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The Importance of Retargeting

by Theresa Andrews

Whether you are a marketing professional or a small business owner who wants to increase your brand reach, getting your audience’s attention is a major part of your strategy. But, too often the focus is on the first action alone. Retargeting is an effective method of influencing a second or third reaction for increased impact.

Remarketing isn’t a brand new tactic, but it’s become a core marketing function with the advancement of tracking technology and third party software that provides a wide breadth of outlets and ways to segment your website visitors. Retargeting allows brands to categorize visitors into interests and essentially “follow” them while they do other things online, giving them a chance to pull visitors back to the website that weren’t quite to the point of conversion.

Messaging is Critical

Most importantly in a retargeting campaign, the advertiser has gained valuable information about their audience given they have browsed the website already – a perfect opportunity to tailor messaging based on what you know. So, don’t just throw up another general branded ad in front of this audience. If you could have a conversation with a potential customer that dropped off your website on the last page of checkout, would you just tell them how great your brand is again or would you say “Hey, product XYZ you are interested in is now 20% off.” No matter the conversion you are influencing, show your potential customers that you have been paying attention to their needs.

Different Types of Retargeting

There are different ways to take a second stab at your audience. By using a combination of advertising, content marketing and retargeting, you will increase your impact and cultivate prospects into sales or qualified leads.

  • Search Engine Marketing – Utilizing the retargeting feature in search engines requires that you are live with paid search to begin with (which if you aren’t, you probably should be). The Google network provides a few creative choices for you to retarget users that have searched and clicked on your paid search ad before. Depending on the search term (and where they are in the buying cycle), you can retarget with ads to get them farther down the purchase path or even offer them a specific deal related to their initial search.
  • Social Media Ads – Facebook is certainly the largest volume platform for social remarketing, but other social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter offer this campaign option as well. Brands can create custom audiences based on users who have previously visited their site, checked out certain products or pages and more. From there, the created sponsored posts track users from the website to said social channel and serve content based on the set criteria – resulting in greater brand recognition and increased traffic back to the site.
  • Abandoned Shopping Cart Reminders – On average, nearly 70% of carts are abandoned before a purchase decision is made.  Reminding leads of their intent to purchase can help improve the conversion rates. Emails sent within 3 hours of an abandoned cart averaged a 40% open rate, according to Listrak.
  • Loyal Customers – Retargeting leads that you have already converted once means you cut the cost per acquisition and increase the lifelong value of your leads. Target your customers with product or service recommendations based on previous purchases. Content can also be sent to your customers based on their interests to support their needs or preferences.
  • Website Personalization – Your own website can retarget previous visitors and customers by offering them products they have already viewed or recommendations based on past activity. Amazon is a prime example of a website that uses internal retargeting with lists of items designed to attract the individual user.

The Return on Effort and Investment

According to CMO by Adobe, retargeting influences web site visitors in such a powerful way that they are 70% more likely to convert. Retargeting helps brands present tailored content to people who are already interested in what they offer. When ads and content are used to retarget in a smart way and alongside other critical marketing initiatives, the return on investment (ROI) or return on effort (ROE) has proven to be pretty impressive.

The current customer expects the shopping experience with today’s brands to be personalized. Through retargeting, you can easily give a customer a more personalized experience. Smart and responsive marketing will help the customer feel cared for, increase conversion rates and improve the efficiency of a brand’s marketing campaigns.

 

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