If you think back to the days before the internet, marketing was a very different game. Advertising to your potential customers involved throwing a much wider net, either through newspapers, flyers, posters in the street, mailers, TV, or radio.
Nowadays, marketing is a lot more specific and targeted. You can not only decide who to show your ads to, but you can now continue to show your ads to individuals once they have left your site.
With remarketing, your ads will follow potential customers around the web, cropping up on other websites and reminding them that you’re still there.
– Wait, isn’t that a bit creepy?
Not at all – if it’s done correctly. It’s true that some remarketing campaigns get it wrong. Incessantly following website visitors around for weeks on end may actually have the opposite impact, particularly if they aren’t a high intent customer. However, when done correctly, remarketing can help to tip the scales in your favour if a customer decides to do a bit of research before making a purchase.
Through SEO, social media and PPC spend, you’re already putting a lot of budget into getting customers to your website. The figures are hazy, but around 97% of your visitors will leave your site without converting, and around 81% of customers will conduct online research before making a decision.
Remarketing helps to bridge the gap between new and returning customers and keeps your website at the forefront of their mind while they make their purchase decision.
How does remarketing work?
It all starts with something known as a tracking tag. This is a tiny piece of code on your site that hands out little browser cookies to every website visitor. (Note: If you have any kind of tracking in place, you need to have a clear cookie policy informing visitors of this.)
It’s similar to any other tracking code such as a Facebook pixel or Google Analytics tracking code. It won’t slow down your site or impact any other site functionality. This pixel can track information about who lands on your site, what they look at and for how long. The key to successful remarketing is in the placement of the pixel. If you serve display ads to everyone who lands on your site, you will likely see a higher cost per click, but through clever targeting and segmentation, you’ll be able to target high intent customers with a niche message.
For example, you might want to place the pixel site-wide and then segment visitors who land on specific product pages. This will allow you to send a targeted message about that specific product to all the right people. You then create the adverts in a variety of different sizes and upload them to your ad network. Popular ad networks include Adroll and Google Display Network.
Is it effective?
When done correctly, remarketing is one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising. Remarketing is focused entirely on converting customers. While it might have added benefits of brand awareness, the overall aim is to convert lost customers. These potential customers have seen your product before, they just need that final nudge to convert.
It’s also one of the cheapest forms of advertising online, particularly if you segment the audience correctly. According to Wordstream, the average cost per click on the Google search network is $1.23, but it costs just $0.66 on the Display network using remarketing. Things like frequency capping (not showing the advert too many times to the same person) mean that the costs are kept low.
Top tips for your remarketing campaign
If you’re interested in trying remarketing to boost conversions, here are a few tips for making the most of your campaign.
- Start with the data. Where do customers typically drop out of your sales funnel? If a particular page is losing engaged customers, it might be that they are going away to do more research. This is the page you want to target to bring these customers back to your site.
- Look for opportunities to cross-promote. Another popular method for remarketing is to upsell or cross-sell to another product. This method involves segmenting the audience by the products they view and then offering an alternative which they may not have seen.
- Keep the branding consistent. It’s important that your customers recognise your adverts, so ensure that you keep your banner ads on-brand. You’ll need to include your logo and it helps to stay within your brand colour palette.
- Monitor and optimise as you go. This isn’t a campaign you want to set up and leave running indefinitely. There are always optimisations to be made, either through better targeting, updating the banners or adding an offer.
Are you interested in hearing more about how remarketing can work for your business? Get in touch today and we’ll answer any questions you might have about this highly cost-effective marketing channel.