is expected to be invested in smartphones