Search Ads vs Display Ads: What Are The Differences?

It is very tough for advertisers to decide whether to use Display ads or Search ads for their online campaigns. It is an urgent decision nonetheless because choosing the wrong ad format could make them lose a substantial percentage of paid advertising budget.

Keep reading to find out more about it!

What Are Search Ads?

This is one of the more popular forms of advertising where the brands pay to get their ads displayed both above and below when users search with specific keywords.

A form of search ads – Text ads is made up of still images and a broad text or caption highlighting the main feature of the service of that particular product.

What Are Display Ads?

These are a type of online advertisement that combines images, text and a URL, all of which links to a website where a customer gets to learn more about a product and even buy them.

There are many formats of these ads – it can be animated with multiple videos, images, changing text or even static with a still image.

The Difference Between The Two:

The two can be differentiated based on the following factors:

Search Volume

The first major difference between the 2 different types of ads are that display ads make use of the push approach, while on the other hand search ads make use of the pull approach.

In simpler words, the people who come across a company’s ads (search) are already looking for mutual products that are offered by that company maybe. People usually engage with display ads because they are actively targeted after watching a video, browsing the web or reading emails.

Knowing about these basic differences can surely help in quickly determining the right strategy when selecting on a type of advertising campaign for your brand.

Brand Awareness

If it's a new company that is selling services or products that people are not aware of, then they usually revert to display ads only. The Google Display Network is an amazing way to make a brand known to unaware customers.

To use a real-life example, display campaigns are almost similar to advertising at a sports arena. The banners and sponsorships are all over the arena, but everyone is solely focused on the game.

It is a good form of investment even for advertisers, as they know their audience can relate their ads or brands to the sporting experience; hence those ads become very important and relevant to the target audience.

Display Ads allow a company to target based on demographics or the keywords that are in the content that they are reading maybe.

Whereas Search ads have much higher relevancy to the users as the people actively search for that brand.

Limited Budget

Search Ad campaigns are the best option to start with if budget is a concern. On the other hand, building a brand with display ads will take up a much larger budget and is also unlikely to have a positive ROI.

It is simply because search ads usually have higher conversion rates and will justify having a budget increase.

Once spending a bigger budget can be justified, then one can decide whether to put extra funds into a successful search campaign or to put it into expansion to the display network.

Urgent Services

If your business falls under the category of an “urgent business”, then its definitely a good idea to start by investing in search ads.

Some examples of these types of businesses are – dentists, locksmiths, veterinarians, etc.

These are the services that someone is not normally going to voluntarily pay for; suppose they are reading the news and come across an ad.

However, on the other hand, if someone gets locked out of their house or their pet becomes sick, they are likely to search for a service for help immediately.

Difference In Average Metrics For Both

There are 2 major metrics to consider between display ads and search ads. They are the cost per click and conversion rate because the Google Ads industry standards for each advertising platform differ greatly.

Average CVR

In all industries, the conversion rate on an average for search campaigns is 4.41%, whereas display campaign’s average stands at only 0.58%:

Observe how the lowest search conversion rate (2.77% for clothes) is still well above the highest display conversion rate (1.12% for hobbies & leisure).

Because the Search Network connects advertisers to customers who are actively looking for products and have higher intent, conversion rates for search advertisements are often higher than for display ads.