A guide to retargeting and how you can use it to increase sales & take your marketing campaigns to a new level.
We’ve all experienced it. You check out a pair of shoes or an Airbnb unit online, only to see an ad for it on Facebook or Google an hour later.
Retargeting is the technology behind many of today’s advertising campaigns and is a tactic that truly caters to the demand for a more personalised online experience.
Retargeting recap
According to BI Intelligence, 97% of consumers will leave your website without converting, which is where retargeting offers brands a powerful opportunity.
There are a number of different platforms that you can use to run remarketing campaign, Google Adwords and Facebook being two of the most popular.
Whichever platform you decide to use to create and deliver your campaigns, they all generally work in a similar way. A tag or retargeting pixel is added to your website that will track the behaviour and actions of your website visitors. Once this data has been collected, your ads will be served to your visitors across the websites and social media platforms that they might visit thereafter, encouraging them to return to your site and covert.
There is also the option to use your own customer lists to retarget your existing customers. These lists can be uploaded directly to the retargeting platform that you’re using.
A report by Invesp shows that visitors who were retargeted were 70% more likely to return to a website and convert. In fact, 46% of search engine marketing professionals believe that retargeting is one of the most underutilised online marketing tools.
Best practices for your Retargeting campaigns
If you’ve decided that 2018 is the year that your brand would like to start benefitting from retargeting campaigns, here are a few tips and best practices that you should follow in order to achieve the best possible results.
According to Hubspot, only 4% of people are ready to buy when they get to your site, which means that you need to be very strategic about what you present to them once you are able to reach them again via a retargeting campaign.
- Improve your segments. The more relevant your ads are, the more likely it is that customers will convert. Really think about how you want to segment your customers or website visitors based on their behaviour and actions on your site before you start developing your campaigns.
- Limit your retargeting. Platforms such as Google AdWords allow you to set a limit on how many times a user will see your adverts. When a brand is too overbearing, users could develop a negative brand image instead of wanting to revisit a website.
- Solve a problem. The only time a user won’t convert is when they have concerns or questions about a product or service, so use your retargeting campaigns to address any of the reasons why a customer may not have converted as yet. Cost, availability and lack of information all being common reasons.
- Get strategic about targeting. Along with creating refined audience segments, it’s also important to get strategic about your targeting. From geographic and demographic to contextual factors, the more relevant your ads are, the more likely it is that customers will convert.
- Throw in some FOMO or urgency. Nobody wants to miss out on a limited offer or a discounted price so find ways to offer customers something they can’t refuse. Don’t forget to include a strong call to action across all your ads.
- A/B test your campaigns. There is never an excuse not to test your creatives and campaigns. Even if a set of creatives is performing exceptionally well right now, it will eventually lose its momentum and you will need to know what to run with next. Keeping a close eye on your campaign results will ensure that you can keep optimising and planning ahead.
Effective Retargeting campaign examples
Below are several examples of retargeting campaigns that worked really well.
Expedia
Using the fact that many people tend to book holidays or weekend getaways at the last minute, Expedia created a retargeting campaign that offers users last minute deals at a discounted rate. Beautiful graphics and a direct call to action all added to the success and effectiveness of this campaign.
Freshdesk
Targeted at people on the hunt for a new helpdesk system, this campaign uses wording that speaks to what’s important to a business looking to make an investment in a new system. The free 30-day trial also makes the offer more appealing.
Best Buy
In order to capture customers who were interested in making a purchase but left before checking out, Best Buy created a campaign that reminded customers about their online shopping carts. The offer of free shipping is an added extra to encourage more conversions.
Altitude Sports
In an effort to create a more personalised experience for shoppers, Altitude Sports ran a retargeting campaign that pulled through images of the specific shoes that shoppers were looking at, reminding them of their particular purchase instead of simply showing them a generic ad.
Confused
Armed with the knowledge that people aren’t big fans of phoning around for insurance quotes, Confused used a retargeting campaign to show customers insurance quotes from various providers in a banner ad.
As you can see, the options are endless when it comes to creating retargeting campaigns that are suited to your brand and your target audience. All it takes is some knowledge of customer pain points and needs, a sound targeting strategy and a little creativity.
Retargeting is an incredibly effective way to boost conversions and your brand’s visibility and is an online marketing tactic that every business should be using, especially since today’s customers demand a more relevant brand experience.
Which retargeting platform will you be using to serve and track your campaigns?