The two seconds you get
A display placement gets a fraction of a glance in peripheral vision while someone reads something else. Whatever cannot be absorbed in that instant is not absorbed at all.
Most display creative is built as a small poster: three lines of copy, a logo, a button, a stock photo. It requires reading, so it gets none.
What survives a glance
One idea. Six words or fewer. A single dominant visual or a single number. High contrast. Your name legible at the smallest size the placement allows.
Test it honestly: shrink it to 300 pixels wide, look for one second, look away. If you cannot say what it offered, neither can anyone else.
The size problem nobody checks
Placements go unfilled when you have not supplied every required size and ratio. The channel then appears to underperform when it was never fully in market.
A complete asset set per channel, verified before launch, is one of the highest-return checks in media operations and one of the least performed.
What display is actually for
Retargeting first — people who already know you, where a glance is enough to trigger recall. Then cheap geographic presence alongside a channel that does the persuading.
Used as a standalone lead generator it disappoints almost every time, and no amount of creative craft changes that.
Retargeting audiences are small, so the same banners wear out fast. See how often to refresh ad creative by channel.