We all want to get our advertising right. However, with the lightning-fast changes inherent to the digital world, effective digital marketing strategies are constantly evolving. That's why we've created a detailed breakdown of the top display advertising tactics, lasting display advertising trends, and best practices for display ads in 2025, to keep you informed and on the right track.

What Is Display Advertising and Why Does It Matter?

Display advertising is a type of cost-per-mille (CPM) advertisement. Display ads are ads—typically static images, but can also include animation and/or interactive elements—that're shown to users on websites, platforms, and apps they're already using.

Display advertising is an excellent way for businesses to build brand awareness. This is particularly helpful for small businesses seeking to expand. You can introduce new audiences to your brand and products, and even offer discounts or advertise sales and deals to encourage them to click.

You can run ads across a wide range of websites, platforms, and apps, providing access to a vast audience. Display advertising also offers an excellent opportunity to target audiences based on their location rather than their demographics.

Consumers are growing frustrated with data collection for targeted advertising. There are also ever-increasing regulations to curtail data collection practices. With display advertising, you don't need extensive audience data to target specific demographics. You can advertise where your target audience will be. For example, if you're selling exercise equipment, advertising on fitness blogs will reach your intended audience. 

All these powerful benefits and advantages make display advertising a must for small businesses looking to grow in 2025.

What Are The Different Types of Display Ads?

There are many different types of display ads. Each has unique pros and cons. Experiment to see which ones work best for your audience.

• Banner Ads. Banner ads are one of the oldest and most common types of display ads. They're typically found on the top or side of a webpage. While they've been an integral part of awareness ad campaigns since the dawn of the internet and remain popular today, their ubiquity over such a long period has made many users tune them out.
• Native Ads. Native ads blend seamlessly into the content's design, reducing ad blindness. If you've ever seen sponsored content as recommended reading at the end of an article or watched half of a TikTok video before realizing it's an ad, then you've seen how well they fit in.
• Rich Media Ads. Rich media ads have more oomph. Instead of a static image, they use audio, animation, or interactive content to grab attention. These are powerful when done right, but overpowering if done wrong.
• Responsive Display Ads. Responsive display ads, exclusive to the Google Display Network, take ad elements and remix them to fit various ad spaces and formats. This is an excellent time-saver and allows for a broad reach.

Top Display Advertising Trends to Watch in 2025

Display advertising is continually evolving in response to technological advancements and shifting consumer behavior. Being aware of current and predicted display advertising trends helps to keep your advertising strategy successful and stay ahead of the curve.

1. AI-Driven advertising. According to HubSpot, a quarter of marketers plan to utilize AI to convert text into multimodal ad campaigns, 40% have AI experts in their marketing teams, and over half believe AI will increase productivity more than industrialization did. AI can aid with everything from generating text, images, and videos to creating advertising and targeting strategies, as well as measuring success.
2. Automation.  Automation is another growing trend. It saves time, lowers costs, scales easily, and gets results. HubSpot lists lead generation, audience segmentation, targeting, and optimization as key ways to utilize AI automation to streamline your marketing efforts.
3. Cookie-less tracking. eMarketer predicts that 87% of browsers could be completely cookie-less someday. The less dependent you are on cookies now, the less you'll have to adjust in the future. Additionally, users prefer to opt out when possible, so opting for a cookie-less approach before your peers could give you a competitive edge.
4. Personalization. According to HubSpot, almost all marketers say personalization increases sales (94%) and repeat business (96%), and nearly three-fourths (71%) of customers expect it. Not only will personalization continue to be a priority, but 77% of marketers believe generative AI is the key to more personalized content. 
5. Over-the-top (OTT) ads.  As smart TVs and streaming services replace cable, they are becoming more enticing as display ad platforms. Nielsen's 2025 Annual Marketing Report states that it's one of the few digital channels with growing ad spend, despite marketers bracing for a recession.

Want help creating ads that actually work? Let DirectHub guide your first campaign.

Display Ads Best Practices for Small Businesses

Display ads best practices exist to guide your display ads in the right direction. Those who know the rules best can break them in interesting and effective ways. However, first, it is essential to understand the best practices for display ads.

Top Display Ad Best Practices

• Make Display Ads tailored to your goals.

• Use language from the customer's point of view.

• Use consistent branding.

• Mobile-optimized design

• Visual simplicity

• Clear CTAs

• A/B testing

• Avoid over-targeting

It's tempting to make your targeting extra narrow to ensure your perfect ideal customer match sees them. However, this can backfire. There may be others who would be interested, and over-specifying your target audience can limit your reach too much.

Display Advertising Examples That Work

Let's cover some real-world examples to give you an idea of how they work in practice.

Semrush showcased a display advertising example for Casper, a mattress and sleep product company. They opted for a simple design that showcased their #1 mattress rating and announced their availability at Target.

The image is simple and on-brand; the message is clear, and the CTA is a straightforward "Shop at Target.com" button, so viewers know exactly what to do.

A small local business might not be able to match their $650,000 ad spend, but they can follow the same winning principles. If you want to promote a sale, use a high-quality, simple, relevant image, clear messaging about the sale, and a CTA like "Shop Now and Save!"

One of our favorite display advertising examples is the results achieved by one of our clients through their display ad campaign. It demonstrates what you can learn from your performance metrics. Our client received 88 clicks on their ads, and almost all of them (84) resulted in action. This shows that it's resonating well.

It also performed best with those in the health and fitness space, which aligns well with the client's business. Banner ads saw the most success, so they should lean into them moving forward. Almost everyone viewed the ads on mobile, which is why mobile-friendly design is vital.

They also focused on the Denver area, where they're located, using Local SEO practices. It performed well, achieving its best results in its location and generating conversions from local customers.

While these metrics show that we built a strong campaign that drove significant results, even poor results can provide a wealth of insight. Look at what works and what doesn't, A/B test to find the elements that get results, and study the data to learn how to improve.  

How DirectHub Helps You Succeed With Display Ads

Creating your display advertising campaigns, testing and iterating on your own, and trying to find what works and what doesn't by yourself can be a real challenge. If you want to work with an experienced partner, we're here to help!

DirectHub supports small businesses by tailoring the right strategy to your goals, audience, budget, and industry. We create top-notch creative that is designed to perform well with your ideal customers. Our team can handle the setup process, perform A/B testing, gather the right KPIs, analyze the data, and optimize your display ads based on those insights.   

If you're looking for a partner with a proven track record of success to ensure your display ads deliver results, reach out to discuss how we can help. You can also browse our site to learn more about our full suite of marketing solutions.

Work smarter, not harder. Launch smarter display advertising campaigns with DirectHub's tools and expertise.