Remember the iconic madmen and how the dashing Don Draper would whip up a magical jingle or TV commercial concept within seconds? Imagine what it would be like to see Don Draper come up with content mapping strategy or design an online ad. Back in the day, the best way to reach your audience was through mass media channels like TV and radio via outbound marketing methods. Unfortunately, the budget constraints of these popular channels favoured only the biggest brands, leaving smaller mom-and-pop shops fewer options to build their brand awareness.
Fortunately, today, there is more of an even playing field for companies. The emergence of multiple digital channels and decreased costs of marketing technology allow all kinds of business, from start-ups to large, multi-conglomerates to compete for audiences via the same platform. However, the buyer journey has become more complicated and isn’t quite linear today. It’s seldom that customers buy products on their very first visit to a website. They view a website, research blogs, may come back and engage with a sales rep or not, etc. A report from Forrester Research shows that 96% of people leave a website without completing the action the marketer would like them to do.
Remarketing Strategies
Also known as retargeting, is an excellent way for businesses to re-capture the audience’s interest and guide today’s buyer through the spiralling buying process. You can remarket campaigns in several ways such as email marketing, website, CRM, and even search. If you don’t know how remarketing works and how to implement it for your business, don’t fret - in the following blog, we’ll walk you through all the basics of remarketing, how it works, and how you can build it into your inbound marketing plan. Let’s start.
Here's an Example of Remarketing
Joan visits website XYZ to see a pair of tennis shoes. She browses the options and finds a pair that suits her needs but doesn’t complete the purchase. A few days later when Joan visits a popular social networking site, she sees that XYZ is running an offer on the exact pair of tennis shoes she is interested in. The aim of this remarketing campaign is to remind Joan of the pair of tennis shoes and get her interested in clicking on the ad and convert.
How Remarketing Works
The core of remarketing is to present content to visitors once they’ve left your site in order to re-engage them and bring them back. It’s like providing them with a gentle reminder and saying, “Hey! I am still here with an exciting offer just for you!”
On a desktop, remarketing works by installing “tracking codes” and cookies. Placing a snippet of JavaScript code on your website source code will enable you to start tracking audience activity and segment them based on interests and behaviour. This method of remarketing is often known as tracking pixel.
You can also remarket based on lists. The way it works is simple. You upload a list of email addresses to a retargeting campaign and send out personalised ads to only those email addresses. This form of remarketing is commonly used on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram or via email campaigns. The benefit of lists-based remarketing is that you are quickly able to curate a custom audience for your remarketing efforts. Tracing via mobile phone is also quickly gaining momentum, but presents some challenges because most operating systems don’t allow for third-party cookies. However, marketers can run remarketing campaigns based on location pin, IP information, device and browser type, and so forth.
Remarketing Benefits
When done right, remarketing is an effective way of generating leads and pulling customers back into the funnel because you are primarily targeting leads who’ve already expressed an interest in you. Remarketing also allows you to:
- Convert bounced visitors into leads
- Target audiences most likely to convert
- Expand brand awareness
- Increase website traffic and engagement
- Optimise your SEO and content marketing efforts
- Implement an affordable marketing tactic across multiple channels
Steps to an Effective Remarketing Campaign
Audience Definition
The first stage in designing an effective remarketing strategy is to define your specific audience. Will the remarketing campaign be for blog visitors, those who have visited your website or ones who have clicked on an ad?
We recommend segmenting your audience into the following categories:
1) All Visitors
2) Product Viewers
3) Conversions - Yes, remarket to those even after they’ve engaged and purchased a product or service from you. This is the ideal space to upsell and cross-sell products and services.
Knowing your specific audience will enable you to create tailored content that will be more effective in re-engagement.
The Goal of the Remarketing Campaign
Once you have identified the audience for the ads, understand the goal of the campaign. The primary objectives for remarketing are to build awareness and convert. Awareness campaigns are used primarily to re-engage visitors and inform them about your products, services features, offers. Awareness campaigns are a great segway into the larger goal which is conversions. Conversion campaigns are designed to urge visitors to take the next step and be suited for any stage of the funnel. For instance, you can design a conversion campaign to get webinar viewers to sign up for an upcoming event.
Content Remarketing
Whatever your goal may be, it’s necessary to align your content, design, and layout to it. The content needs to deliver value, or the remarketing ad can easily overburden the visitor and put them off completely. Create dynamic ads that resonate at an emotional level because the competition is fierce and you need to stand out. Diversify your ad formats so you can maximise chances of your ad placements in prime locations. Psst...don’t forget to personalise them!
Now you may be creating killer content but if your efforts are getting you high click-through rates, then these are not of much use, correct? So, how do you boost it? Here are some tips:
- Actively promote your highest offer value, whether that's in text or in the form of an image
- Conduct a conversion path analysis and understand where the leads came from and where they got dropped off
- Understand your audience demographics before creating targeted content. In other words, create as the buyer persona you are targeting
- Analyse your social shares and pick the top-performing articles to push through ads
Remarketing Across Channels
Google Ads is the most commonly used remarketing ad strategy, however, don’t forget there are other avenues like YouTube and Facebook ads as well. YouTube videos are watched by millions of users of everyday and YouTube Trueview Ads lets you target them. For example, say you are planning to trip to Italy and took a screenshot while watching a Youtube ad, so as a remarketing tactic, you'll get ads that specifically talk about Italy. It's that simple. And the best part is that you are not charged if the user "skips" the ad! You can also look into using a service like Perfect Audience or AdRoll so you can retarget users across multiple channels via one user interface.
Another way to use social media for retargeting is with the help of influencers. According to HubSpot, people are 71% more likely to make a purchase when referred on social media. Check out this cool infographic that further explains it. But remember you are not just targeting people who are likely to make a purchase but also who are likely to share it in their own circle. That's like double retargeting via one source!
Get Started Today!
Many times a visitor simply gets distracted and that stops them from completing the desired action on your site. Remarketing is an effective tactic for keeping yourself “fresh” in the audience’s mind. You get a second chance at creating value for your audience and turn a passerby into a bonafide customer. If you are not remarketing, you are simply walking away from a jackpot of conversion opportunities.
If you want to get a jumpstart on your remarketing campaigns, the consultants at Transfunnel can help you. Let’s Talk!
