For direct-to-consumer advertisers and agencies, retargeting may be a no brainer. But for more regulated companies — such as those in healthcare and finance verticals — the questions are much more complex and not as easily answered.

A Quick Recap On Retargeting

There are two types of retargeting. One is where we target ‘off-site’ events – things that potential customers are doing off of your website; and the other where we target ‘on-site’ events – things that your customers are doing on your website. A combination of both of these methods will bring the highest performance.

Off-Site Retargeting

For off-site retargeting, search retargeting is the most common form. Using cookies already on the individual’s computer, search-retargeting looks at the keywords an individual is searching for, matches those keywords to our display campaign, and allows us to show them a display ad outside of the search engine. This is a strong form of retargeting as the individual is showing intent for the brand, by what they are searching for.

On-Site Retargeting

For on-site retargeting, site retargeting is the most common form. Site retargeting allows us to retarget individuals that have visited our website, by placing or activating a cookie on their computer. Here, we know that the individual is interested in our brand because they have been to our website. Our ads can be tailored to either provide them with additional information or make them come back for more.

There Is Some Regulation Such As Opt-Out

As an example, today there is no firm regulation from the FDA on whether or not you can retarget users – specifically in the pharmaceutical and medical fields. However, companies are urged to not overuse this technology and to be mindful of what could be considered “spam.” Consumers are asked to take more responsibility to disable or enable tracking of themselves.

Anonymous Retargeting

Reputable ad networks and publishers are retargeting users completely anonymously. No personal identifiable information (PII) is shared between the user and the publisher, even if the brand is retargeting visitors to their own website. Publishers, such as Google, go as far as to mandate that no PII is sent to them via their Privacy Policy.

AdChoices

The White House, Department of Commerce and the Federal Trade Commission have all commended the Digital Advertising Alliance and its partners for the significant progress toward consumer privacy with their Self Regulatory Program. A product of this program, AdChoices, is now an industry standard on all ads that are being behaviorally targeted and allow consumers to opt out of this type of targeting.

A Couple Thoughts After You Decide To Use Retargeting

Retargeting is a very powerful advertising program that brands should take advantage of. However, this should not be the only program they are relying on, and the program should be developed in good taste.

Use AdChoices

Although it is a best practice of all of the major ad networks, it is a good idea to validate with the ad network that their ads will include the AdChoices icon allowing consumers to opt out of behavioral targeting.

Cap Interactions

When setting up your retargeting campaign, some recommend the 7×7 rule: limit the window to 7 days or less (users who have been to your site within the last 7 days can see a retargeting ad), and cap the impressions to 7 per person per day. This will limit the exposure of a retargeted ad to any specific user — and limit the ‘stalker factor’ of the brand.

Update The Site’s Privacy Policy

Although this is not required, it is suggested to update the site’s privacy policy to include display advertising and retargeting. Google recommends that the privacy policy be updated whenever Google Analytics is used, and goes further to recommend additional updates when analytics is being used for display advertising and retargeting. Take a look at the FDA’s own privacy policy here.

Bottom line: retargeting should be used on a case-by-case basis — and if a client is overly hesitant, the risk may outweigh the reward. Although advertisers can use retargeting to drive highly relevant ads to their potential audience with high ROI — they must also be aware of increasing consumer privacy awareness and ever-changing regulatory factors.

More and more companies are building large online lead generation campaigns to drive inbound leads to their growing sales forces. Delivering a high volume of leads can prove to be just as important to companies as building a very targeted campaign.

Often, those two goals are contradictory to one another. But by paying attention to the three factors below it can be possible to accomplish both goals, while building a well rounded lead generation strategy.

PPC Has Its Limits

Companies with larger budgets will see this most often – they have the money to spend, but aren’t able to spend it.

The conversion rates are good, and the CPA is right in line with what they want, but the volume just isn’t there. Sure, you can force the volume by generalizing your keywords and bidding for the number 1 spot, but then you can say goodbye to your ROI.

Many will fall into this trap; “by spending more money, I can increase the volume of leads coming in, while maintaining the same ROI”. While there may always be an exception to the rule, for the most part, this is not the case.

The wrong agency or marketer may try and increase bids, in an effort to gain more exposure and spend more of their customer’s money;  this may be great for their billings, but not for the ROI of the client.

Although clients will see their ads in higher positions on the page, it’s important to understand what positions are driving the best ROI, and more often than not, it’s not the number 1 spot.

Diversification Is A Key To Success

Google AdWords is often the first stop for advertisers, as everyone’s heard of it, it’s “easy” to sign up, and it’s “easy” to use. But the experienced marketer knows that getting past just Google and diversifying where the media is being purchased, is the only way to maintain a truly successful lead generation campaign.

By all means, I am not saying to ditch SEM altogether, but use it wisely. A quick rule of thumb would be:

1. Use Search to capture the long-tail inexpensive keywords.
2. Introduce display site retargeting to keep the conversation open with potential customers.
3. Use display search retargeting to capture the expensive “head” and competitors terms.
4. Fill in the gaps with extended media – social and email.

Introducing display advertising into the lead generation campaign will not only provide the volume that may be lacking from search, but it will also provide a way to advertise on more expensive terms without have to buy them directly from the search engines.

The More Data The Better

Successful lead generation managers live and die by the data, as do marketers. A/B testing is a must – search ads, display ads and landing pages all need to be tested. Its not uncommon to have many different variation in an A/B test, but keep the variables to a minimum so decisions can be made.

Third party conversion tracking can also be a huge data driver and prove very beneficial.

Using publisher agnostic conversion tracking gives you the opportunity to cookie customers, track conversions, and view conversion funnels  across publishers. While Google AdWords conversion tracking does a great job for your AdWords campaigns, it won’t necessarily give you the information you need from your display campaigns.

Determining how customers are interacting with your ads across all publishers is important for optimization and can provide great data for CPA attribution modeling.

While Yahoo is seeing a big shift in revenue, and as Facebook builds its advertiser base, Google is working through new products and strategic acquisitions to move itself into a more dominant role in the display advertising business.

Google and Facebook, once potential frienemies – now may see themselves competing for the same advertisers as Google+ launches as the next competitor to Facebook’s social media empire.

Search & Display By The Numbers

While Google and Microsoft lead the industry in search ad revenues, they trail Facebook and Yahoo in display ad revenues. According to June data from eMarketer, Google should have a commanding 77% of the search ad revenues in 2012, but only realize 12.3% of the display revenue in the same year.

eMarketing Search Ad Spend Projections - June 2011

Microsoft’s search ad revenue will finally surpass Yahoo’s search ad revenue in 2011, as Microsoft starts to see the benefits of the Search Alliance in their favor. However, Yahoo’s display revenue shadows Microsoft’s and will only begin to lose the first position to Facebook this year.

Facebook Is A “New” Competitor

Facebook’s growth does not seem to be negatively affecting search ad revenue as they find themselves as the force to be reckoned with in the display arena. Currently, Google may not be greatly affected by Facebook,  as Yahoo is seeing the biggest hit.

It seems as if Yahoo’s display advertising revenue is moving straight over to Facebook, which reminds me of a conversation with a Yahoo colleague – eagerly pointing out that Google may be the least of their worries.

eMarketing Display Spending Projections - June 2011

eMarketers principal analyst David Hallerman summarizes why Facebook is seeing this surge; “Facebook’s distinctive form of display advertising is increasingly attracting advertisers. These are mainly smaller companies, and some of them have a strong direct-response focus.”

According to eMarketer, Facebook and Google look to be going after the same clients: small-to-medium sized advertisers. Today, they each seem to be moving forward at their own pace; however, this could turn into a point of competition.

Google Spending Money To Keep Up

Google may see the writing on the wall with the recent purchase of Admeld, they are making a push to increase their display advertising offering. In a blog post from Google’s Vice President of Display Advertising, Neal Mohan, he states the importance of this concentration.

“It’s now clear that investments in new technologies, new ad formats and improved buying and selling processes are helping to grow the display advertising pie. This benefits publishers who make more money from display ads, users who receive free ad-funded content and marketers who are able to grow their businesses online.”

Facebook’s surge in display revenue may be directly correlated to their time-on-site statistics. Google has been desperately trying to move themselves away from a “search portal” to an actual “destination” on the Internet, as seen in the launch of Google+ most recently.

With an already robust offering, potentially supported by its current Adwords (search, contextual and display) base of advertisers, and immediate access to millions of users, Google+ could be the way Google  builds out their display offering.

Where We’ve Been In Search & Display Advertising

Before the introduction of Google AdWords 10 years ago, display advertising and online advertising were one in the same. We started the 2000′s with display dominating the interactive advertising landscape, but search quickly shoved display out of the way as advertisers saw the huge potential in being able to target user’s real-time intent or, keyword searches.

Today, with Q1 Online Ad Revenues reaching $7.3 billion, search is still number one with about 46% of the market. However, display is beginning to make a comeback, with its share in spend increasing over 8% from 2009. If the number of booths at an industry conference is an indicator, these numbers are right on – you can’t walk 5 feet without bumping into a company trying to be the next big thing in display.

Targeting A Big Factor In Growth Of Display Budgets

Coming a long way from early demographic targeting options, advertisers now have the option to build their own custom audiences around profiles of their exact customer base. Estimations are showing that over 97% of display advertisers will use some sort of audience targeting this year.

According to eMarketer, targeting has by far the largest impact on why advertisers are willing to spend more money on display, with 52.8% of advertisers saying that their increased ad budgets were directly impacted by increased targeting options.

Building your target audience (a subject for a future article) is typically done by using a combination of various different targeting options, including:

• Audience segmenting
• Contextual targeting
• Demographic targeting
• Re-targeting

Re-targeting, specifically search re-targeting, is a very effective way of closing the gap between an advertiser’s search engine marketing efforts and display advertising.

How Search & Display Are Coming Together

By using search re-targeting as a form of display targeting, advertisers bring the two largest segments of their online advertising budget together to work as one. Search re-targeting is made up of two different types of re-targeting: visitors to the advertiser’s website from search, and individuals searching on relevant keywords; both are effective in their own way.

The first type of search re-targeting is the most straightforward – show a display ad to someone who has previously visited an advertiser’s website from one of that advertisers search engine marketing ads. This gives the advertiser an opportunity to re-market to any of these visitors, with a display advertisement urging the customer to come back for more.

Advertisers can take this targeting a step further by segmenting the visitors into individuals that converted and individuals that did not convert. This differentiation then makes the display advertising much more effective, taking the individuals actions into account.

For an individual that converted, an advertiser may show them an ad asking them how they liked their purchase, and recommend similar products to them. For an individual that didn’t convert, they may see an ad inviting them back for a second chance, maybe with a new and more interesting promotion.

The above re-targeting may, however, drive a low amount of impressions, as it requires that the individual actually visit the advertisers website.

Depending on the advertisers search engine marketing budget, the number of visitors getting cookied may be low. To increase share, re-targeting can also be accomplished by monitoring the keywords that individuals are searching for, never having to visit the advertiser’s actual website.

This is accomplished by dropping a cookie on the individuals system from a partner site, and then dynamically monitoring the type of keywords that they are searching for on the search engines. If one of the keywords being “targeted” is searched for, that individual will see the advertisers’ display ads.

Using the above two targeting options together would be ideal, and from experience the site visited search re-targeting will almost always beat the keyword driven search re-targeting when a conflict occurs.

With the availability of new and more interesting targeting options with display advertising, we should continue to see advertisers move (or increase) budgets in that direction.

While both search engine marketing and display advertising are extremely important and efficient forms of online advertising in their own right, using them together can prove extremely beneficial for an advertisers online return-on-investment.

Online businesses don’t have the luxury of second chances. Today, ads are often the first impression a consumer may get of a business. It is important to begin establishing a trust between the advertiser and consumer at this first point of interaction.

Put The Best Ads Forward

Trust is established through the three “must haves” of an ad:

1. Differentiation of the business
2. Promotion of a product or offer
3. Location of the business or service

Think of the ad as an equation with three variables – each variable must be present, but what the variable says can be interchanged.

Within the ad, it’s important to differentiate the advertiser from their competition and make claims that can easily be supported on the landing page. Include references to how long they have been in business, awards they have won or types of products that they use — these are all examples of areas that could set them apart from their closest competitors.

Using a dentist as an example, an office that is open 7 days a week is a great point of differentiation – and would be a great thing to put in an ad.

A promotion should be unique as well. On a search results page full of “Free Consultation” promotions, don’t get lost in the crowd. This promotion is another way to set the advertiser apart from their competition.

A marketer may need to work with the advertiser to create a promotion if they don’t already have one – every business should have some sort of draw, you might need to just think outside the box.

Coupons are pretty hot right now, so consider them as a surefire way to gain credibility and bring clients through your doors. Consumers love saving money, so for a dentist to offer free whitening with another purchase serves as a great promotion.

Finally, location. National branding campaigns may sometimes be the exception, but in most other cases, giving the consumers a location lets the online searcher know if you are within their reach.

Whether I am looking for a dentist’s office in Newport Beach or a new watch, I want to know if the business is located down the street or can easily ship to my house. Consider breaking up your ad groups by geography and product type to make ads much more relevant.

With the variables defined, the next step is create a trustworthy ad:

example: “Newport Beach Whitening: Free Tooth Whitening With Cleaning. Call Now We’re Open 7 Days A Week!”

Making Good On Ad Promises

After making a couple of large claims in the ads, we want to make sure we keep that trust going by supporting the claims immediately on the landing page. The same three variables of an ad should be validated on the page.

A good rule of thumb: claims from the ad should be found within three to five seconds after visiting a landing page.

Differentiation on a landing page can take multiple forms. Logos of accreditation are often overused, but the right kinds are still effective. Use popular certifications and memberships and not ” As Seen Somewhere On TV,” or no-name logos.

When showcasing products, services, and partners, bypassing stock photography for the real thing goes a long way with consumer comfort.

In our dentist example, make sure “Open 7 Days a Week” is readily seen on the page – if this is what initially sold a consumer, they will be looking for validation again on the landing page.

The promotion that drove the consumer to the landing page often has the largest impact on that consumer becoming a customer. Make sure the promotion is the most readily seen variable on the landing page.

A good tactic: pull up your landing page, and then close your eyes. When you open them again, is the promotion the first thing your eyes are drawn to? If the answer is no, the promotion needs to be made more prominent on the page.

Also, a promotion that is actionable such as “Download Here”, is that much more valuable – these actions can easily be reported back to the advertiser with analytics and conversion tracking.

A real-life example – see each of the variables from the ad text:

A landing page example

The more comfortable a consumer is with a landing page, and the less work they need to do to get what they are looking for, the more likely they are to become a customer.

In our example, a click on an ad for “Newport Beach Whitening” should drive to a Newport Beach, CA landing page for teeth whitening – not the homepage where another search has to happen. Don’t give the consumer another reason to press the back button in their browser. Trivial, but not seen often enough.

Closing The Loop

With fingers crossed, the work done building this trust will translate into new, happy customers. Marketers often leave the equation after the introduction occurs, but the business delivering a good product will be key to sustainable growth.

A tremendous amount of investment is made to gain new customers, but turning a new customer into a returning customer could mean the difference between a one-year and a twenty-year business. Crazy what a first impression can do.