Google Display Ads Australia: Building Brand Awareness at Scale
Google Display Ads are the forgotten sibling of Google Ads. Most Australian businesses focus on Search (search results) because the intent is obvious and ROI is measurable. Display gets ignored.
That’s a mistake.
While Search captures people actively searching for you, Display builds awareness with people who don’t know you exist yet. Display reaches 90% of Australians online. A Display campaign running alongside Search can increase overall conversion rates by 30–50%.
But there’s a catch: Display ROI is harder to track, the cost per conversion is higher, and most people get it wrong.
This guide covers when Display makes sense, how to target effectively, and how to actually measure results.
When Display Advertising Makes Sense
Display is not for every business. It works best when:
1. Your conversion cycle is long
If customers need 3–6 months to decide (B2B software, financial services, commercial real estate), Display keeps your brand in front of them while they evaluate.
2. You sell a considered purchase
Luxury goods, high-ticket services, business solutions. Display awareness now = consideration later.
3. You have a profitable CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)
If you’re already running Search and the CAC is sustainable (e.g., $500 CAC, $5,000 LTV), Display can work because you’re capturing intent at a different stage.
4. You’re scaling a product
New product launch, geographic expansion, or new customer segment. Display builds awareness in a market where you’re unknown.
5. You have decent brand identity
Visual ads work better if people recognise and trust your brand. If you’re a startup with zero brand awareness, Search usually wins first.
When Display Falls Flat
You’re purely demand-capturing — If all your customers already know your type of business and you just need them to pick you, Search is more efficient
You have a short sales cycle — If customers decide and buy within days, Display awareness 2 months ago is wasted
You have no visual identity — Ugly or generic ads won’t build awareness. Don’t run Display with poor creative
You haven’t optimised Search yet — Max out Search ROI first. Then layer Display on top.
How Google Display Network (GDN) Works
The Google Display Network is over 2 million websites, apps, and YouTube videos. When an Australian browses a news site, a blog, a forum, or watches YouTube, they see ads from the GDN.
Your Display ads appear on sites relevant to your business (via Google’s targeting). You pay per impression (CPM, cost per thousand impressions) or per click (CPC).
Key difference from Search:
Search ads appear because someone typed a keyword. Display ads appear because Google thinks the website’s audience matches your target audience (based on interests, behaviour, or demographics).
This is why Display CTR is lower. The person wasn’t searching for you — they’re just browsing. A 0.1% CTR on Display is actually normal and acceptable.
Display Targeting Options
Your targeting decision determines who sees your ads. Get it wrong and you’ll waste 70% of your budget.
Affinity Audiences
Google groups people by their interests and behaviours over time.
Examples:
- “Technology enthusiasts”
- “In-market for home furniture”
- “Business decision-makers”
- “Fitness enthusiasts”
When to use: Building brand awareness among your target demographic, without conversion intent
Example: A premium gym running Display to reach “fitness enthusiasts” builds awareness, even if they’re not ready to join yet
Downside: Affinity is broad. You’ll reach a lot of people who don’t care
Custom Intent Audiences
You define an audience based on keywords, URLs, and apps they’ve visited.
Example: “People interested in Google Ads management” = targeting people who’ve visited Google Ads forums, PPC blogs, agency websites, or searched for PPC keywords in the last 30 days.
When to use: Reaching in-market prospects without exact intent
Example: A Google Ads agency builds a Custom Intent audience of people visiting PPC blogs and Ahrefs. These people are actively learning about PPC — qualified prospects
Advantage: More targeted than Affinity, still broad reach
Downside: Takes 50–100 conversions of initial data to optimise properly
Detailed Demographics
Target by age, gender, parental status, marital status, education level, household income.
When to use: Your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) has clear demographic boundaries
Example: Luxury real estate targeting >$150k household income, 45–65 age group
Advantage: Precise audience definition
Downside: Excludes high-intent people outside your demographics
Custom Affinity Audiences
You manually build an audience by uploading customer lists or defining keywords.
Example: Upload your email list. Google matches those people against the GDN and shows ads to them (and similar audiences).
When to use: Scaling your proven customer base, building lookalike audiences
Advantage: Predictable, based on real customers
Downside: Requires existing customer data
Placement Targeting
You choose specific websites, apps, or YouTube channels where your ads appear.
When to use: Brand safety (avoiding controversial sites), reaching a specific audience (e.g., only premium business blogs), or sponsoring relevant content
Example: A B2B software company targets ads only on business blogs with >500k monthly traffic, avoiding low-quality sites
Advantage: Full control, high brand safety
Downside: Less scale, more manual work to find and manage placements
Topic Targeting
Google automatically places your ads on pages about specific topics.
Example: “Business” topic shows your ads on all pages about business, entrepreneurship, careers, etc.
When to use: Broad category awareness, reaching topic-relevant audiences
Advantage: Simple setup, decent reach
Downside: Loose targeting, can reach irrelevant traffic
Remarketing (The Secret to Display ROI)
Remarketing is showing ads to people who have visited your website before.
Why it works:
- They already know you exist
- They’ve shown intent (visited a pricing page, service page, or download page)
- They’re more likely to convert than cold audiences
- Remarketing CPM is typically 30–50% cheaper than cold Display
- Remarketing CTR is 5–10x higher than cold Display
Standard remarketing flow:
- You install Google’s tracking pixel (one line of code) on your website
- A visitor comes to your site
- Google adds them to your “Website Visitors” audience
- That person later browses news sites, YouTube, or forums
- Your Display ad appears
- They click back to your site
- They convert
Remarketing lists to create:
- All Website Visitors — Everyone who visited your site in the last 30 days. Widest audience, lowest conversion rate
- Product Page Visitors — People who looked at your product or service pages but didn’t convert. High intent, moderate size
- Cart Abandoners (ecommerce only) — People who added a product to cart but didn’t buy. Highest conversion rate, smallest audience
- Pricing Page Visitors — People researching your cost. Very high intent, small audience. These are your hottest prospects
- Specific Page Visitors — Visited your case studies, blog post about [topic], webinar signup page, etc.
Example remarketing strategy for an Australian accounting firm:
- Audience A: All website visitors (30 days) — CPM $5, 0.8% CTR, broad awareness
- Audience B: Service page visitors (60 days) — CPM $4, 2% CTR, higher intent
- Audience C: Pricing page visitors (90 days) — CPM $3, 5% CTR, hottest prospects
Bid highest on Audience C (hottest), medium on Audience B, lowest on Audience A.
Display Creative Best Practices
Your visual ad is the entire message. It has 2 seconds to stop the scroll.
Design Principles
1. Lead with visual hierarchy
What’s the most important thing you want them to see? Put it top-left and make it 40% of the image.
2. Simple headline
5–7 words max. “Grow Your Pipeline 3x” not “Strategic Market Expansion Solutions.”
3. Single call-to-action
“Learn More,” “Book Now,” “Free Audit,” “Call Now” — pick one.
4. White space
Don’t fill every pixel. Breathing room makes ads less cluttered and more readable.
5. Brand consistency
Use your brand colours, fonts, and logo. Consistency builds recognition. Anitech uses navy and gold in all Display creative for brand recall.
6. Mobile-first
Most Display impressions happen on mobile. If your ad is unreadable on a small phone screen, you’ve wasted the impression.
7. Avoid stock photos
Generic stock images reduce trust. Use real photos of your team, customers, or products.
Sizes to Create
Google recommends these sizes (all are measured in pixels):
Leaderboard: 728×90 (top of page) Medium Rectangle: 300×250 (sidebar — most common) Large Rectangle: 336×280 Wide Skyscraper: 160×600 Half Page: 300×600
You only need to create 2–3 sizes. Google will resize and fit them across the GDN.
Pro tip: Create a 1200×628 template and export as multiple sizes. Easier to maintain consistency.
Ad Copy for Display
Keep copy minimal. People aren’t reading your 200-word essay on your ad.
Headline: 25–35 characters. Lead with benefit.
Subheadline: Optional. Add urgency or social proof.
Body: 2–3 lines max. One sentence per line.
CTA: “Learn More” or “Get Started”
Example ad for a digital marketing agency:
Headline: “Grow Your Pipeline 3x”
Subheadline: “In just 90 days”
Body: “Proven strategies for Australian SMEs. Free audit reveals your biggest opportunity. No credit card required.”
CTA: “Claim Your Audit”
This entire ad says: benefit (3x growth), timeline (90 days), proof (strategies for SMEs), objection removal (free, no card), action (claim audit).
Display Benchmarks: What to Expect
Most Australian businesses get disappointed with Display because they expect Search conversion rates.
Typical benchmarks:
| Metric | Display (cold) | Display (remarketing) |
|---|---|---|
| CTR | 0.05–0.15% | 0.5–2% |
| CPC | $0.30–$1.50 | $0.10–$0.50 |
| Conversion Rate | 0.1–1% | 2–8% |
| Cost per Conversion | $300–$5,000 | $20–$200 |
Cold Display CTR of 0.1% looks bad compared to Search (2–5%), but it’s normal. Display is awareness — lower CTR is expected.
Remarketing conversion rates are 5–10x higher because you’re targeting warm audiences.
What this means:
If your Search campaign has $200 CPA and 3:1 ROAS, your Display campaign might have $1,000 CPA and 1.2:1 ROAS at first. That’s normal. Display builds awareness (harder to track) and feeds Search with warm prospects.
Frequency Capping: Stop Annoying People
Frequency capping limits how many times the same person sees your ad.
Without it, someone might see your ad 50 times in a week. Annoying. And statistically, ads perform worse after the 3rd–5th impression on the same person.
Recommended frequency caps:
- Cold audience: 3–5 impressions per day, 15 per week
- Remarketing audience: 5–10 per day, 30 per week
This prevents ad fatigue and wasted spend on redundant impressions.
Attribution and Measurement
Display ROI is harder to measure than Search because conversion happens later, sometimes on a different device.
The challenge:
Someone sees your Display ad on Monday while browsing news. Thursday, they search for you on their phone and click your Search ad. They convert on Friday.
Which channel gets credit? Search gets the last click. But your Display ad influenced the decision 4 days earlier.
How to measure Display impact:
- View-Through Conversion (VTC) — Someone sees your Display ad, doesn’t click, but converts on your site within 30 days. This is Display credit
- Google Analytics assisted conversions — Shows which channels helped (but not final conversion). Display often shows 20–30% assisted conversions
- Incremental testing — Run Display in one city, not another. Compare conversion volume. The difference is Display’s true impact
- Multi-touch attribution — Set up Google Analytics 4 to track the full customer journey across channels. Shows each touchpoint’s influence
For most Australian SMEs, start with View-Through Conversions (enabled by default in Google Ads). You’ll see that Display is contributing to conversions even when people aren’t clicking.
Common Display Mistakes
1. Poor creative
Blurry images, tiny text, no clear headline. You’re wasting impressions.
2. No frequency cap
Showing the same person your ad 30 times. They hate you now.
3. Targeting too broad
Running on all of Google Display Network (2M sites). You’re reaching irrelevant audiences.
4. Wrong audience expectations
Expecting 2–5% CTR from cold Display. That’s Search performance, not Display.
5. Not remarketing
Cold Display ROI is poor. Remarketing is where Display actually works.
6. No brand safety settings
Your ads might appear on controversial or low-quality sites. Set brand safety exclusions.
7. Ignoring mobile
Most Display impressions are mobile. If your ad doesn’t work on mobile, it doesn’t work.
Building Your First Display Campaign
Month 1 — Test cold audiences
- Run on one Custom Intent audience (e.g., people interested in your service category)
- Set frequency cap to 3 per day
- Budget $2,000/month
- Create 3 ad variants
- Measure View-Through Conversions and CTR
Month 2 — Scale remarketing
- Create remarketing audiences (all visitors, service page visitors, pricing page visitors)
- Run remarketing campaign (separate from cold campaign)
- Budget $1,000/month
- Monitor conversion rates and CPA
- Expect 5–10x better conversion rates than cold
Month 3 — Optimise
- Pause low-performing ad variants
- Increase spend on best-performing audiences
- Test new creative
- Adjust frequency caps based on CTR and conversion data
Getting Display Right
Display takes patience. You won’t see immediate ROI like Search. But run it alongside Search for 3 months and you’ll see the compound effect: more awareness, more warm prospects feeding Search, more total conversions.
The key is starting small, measuring properly, and not expecting Search-level CTR.
Need display advertising that actually builds your brand? Talk to Anitech. We design creative, set up targeting, and measure what matters.
Learn more: