Ultimate Guide To Retargeting

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Whether you’re a marketing director or business owner, you might already know that consumers have to view an offer at least seven times before making a purchase. So, it’s expected to have visitors on your site and exit without buying your product.

Fortunately, you can make them come back and become actual customers with retargeting. Read on as we’ll discuss more what retargeting is, how it works, why it’s important, and how you can properly apply it to help grow your business.

Knowing the Basics of Retargeting

Have you noticed that the ads you’re seeing on your Instagram or Facebook feed are related to that hair care product you were browsing several days or hours ago? This illustrates what retargeting is.

Using ads and messages based on the shoppers’ behaviors, this marketing technique lets you remind your potential customers of the product or service they’ve viewed on your website but didn’t purchase. Retargeting is usually performed with website banner ads, email, apps, social media, and other channels.

Also, retargeting is made possible through cookies. They aren’t the dessert perfect for those with a sweet tooth but are small files placed on-site visitors’ computers or mobile devices. Marketers can then use such data to show relevant ads that will help enhance brand awareness and increase conversion rates.

Now, you might think that retargeting and remarketing mean the same thing because they’re usually used interchangeably. However, as we’ve mentioned, retargeting lets you place ads on other websites and channels based on your potential customer’s past behaviors. Meanwhile, remarketing is more about using email to reconnect with your current and past customers.  

Why Retargeting Matters

Reports showed that around 92% of first-time website visitors wouldn’t make a purchase. However, not being ready to buy now doesn’t mean you’ll never buy the product. Instead, you can still convert them into paying customers.

Thanks to retargeting, you can segment visitors depending on their behaviors. You can then produce ads that match their wants and needs, eventually turning them into actual customers.

Another advantage of retargeting is that you’re already targeting individuals who have previously expressed interest in your product or service through a website visit. So, you’re not starting from scratch. You’re just reminding them of the item while they’re having fun watching memes or reading news online.

Retargeting also allows you to focus on more unique offers and give potential customers special promos and discounts. It makes your brand stand out and retain relevancy, so when they’re ready to make the purchase, they’ll choose your product or service. Thus, retargeting does not only help you control cart abandonment but also gain more conversions and a higher return on investment (ROI).

Various Retargeting Platforms

In traditional physical stores, you’ll find it hard to convince a consumer to buy your product or service once they go out without getting anything. However, in the digital world, you can rely on retargeting to remind window shoppers to buy the item they were interested in. Also, the presence of different platforms makes the process easier for you.

Email

As a consumer, you must have liked several products, clicked on the add to cart button, but ended up not buying or even forgetting about it. In email retargeting, you will send reminders to these types of consumers to not miss the treats and other surprises that come with the product. Email targeting also allows you to get your shoppers back, give them an incentive to provide a review or click on that checkout button now.

Social Media

As various social media platforms allow you to communicate with customers and attract more leads, they make for a perfect space for retargeting. Even the usual likes or share buttons will make your ad connect to a bigger audience.

Twitter

Compared to Facebook, Twitter retargeting proves to be more challenging. Interestingly, click-through rates from Twitter are higher than those of Facebook, partly because of dominant placement in the feed, particularly on mobile devices. However, the revenue is still bigger with Facebook, given that Twitter retargeting wasn’t available on mobile.

Also, most users would tweet using their smartphones. In response to these limitations, the platform now has retargeting technology. With its recent developments, Twitter is then expected to become one of the best platforms to give you a huge ROI.

Facebook

Given that Facebook is one of the leading social media platforms with about three billion active users globally, retargeting on this network is beneficial. You can develop focused campaigns, analyze the data, and make the campaign even more tailored to their needs.

Simply install the Facebook Pixel, so you can monitor your website visitors’ activities. Uploading your product catalog to your Facebook ads account also allows the users to see products they previously abandoned in the cart.

You can even show your ads to only those who were reluctant to purchase for the past week and then leave out people who have already bought a product in the previous month.      

Instagram

Facebook is the owner of Instagram, which means that you can use the former to run ads on the latter. For example, you’ll use Facebook to come up with a custom audience of those who watched snippets of your videos on Instagram.

Even those who didn’t fill out your lead generation form after opening it on Instagram are also good candidates for retargeting. Retarget users who liked your post, left a comment or sent you a DM. With the simple and visual nature of Instagram, it’s easier to attract users’ attention to your retargeting campaigns.

Web

Have you observed ads for the product that you’ve been browsing on another website while you’re skimming a blog or news article? If so, you’ve just seen how retargeting works. Through strategic placement of ads and targeted messaging, these website banner ads or text ads will let consumers see what opportunities they’re losing and what awaits them once they purchase your products.

Mobile

On average, people spend at least six hours on their phones every day, excluding work-related purposes. This gives businesses more chances to perform retargeting and turn visitors into actual customers. Apart from reducing cart abandonment by about 7%, mobile retargeting can also boost your online sales by 20%.

Building an Effective Retargeting Campaign

To help run your retargeting campaigns effectively, consider the following steps:

Establish Your Objectives

First, you have to be clear with your objectives. Apart from boosting conversion rates and your revenue, you might also want to increase brand awareness. Perhaps, you’ll want to focus on gaining more email subscriptions.

Other goals include significantly reducing abandoned carts and enabling more customer feedback and higher ratings. Determine these objectives and the specific measures you’ll apply to realize them.

Decide on Frequency

According to some advertisers, the ideal frequency is 17 to 20 ads every month for each person. However, others also think that you have to maximize your site visitors’ interest by placing as many ads as possible.

You can use a combination of both and create retargeting campaigns depending on the last visit of the potential customer to your website. For instance, you can set it one or two weeks after their visit. As the tendency to click or convert reduces, you can also make your ad impressions less frequent.

Merging the two beliefs will keep people from getting annoyed with the ads and your brand. You have to consider the type of product too in determining the right frequency. For example, you can retarget at a later date if it’s a luxury item. However, if it’s something for travel, then it’s best not to delay your retargeting.

Another key is to perform your analysis, so you’ll know the reasons that visitors are abandoning their carts and find ways to address their needs.

Take Advantage of Burn Code

Imagine seeing a retargeting ad even if you’ve just bought the same product from the same company. To avoid irritating consumers like this, utilize a burn code, where you can add a pixel to your thank you page. This way, users who have already purchased or converted will be excluded from your retargeting ads.

Segment Your Audience

Each user will have different reasons for visiting your site. Some find your blog helpful, while others are thinking of buying your product. So, you have to make sure your retargeting campaigns match their behaviors and needs. This is where segmenting your audience comes in.

For example, you can segment based on the specific pages they’ve visited on your site, the duration of visit, their engagement on your social media platforms, and the specific products or services they seem interested in.

Also, you can use the location, demographics, cart status (whether empty or abandoned), and other relevant factors. By doing the segmentation, you can easily craft messages and ads that fit the varying wants and needs of each group. As a result, you’re increasing your chances to turn them into paying customers.

Don’t Forget To Personalize

Did you know that among consumers, 80% will likely buy products or services from companies offering personalized shopping experiences? Also, over 60% of consumers are more likely to become repeat buyers after enjoying personalized shopping.

These numbers suggest how personalization is crucial in creating a successful retargeting campaign and increasing conversions. Therefore, craft more personalized messages and feature items that shoppers have added to the cart to build connections and give them a unique shopping experience.

Switch Things Up

The last thing you want to happen to your retargeting ads is to turn into background noise. Avoid a significant decrease in your click-through rates by rotating your campaigns every few months.

To help you see which ads are working well, consider running various kinds of campaigns at the same time. Doing so will also help you grab the attention of shoppers who have been interested in your product or brand.

Create Powerful Visuals

While consumers have already visited your site before, make sure that this time, they’ll be more interested in your product and eventually convert. Start with attractive and engaging visuals with the following tips:

  1. Produce high-quality images. No matter how good your visuals are, it wouldn’t matter if they turn out blurred or pixelated.
  2. Don’t use too many colors, fonts, or other visual elements. This way, your target audience won’t find the ads overwhelming, messy, or distracting.
  3. Ensure readability. If there’s text that overlaps with the photos, make sure they’re clear and well-placed.
  4. Study the image policies of your chosen platforms. Doing so will ensure that the images used satisfy not only the platform’s ethical standards but also its technical criteria.
  5. Make sure that the user interface visuals will accommodate smartphone displays. As more people rely on their smartphones for online transactions, the scaling of images or texts has to fit smaller screen sizes.
  6. Rely more on visuals than texts. Not everyone will spend even a second of their time reading random text they see, so it’s better to use pictures, static or moving, to pique viewers’ interest.
  7. Blend your products with casual scenarios. Viewers are more likely to appreciate a product if they can imagine themselves using the actual product.

The Bottomline

While shoppers aren’t always ready to buy the moment they visit your website, you can apply retargeting following the steps we’ve presented above. Want to ensure that you’re maximizing retargeting and other marketing strategies to grow your business? Get in touch with us today!