Remarketing Tips Born Of Years Of Experience

Retargeting is an awesome way to reengage traffic that hasn’t converted. Over the years, it’s evolved, and the tools have become more robust. With this development, we’ve uncovered some effective remarketing strategies. In this article, I’ll cover some ideas related to engaging returning customers, obtaining new customers and remarketing related to specific search term queries. But […]

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Retargeting is an awesome way to reengage traffic that hasn’t converted. Over the years, it’s evolved, and the tools have become more robust. With this development, we’ve uncovered some effective remarketing strategies.

In this article, I’ll cover some ideas related to engaging returning customers, obtaining new customers and remarketing related to specific search term queries.

But before getting started, below are some general tips to remember:

Tip #1: Don’t Creep Your Prospects Out With Constant Ad Bombardment

Don’t show retargeted ads to everyone and their dog. Take the time to dig into targeting and figure out good ways to reconnect with your prospects.

A very bad idea is to spray every nook and cranny of the internet with your ads. This is basically what you do if you don’t tailor your targeting.

Example: A company sells to do-it-yourselfers and retargets people when they are searching for DIY related information. Many people will turn against you permanently if they feel stalked or are creeped out. Is it worth trading a few sales, and some decent-looking ROI numbers (on the surface), for a loss of credibility?

Tip #2: Don’t Be Repetitive

Vary your message depending on the audience you’ll be targeting.

For example, ad copy for existing customers will be very different from ad copy for prospective customers. Messaging should also vary based on the specific queries a visitor has used to search for your product or service, or the specific pages of your site they’ve visited.

Using the same wording in all ads is a surefire way to fail to engage your audience and keep them dormant, rather than taking action.

Tip #3: Don’t Overestimate The Impact Of Remarketing

If you measure your remarketing success based on last-click attribution information, you are probably misleading yourself. Understand that a conversion happened from the remarketing, but definitely set a lower CPA target for remarketing, since it clearly needs to share credit with higher-funnel influences.

As you know, we don’t always have accurate information on the earlier interactions; this usually involves guesswork. It’s definitely important not to spend too heavily on remarketing and other low-funnel clicks, as it “steals credit” and, past a certain point, it can cannibalize other spend.

And now, the effective remarketing strategies that can help you target more customers and sell more products and services.

Remarketing For Existing Customersshutterstock_173113775-friends-team

Here’s an idea: provide a discount offer for people who have already purchased.

In several accounts, we’ve offered discount coupons (like 10%) through remarketing and had some amazing success with it. Remember, it’s easier and cheaper to get someone who’s bought from you to rebuy than to get a new person to buy from you. In this case, savings from the lower repurchaser CPA can be passed along to the customer.

Also, think about scheduling campaigns to take advantage of similar buy situations and/or circumstances. For example, let’s say your company sells gifts and someone previously purchased a Mother’s Day gift. This is a good opportunity to reconnect around Father’s Day and present offers/deals to encourage them to buy from you again.

For added 1-2 punch, sync info up with an email marketing campaign. As attribution models become more advanced, we’ll have more opportunities to integrate marketing initiatives like email, PPC, remarketing, TV, etc.

For example, Facebook’s Custom Audiences allows companies to remarket to potential customers based on their email address or Facebook user ID. Use this channel to get recently acquired customers to repurchase or even to encourage long lost customers to try your company again. The advertising is highly targeted (in this case, we’re specifically only targeting past customers) and the cost is much lower than targeting users using broader demographic or psychographic information.

Remarketing For New Prospects (People Who Haven’t Bought Yet)shutterstock_150904142-meeting

Obviously, targeting new prospects is very different from targeting people who have purchased from you before. Here are several things to think about when targeting new customers:

I find “abandoned cart” traffic some of the best traffic around. We often assume that people abandon carts because they were ultimately not interested in the product or service being sold.

But this is sometimes far from the case. It could have been that 5 o’clock came and it was quitting time. Or the person was called to a meeting. Or, although they were certain that they wanted to buy, they wanted to get one last blessing from a significant other.

Remarketing to these individuals captures valuable traffic. Conversion rates from our abandoned cart campaigns can be 5x greater than regular PPC campaigns and 3x higher than other remarketing campaigns (such as those designed around people landing on a home page).

One step removed from the cart is traffic is from “site search.” We love looking at data related to people searching particular pages and creating remarketing campaigns related to the specific product/service pages. To generate traffic, people often focus on traditional channels like PPC, SEO, third-party vendors, affiliates, etc. Site search traffic is very low-hanging fruit and is an area that’s often neglected by marketers.

The increased use of mobile devices makes things much more interesting. With mobile, more and more people are searching on a smartphone and then converting later on another device like a tablet or a PC. Keep this in mind when you are setting things up. At this point, attribution models designed for one device and cookies are unable to cross devices.

Remarketing Related To Specific Keyword Terms

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) provides a great deal of opportunities to marketers who are willing to explore its full potential.

One particular strategy we like is related to all those one-word or two-word exact matches PPC folks wish they could bid on but have no chance of converting on the regular search side. Terms like “excursions” or “bus tours,” for example, convert extremely well when shown to past visitors of a site.

Another added benefit to RLSA is that users have no clue that they’re being retargeted to and there’s no creepiness factor.

For more specific information, refer to this article for specific information on how to implement various remarketing strategies.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Mona Elesseily
Contributor
Mona Elesseily writes extensively and speaks internationally on search & online marketing. She is the Vice President of Online Marketing Strategy at Page Zero Media, where she focuses on search engine marketing strategy, landing page optimization (LPO) and conversion rate optimization (CRO).

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