Should I use the Google Display Network or a programmatic DSP?
For most businesses spending under about $10,000 a month on display, the Google Display Network inside Google Ads is the better start: no minimums, no platform fee, and the same conversion tracking as your search campaigns.
A DSP such as Display & Video 360 or The Trade Desk earns its fees when you need connected TV, private deals with specific publishers, third-party or retailer data, or one frequency cap across channels. We compare the two in detail in Google Display Network vs programmatic.
How much do display ads cost?
Display ads cost less per impression than almost any other paid channel, but the number that matters is what you pay per conversion once the cheap, low-quality impressions are filtered out.
On the Google Display Network you can pay per click, per thousand viewable impressions, or let Smart Bidding work toward a target CPA or ROAS. Google also lets Display campaigns on Target CPA pay for conversions instead of clicks, which moves some of the risk onto the platform.
Where people get burned is judging display on CPM alone. A rock-bottom CPM on junk mobile apps costs more in the end than a higher CPM on sites your buyers actually read. We cost display out on remarketing first, where intent is highest, and add prospecting only once that pays.
Our fee for display sits inside the same paid media retainer: a flat monthly fee plus a small percentage of spend, with most engagements between $2,000 and $15,000 a month and a $3,000 monthly ad spend minimum.
Sources: Google Ads Help: Choose a bid for your Display Network campaign, Google Ads Help: About Display ads and the Google Display Network
What sizes do display ads need to be?
For Google's responsive display ads you need horizontal (1.91:1) and square (1:1) images, ideally plus vertical (9:16), and Google resizes them to fit almost every placement.
Google's recommended sizes are 1200 x 628 for horizontal, 1200 x 1200 for square and 900 x 1600 for vertical, with each file under 5,120 KB. You can upload up to 15 images, and Google suggests 5 to 10 per aspect ratio. Logos, short and long headlines and descriptions complete the set.
Two mistakes we fix constantly. First, text baked into the image. Google's guidance says to avoid overlaid text, logos and buttons, because the system adds headlines itself and crops can slice your words in half. Second, uploading one image and calling it done. Give the system options or it shows the same tired frame everywhere.
Fixed-size HTML5 banners still have a place when a brand needs pixel-level control. For most accounts, responsive ads carry the load, and the same images often feed Performance Max too.
Sources: Google Ads Help: Best practices guide for responsive display ads
How often should a display ad show to the same person?
Keep display frequency low for cold audiences and allow more for hot remarketing lists, and set a manual cap whenever reporting shows the same people seeing your ad over and over with falling results.
Google lets you cap viewable impressions per user per day, week or month at the campaign, ad group or ad level, or let Google manage frequency for you. Two quirks catch people out: you can only set the cap after the campaign exists, and Demand Gen campaigns do not support frequency caps at all.
Our rule of thumb: the colder the audience, the lower the cap. Someone who abandoned a cart yesterday can handle more reminders than someone who skimmed a blog post three weeks ago. When frequency climbs and click-through rate drops, you are now annoying people you paid to reach.
Check it yourself: add the reach and frequency columns to your Display campaign and sort by ad group. If a remarketing list shows heavy weekly frequency and shrinking conversions, cap it and rotate in fresh creative. That often cuts waste faster than any bid change.
Sources: Google Ads Help: Use frequency capping
How long should a remarketing audience last?
Set remarketing membership duration to roughly match your sales cycle: days for impulse buys, a few months for considered purchases, and longer for seasonal or yearly decisions.
Google defaults website visitor segments to 30 days and allows up to 540. Its own guidance is to align duration with how long your ad stays relevant. A pizza shop does not need to follow a visitor for a year. A roofer or a B2B software company probably should keep people longer.
We rarely run one list. We split by recency and intent: cart or form starters from the last 7 days, product viewers from the last 30, and all visitors out to the length of the sales cycle. Each gets its own message and bid. Recent, high-intent people see a direct offer. Older lists see proof and reminders.
Exclude recent buyers unless you sell something people reorder. Paying to show an ad to someone who bought yesterday is the easiest waste to fix. Customer lists make that exclusion cleaner, as covered in our post on first-party data in Google Ads.
Sources: Google Ads Help: How your data segments work
Should I run display in Performance Max or in a separate Display campaign?
Run a separate Display campaign when you need control over placements, frequency and audiences, and let Performance Max carry display only when you are buying conversions across all of Google with an offer that is already proven.
Neither is better in general. It depends on the job. Performance Max blends Search, Shopping, YouTube, Gmail, Discover and display inventory into one campaign and decides the mix for you. A standalone Display campaign lets you pick remarketing lists, cap frequency and see exactly which placements spent your money.
I like running both with one shared rule set. The placement exclusions and audience lists we build for display can be applied at the account level, so the junk apps you blocked in one campaign do not sneak back in through Performance Max. Pull the placement report, find the waste, exclude it everywhere.
If you are new to Google Ads, start with search, prove the offer, then add the automated layers. Our Performance Max page covers that side in more depth.
Can AI make display ad creative that actually performs?
Yes, AI image tools can produce solid display creative, as long as you give them a tight brief and check every frame at full size before it goes live.
How we do it: write the brief in plain language right next to the account data, state the aspect ratio first, name the one thing the eye should land on, and keep the words in the image to a handful. Pin one image model for the whole batch so colors and type stay consistent across the set.
Then be picky. Export a native file, never a screenshot, and view it at 100 percent. If a letter is soft or a word is not real, regenerate. Garbled AI text is the fastest way to look cheap.
For responsive display ads, keep headlines out of the image entirely, since Google adds text itself and warns against overlays. Use AI for clean product and scene images and let the headline fields do the talking. A full set takes minutes, so you can refresh creative when results say it is tired. Our AI implementation team sets this workflow up for in-house teams.
Sources: Google Ads Help: Best practices guide for responsive display ads
