Display Ads
Paid MediaAlso: Display Advertising · Banner Ads · GDN Ads
Quick definition
Display ads are visual advertisements (images, animated GIFs, HTML5, video) that appear on websites, apps and other digital properties that have partnered with an ad network. The Google Display Network (GDN) is the largest, reaching Australian users across millions of sites. Display ads interrupt rather than intercept, making them most effective for brand awareness and retargeting rather than capturing active search intent.
How it varies across Australia
Display ads typically produce much lower click-through rates than search ads because users are not actively looking for what is being advertised. The value is in impression volume, brand recall and retargeting effectiveness rather than immediate conversion.
Explore benchmarks →Google's network of over two million websites, apps and Google-owned properties (including YouTube and Gmail) that show display ads. Reaches a significant proportion of Australian internet users daily.
Google's automated display ad format. You supply headlines, descriptions, images and logos. Google assembles them into ads that fit available placements. Replaced fixed-size banner ads as the default format.
Choosing specific websites or apps where your ads will appear. Managed placements give you direct control. Automated placements let Google find relevant contexts for your ads based on audience and topic signals.
Whether an ad had a real opportunity to be seen. An ad is considered viewable when at least 50% of its area is visible on screen for at least one second. Many display impressions are served but not viewable, making viewability a key quality metric.
What it actually means
Display ads are the visual banners and images you see on news sites, blogs, forums and apps. They are served by ad networks, most commonly the Google Display Network, which connects advertisers to the publishers (website owners) who have agreed to show ads in exchange for revenue. You set up a campaign, define who you want to reach (by demographic, interest, topic or specific placement) and upload your creative. Google serves the ads across relevant contexts and charges you per impression (CPM) or per click (CPC). Display is a fundamentally different mode from search advertising. Search captures intent. Display creates awareness and maintains presence. The metrics that matter are different, and judging display purely on click-through rate misunderstands its role.
Display advertising does not sell. It reminds. Its job is to keep you present in the mind of someone who has already noticed you.
The Australian context
Australian premium publishers including major news sites, industry trade publications and government-adjacent sites participate in the Google Display Network. Targeting by Australian geography is standard in GDN campaigns. Brand safety settings matter in Australia's relatively small publisher market: broad display targeting can serve ads next to news content that may be incongruent with your brand positioning. Managed placements on specific Australian publications give more control at higher CPMs.
Where people get this wrong
The most common mistake is running display campaigns without frequency caps, leading to ad fatigue where the same users see the same ad too many times and begin to tune it out or find it irritating. The second is not segmenting retargeting audiences by recency: someone who visited yesterday needs a different message to someone who visited three weeks ago. The third is treating display as a performance channel and cutting it when click-through rates are low. Low CTR is normal and expected. Impressions and viewability are the right metrics for awareness display.
Related terms
Common questions
What is a good click-through rate for display ads?
The global average display CTR is around 0.1%, which means 1 in every 1,000 people who see a display ad click on it. This is not a failure of the format. Most display value comes from impressions that build brand familiarity rather than from direct clicks. If your display CTR is well above average, that can indicate a strong retargeting audience or unusually compelling creative.
Should I use display or search ads?
Ideally both, for different purposes. Search ads capture people who are actively looking for your product or service. Display ads maintain brand presence with people who have shown interest but are not yet actively searching. For many businesses, running a small always-on display retargeting campaign alongside search campaigns produces better overall results than search alone.
What sizes should my display ads be?
If using responsive display ads (which is the default Google format), you do not need to specify sizes. You supply assets and Google handles sizing. If creating custom banner ads, the highest-reach sizes are 300x250 (medium rectangle), 728x90 (leaderboard) and 160x600 (wide skyscraper).
How do I prevent my display ads from appearing on irrelevant sites?
Use placement exclusions to block categories (such as parked domains, made-for-advertising sites and content not suitable for your brand) and exclude specific placements that are performing poorly. Review the Placements report regularly to identify and remove sites that are consuming budget with no conversion value.
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About New Rebellion
New Rebellion is a marketing intelligence consultancy. We build tools, score Australian businesses on how their marketing actually performs, and publish Debrief every day. This dictionary is part of how we work in the open.
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