Google Display ads are image and text ads shown on websites and apps that sell advertising space through Google, a collection called the Google Display Network. Nobody asks to see them. The ad reaches someone because of who Google thinks they are or what they are reading at the time, which makes Display a way to be noticed by people who are not looking for you yet. It is also one of the easiest ways in Google Ads to spend a budget on impressions nobody remembers. I plan and run Display campaigns for UK businesses that want reach beyond search, with a clear job for the campaign and a way to tell whether it is doing it.
What Display can and cannot do for a UK business
Display is good at putting a business in front of a defined group of people at a low cost per thousand views. It helps when buyers take weeks or months to decide, such as a kitchen refit in Surrey, a professional training course or software for UK accountancy firms, because it keeps your name familiar while they think. It helps ahead of a launch or a seasonal peak, when you want people to recognise you before they start searching.
It is poor at catching urgent demand. Someone with a burst pipe searches, so a search ad serves them better than a banner on a recipe site. Display also rarely produces cheap enquiries from cold audiences on its own, and a campaign judged only on cost per lead in its first month is usually switched off before it has done its real job.
When I recommend Display, and when I would spend the money elsewhere
I suggest Display when four things are true: search is already capturing the demand that exists, you can describe your buyer clearly, you have images and a logo good enough to stand next to well-known brands, and there is a landing page written for someone meeting you for the first time. If your search campaigns are still losing impressions because the budget runs out each day, that gap comes first, since those searchers already want what you sell.
If video suits your product better than still images, YouTube advertising is the stronger choice. If your creative is good and you want ads in the YouTube, Discover and Gmail feeds, a Demand Gen campaign often fits better than standard Display. Showing ads again to people who have already visited your site is remarketing, which I plan as separate work with its own audiences and messages; this page covers reaching new people.
How I set up a Display campaign
Audiences
Targeting starts from people. In-market audiences are people Google judges to be actively researching a purchase, such as business software or home improvement services. Affinity audiences reflect longer-term interests. Custom segments let me describe your buyer through the searches they make or the kinds of websites they visit. Your own customer list can be used through Customer Match, provided the account meets Google’s eligibility rules and your privacy notice covers it under UK GDPR. Google’s optimised targeting can widen the audience beyond what I set, so I check where the conversions really come from before deciding whether to keep it on. Existing customers and recent converters are excluded so you do not pay to reach them again.
Placements and exclusions
The placement report shows every site, app and video channel where the ads appeared. In the first weeks I read it often and add a placement exclusion for anything that wastes money: mobile games where taps are accidental, sites built purely to show ads, and pages that do not fit your brand. Content suitability settings at account level remove whole categories, such as tragedy and conflict, sensitive social issues or content that is not suitable for a professional brand. The exclusion list lives at account level, so every future campaign inherits it.
Creative
Most campaigns run on responsive display ads: you supply images, logos, headlines and descriptions, and Google assembles them to fit each space. Where a brand needs exact control, I add uploaded image ads in the common sizes. Each ad needs one clear message and a reason to click, because a banner gets a fraction of a second. The ASA’s CAP Code applies to paid online ads in the UK as it does to print, so a price, saving or claim shown in a banner must be accurate, available and backed by evidence you can produce.
Bidding and budget
Display has its own budget, kept apart from search, so a cheap stream of impressions can never starve the campaigns that catch active demand. For awareness, I bid on viewable impressions so you pay only when the ad had a fair chance to be seen. For enquiries or sales, I move to conversion-based bidding once the campaign has recorded enough real conversions for Google to learn from. Locations match where you trade: a firm serving Greater London does not need ads in Inverness.
Measurement
Display reports two kinds of conversion. A click-through conversion follows a click on the ad. A view-through conversion is counted when someone saw the ad, did not click, and converted later, which may or may not be because of the ad. I report the two separately and never add them together as if they were equal. Audiences built from your site and the conversion tags themselves rely on advertising cookies, which under UK GDPR and PECR need the visitor’s consent, so I check your consent banner and consent mode set-up before trusting any figure.
How the work runs
- Agree the job. We decide what Display is for (reach, consideration or enquiries) and how it will be judged, in writing, before anything is built.
- Check the foundations. I test conversion tracking, consent and the landing page a cold visitor will land on.
- Build. Audiences, exclusions, creative and bidding, in a Google Ads account your business owns.
- Launch small. The first days run on a modest budget while I read the placement report and remove poor placements.
- Review and adjust. Weekly pruning of placements and audiences, and a monthly look at reach, frequency, conversions and the effect on branded searches.
Display mistakes I see most often in UK accounts
- Display hidden inside a search campaign. The option to include the Display Network is ticked on a search campaign, so part of the search budget goes on banners nobody chose.
- Judged on click-through rate. A high click rate from mobile apps often means accidental taps, not interest.
- No placement review. Months of spend on children’s games and made-for-advertising sites that one look at the report would have caught.
- View-through conversions reported as sales. The campaign looks profitable on paper while the bank balance says otherwise.
- The whole of the UK targeted for a business that serves one city or county.
- One tired banner. The same image running for months while the same people see it again and again.
- Every click sent to the home page. Cold visitors need a page that explains who you are and what to do next, which is the job of a landing page built for ad traffic.
What you receive
- A written plan: the campaign’s job, audiences, exclusions, locations, budget, bidding and how success will be judged.
- A creative brief, or finished responsive ad assets built from the images you supply.
- A tracking and consent check, with fixes listed for whoever manages your site.
- Campaigns built in an account your business owns, which I work in through manager access.
- A shared placement exclusion list that protects every future campaign.
- Reports, at an interval agreed before work starts, that keep click-through and view-through conversions apart and say what I changed and why.
What it costs and how to start
Ad spend is paid directly to Google on your card or invoice. My fee covers planning, set-up and ongoing running, and depends on how many audiences and campaigns are involved and whether tracking or creative needs work first. You have the quote in GBP, in writing, before anything starts.
To find out whether Display makes sense for you, tell me who your buyers are and what you already run in Google Ads. I will say whether I would start with Display or put the money somewhere else first, and why.