Display advertising software helps companies advertise on a wide range of websites. Display advertising products allow advertisers to buy, manage, and place display advertisements on websites, including banner, overlay, and rich media ads. Display advertising is typically managed by a company’s marketing team or a third-party ad agency to drive both brand awareness and direct response initiatives. Display advertising software provides advertisers with the broadest reach comparative to other advertising channels, as it is among the most common form of online advertising. Display advertising functionality may be offered through a best-of-breed product, but is more commonly offered as part of a cross-channel advertising platform, which includes additional channel functionality across search, mobile, social media, or video. Display advertising products may also function as a demand side platform (DSP) to serve ads in real time through a process called real-time bidding (RTB). Display advertising products are paralleled by publisher ad management products, including publisher ad servers and supply side platforms (SSP), that allow website owners to create and sell ad inventory on their websites.

To qualify for inclusion in the Display Advertising category, a product must:

Offer tools for uploading or creating display ads such as banners, overlays, or rich media ads
Be able to buy and serve display ads to websites via ad networks, ad exchanges, or directly with website publishers
Provide workflows for effectively managing and trafficking ads within the platform
Track key success metrics reach, conversions, and ROAS.