Retargeting is a way of reaching people who have previously interacted with your website. It works by presenting this audience with digital display ads created specifically for them. Have you ever visited a website and seen ads about their products or services soon afterward? Congratulations – you’ve been retargeted! Retargeting is an extremely effective conversion tool …but it’s also a great retention tool. You can use it to reach past customers, keep your brand on top, and upsell or cross-sell new products. Retargeting has become an essential tool for online e-commerce businesses.

Why is it so important to reach those people who did not make a purchase? On average, only 4% of purchases are made by first-time website visitors. Depending on your industry, buyers may take weeks, or even months to make a decision. This is especially true with higher-end, complex, or more expensive products or services. It’s vital that you stay top of mind while your prospects are considering all of their options.  

Retargeting Helps Your Sales Funnel

 

In digital marketing, the “sales funnel” is the process that moves prospects to leads to customers. Like an actual funnel, a business initially captures a wide net of people and as they move toward making a purchasing decision, this group of prospects narrows down to leads and eventually purchases. The funnel starts with awareness, then moves to interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and finally, a purchase. 

Retargeting makes it possible to re-engage with those customers who are further down the funnel but have not yet decided to purchase. You can set your focus on those very close to purchasing, by targeting only “cart abandoners” if you have a limited budget.  You can also set your efforts to reach all website visitors if you have a high lead time that involves a lot of evaluation by your audience. Examples of highly evaluated products are cars, legal services, higher education, or any product or service that requires a significant investment in time or money from the buyer.

 

Retargeting For Your Sales Funnel

The great thing about retargeting is that you can give each type of customer the attention that they need in the manner that they need it. It gives you a second chance to advertise, an opportunity to cross-sell, up-sell, or nurture your audience with your content marketing efforts. You can now engage with visitors even when they leave your website, encouraging them to convert at their own pace.

Why Should You Try Retargeting?

 

As we already mentioned, since only 4% of first-time visitors purchase, that leaves 96% of your website visitors potentially lost if you don’t continue to engage with them. Over 63% of digital marketing campaigns on Google and Facebook do not use retargeting tactics. This represents a huge opportunity for those who do to strengthen their brand and improve their conversion rates. In a world with increasing distractions and competition, reminding your “online window shoppers” why your brand is important to them is crucial. 79% of people abandon their shopping carts on average. You can reach those people with retargeting.

Remarketing vs Retargeting

 

Retargeting is the process of targeting users that have visited your site with ads.  There are many ways that you can retarget your audience but it falls under the umbrella of Remarketing.  Remarketing entails how you are targeting your audience in terms of which channels to use, what audience to target, and what message the ad should contain. This whole process is Remarketing. Some still say Remarketing is only focused on emails but that theory is outdated with all the new ways that you can re-engage with your audience today.

How Do You Deploy A Retargeting Strategy?

 

A “pixel” or “cookie” is placed on a website to traffic users. The pixel is a piece of JavaScript code that is stored on computers of people who visit your site. The pixel identifies website visitors, enabling you to serve ads when the time is right. After they leave your site and continue to surf the web, you can show them ads to convert them from leads to customers, cross-sell, or up-sell based on what they viewed on your website.  

Initially, you may find that remarketing volume is relatively small, simply because there are a few pixels placed at first. But as the number of people who capture your pixel grows, your remarketing audience grows, exponentially improving the effectiveness.  For smaller organizations, retargeting may not be the best fit for your marketing strategy. A 30-day window to build an audience could be too small to reach the Google Ads minimum of 1,000 users.

Retargeting By The Rules

Utilizing email lists retained from customers by using “Customer match” in Google Ads enables you to engage with existing customers. This tactic allows you to reach those on your CRM list or another external list with banner ads. We’ll dive into that tactic in another blog.

Prior to implementation, notify your website visitors that you will be using cookies to track them for advertising purposes. Update this on your website’s privacy policy page. It is also necessary if you service anyone adhering to GDPR rules and guidelines.

While Remarketing and Retargeting may seem complex at first, these tactics are fairly simple once you dive in. More importantly, a good remarketing plan can beat your competition to the punch and be highly cost-effective. If you would like to learn more about how remarketing may benefit your industry and company specifically, and how it fits in with your overall digital marketing strategy, feel free to contact us at AdEdge at 203-682-4585 or info@adedgemarketing.com. If you’d like to keep up with the latest and greatest digital marketing tactics, sign up for our once-monthly newsletter.