How do you know display advertising is working if nobody clicks?
Hardly anyone clicks a banner, so we watch your own numbers instead and track the conversions, calls, and site visits that come in while the ads are running. Display works higher up the funnel, so the read is directional rather than click by click. Where the data supports it we can look at which placements, creative, and audiences move those numbers, and shift the budget toward what's working.
What is programmatic advertising, and how is it different from the Google Display Network?
Programmatic advertising is buying ad space automatically in an auction rather than calling a salesperson, and the Google Display Network is the banner inventory inside Google Ads, which is one slice of what programmatic reaches. The whole auction finishes while the page loads. Buying programmatically opens sites, apps, streaming, and audio beyond Google, and the platforms that reach all of it publish minimums in the five figures a month.
Do banner ads still work, or are they a waste of money?
Banner ads still work when someone is managing them, and the waste comes from the setup rather than the format. Banner blindness is a documented problem, so the ones that fail are usually running everywhere at once, wearing out the same creative for months, and buying sites nobody checked. Google folded standalone Display campaigns into Demand Gen in 2026, and the reason those campaigns underperformed is the reason Google restructured them.
How much does display advertising cost?
2026 market pricing guides put a healthy display rate at $4 to $10 for every thousand times your ad is shown, what the industry calls a CPM, and online video runs $10 to $20 in the same guides. Anything under $3 usually signals junk sites or targeting too broad to matter. The display range covers media and fees together, so ask any partner what share of your budget buys ad space.
What is the minimum budget for display advertising?
Published minimums run from a few hundred dollars a month on self serve tools to $5,000 and up for a managed buy, and both are true because they price different buying routes. The floor that matters is frequency, because a budget too small to reach the same people repeatedly buys impressions that don't add up. And if you need leads this month to make payroll, don't buy this yet.
What is the difference between display ads and search ads, and which should we run first?
Search ads reach someone already typing a need into Google while display reaches them earlier as they browse, so if people are already looking for what you do, start with
search. Display does two jobs, because it brings back people who already know you and it reaches the people who haven't looked for you yet, though neither job rings your phone the week it launches.
Where will my ads show, and can I control it?
Your ads run across mainstream sites and apps, and we keep a blocklist built from a decade of buying, so spam sites, fake traffic, and content you wouldn't want your name beside get filtered out. The Association of National Advertisers found the average campaign on 44,000 websites when a few hundred would reach most of the audience, so we concentrate the buy, and you can tell us anywhere you'd rather not appear.
Does retargeting work, and how often will people see my ad?
Retargeting works because it reaches people who already visited you, and we cap how often anyone sees your ad so the same person isn't followed around all week. The cap is there to protect the relationship, because a donor or a customer irritated by your ads costs more than an impression you didn't serve. Targeting runs on aggregated audience data from the platforms, so people are counted, not personally identified.
Does the Google Ad Grant cover display and video ads?
No, the Google Ad Grant covers text ads on Google Search only, so display and video sit outside it. The grant is up to $10,000 a month in search ad credit and it isn't a cash donation, so it can't be spent on banners or video anywhere. The two still work together, because display and video run from a paid account alongside the grant, and the grant catches the searches that follow.
Is there a contract, and who owns the ad accounts?
Yes, we work on a contract, because display needs a full quarter of steady presence before the numbers mean anything, and we set campaigns up so your organization owns the ad accounts. A one month test can't answer the question either way. Your matched donor, member, or customer lists stay your property too, so if we part ways, the accounts, the audiences, the tracking, and the history all leave with you.
