With websites, there will be multiple visitors in a day. It’s possible to think once potential customers see our offers, they will immediately purchase or request a service. Well, this usually happens for about 4% of the people who visit a website. Often, others don’t decide immediately how they want to interact with your business on the first visit. So, therein lies the need for a form of advertising called ‘Retargeting’. Bringing the remaining 96% who are interested in your goods and services but did not make a purchase, back to your website is what retargeting allows you to do.

What is Retargeting?

As a business, retargeting allows you to keep your products and services in front of potential clients even after these visitors leave their website. The goal is to persuade them to rethink your business offers when they need them. This advertising is also known as ‘Remarketing’ and aims to target visitors who have recently shown interest in a business at a certain point. Retargeting ads are published on search engines or social media channels to re-engage and convert these non-purchasing customers into buying clients. Retargeting ads follow visitors as they explore the internet. These remind them about a problem they want to solve and why the product or services your business offers will be the best solution.

 

retargeting-process

Image credit: Retargeter

 

When Does Retargeting Work?

Retargeting is a powerful tool for conversion optimization as it helps increase conversions from prospective customers. It works best when used as an element of a digital marketing strategy. Also in combination with inbound and outbound marketing.

Familiar digital marketing strategies such as Pay Per Click advertising via Google AdWords or Bing, and content marketing are great for driving traffic to your website. But, though they may help in conversion optimization, including retargeting ads in the mix helps with increasing your customer-to-client conversion rate. To ensure your retargeting campaign is successful, start with one or more tools to help drive traffic to your company’s website, then use retargeting to get the most out of that traffic.

Using Retargeting Campaigns

Retargeting ads, unlike simple search ads, do not depend on visitor inquiries to ensure that the right audience sees them. The data needed for retargeting campaigns for the right audience can be categorized into; Pixel-based and List-based.

  1. Pixel-Based Retargeting 

Pixel-Based Retargeting is the most common method of audience collection today. It works by re-displaying ads to anonymous visitors. When an individual visits your website, a pixel (a non-obstructive piece of Javascript) is placed on their browser. After browsing through your website or deciding to leave to continue surfing the web, the cookie notifies retargeting platforms. These cookies serve the user with specific ads based on the pages they visited on your website.

The advantage of using pixel-based retargeting is its timeliness and specificity. As soon as the visitor leaves the website they are immediately refocused to come back to your website, based on the specific page they visited. However, this type of retargeting has its downside, It is highly dependent on the number of people that visit your website. So, this can make the number of individuals being retargeted low. Also, adding the javascript code to every website page can take a lot of time to complete.

illustration of pixel based targeting

Image credit: Retargeter

  1. List-Based Retargeting

This type of retargeting is not commonly used and only works with the contact information users have provided. This can be when they visited your website such as email addresses, social handles, etc. To begin, you need to have determined what retargeting platform you want to use. Then, upload a list of contacts you have. Your audience should immediately see your retargeting ads, once your campaign is published. This happens because the platform in use will find user accounts that have the corresponding addresses and serve retargeting ads to them.

To go a step further, you can send your this audience personalized emails that would convince them to revisit your website and take the desired action for the offer they once showed interest in.

What you should know

The email address provided by visitors to your website might not always match that used on other platforms. So, they would not be able to see your retargeting ads. According to MediaMath, match rates can vary from 70-80% down to as low as 20-30% for some platforms, so this type of retargeting needs a reasonably extensive list of contacts for increased effectiveness. Upload and maintenance of the lists are at your discretion. This type of retargeting is not as automated and timely as pixel-based retargeting.

Retargeting campaign goals

Now you understand what retargeting entails, its types, and how it works. We will explore the basic goals you should aim for and these are:

  1. Awareness

A retargeting campaign with this goal allows you to re-engage visitors and inform them about relevant products, new releases, or announcements. This goal of awareness is to make prospective customers informed about your brand or business. Good metrics to track the success of awareness campaigns are engagement and impressions. You should know that the content for awareness campaigns is less targeted, and the result of the clickthrough rate (CTR) will most likely be low. This is because visitors who are not familiar with your business are the target and you are not sure if they will engage just yet. Most times, this campaign is just a starter to a more effective campaign goal which is to get conversions.

  1. Conversions

Retargeting campaign goals associated with conversions allows you to get people to click on your ad and do more on your website. In most cases, perform an action. This can include filling out a form, sending an email, or placing a call through to you. To align a specific list with the next step in the advertising funnel, use conversion campaigns. To measure your conversions, use typical metrics such as website clicks, form submission, and cost per lead (CPL). A great advantage of a conversion campaign is that it helps to attain success in multiple parts of the funnel.

Retargeting allows you to move these qualified leads closer to the bottom of the funnel. For example, you might use retargeting ads to send a list of visitors that have downloaded an eBook. You get them to sign up for a free trial of your service. If they are happy with the trial, they will opt-in for a paid subscription or make a purchase for another product or service you offer.

What you should know

If you choose to use pixel-based ads to generate leads, your ads should direct users to landing pages where they can provide more information. Then, you can also use list-based ads to then better qualify these leads. Your retargeting ads will appear to contacts who provided you with inadequate information. Also, lead them to pages where they can provide more valuable information.

Choosing a Retargeting Platform and Tool

We have tried a few that work and if you need to get started, click here for options that will help your business retarget website visitors and increase your ROI (Return on Investment). You will get the opportunity to customize a friendly platform that translates your website visits or clicks to conversions. Brands or businesses can carry out retargeting with Facebook ads. You could also use third-party platforms- PerfectAudienceAdRollRetargeter, and Bizo.

Thanks for reading!