Search Marketing or Display Ads? Part 3

With part 1 and 2 of this series we've headed into the following direction: display ads, as we know them, are not such an effective marketing tool anymore. It is more and more about precise targeting and innovative ways of running banner ad campaigns.

How is this for an example?

Travelocity, the popular travel website, is using real-time search data for their display ad campaigns. They use an engine called Teracent which matches the marketing message to their audience on the fly. Messages are based on a host of dynamic parameters such as search intent (e.g. when someone clicks on the star ratings for hotels, this person would only see ads for luxury hotels) and how far people drill down into a certain category.

This strategy has increased Travelocity's online bookings by 203% !

Chip Hall, senior VP of sales and marketing at Teracent, tells AdAge:

"Display has to change, otherwise it's headed for failure. If advertisers don't recognize online is more challenged with the old approaches and needs to be incredibly hyper-targeted, they're going to fail."

Source: Econsultancy