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What is Remarketing? 

It has been stated many times before that ‘people hate ads’. But is this really true? Or do we just hate ads that disrupt our browsing with irrelevant content? Research actually found that 78 percent of consumers believe personally appropriate ads enhance their purchase intent.

Unfortunately, modern day consumers are a busy and distracted bunch! With countless options available, we like to take more time and consideration before making a purchase. For marketers, this means you have to work harder to win consumers over. Think about it: how many times have you visited a website, added items to your basket and then left without making a purchase? This is a regular occurrence in the online world. In fact, only 2 percent of people actually convert the first time they land on a website. So how can you help bring the 98 percent back? Often, the best people to target are those who have already shown an interest in your brand, this is where remarketing can help.

Remarketing targets users who are more likely to convert as they’re already in the buying cycle. After all, it makes sense to engage visitors who have already shown an interest in your brand. In this blog, we’ll be discussing the fundamentals of remarketing and why you should make it an effective part of your paid advertising strategy.

What is remarketing?

Remarketing allows you to stay connected with your audience even after they’ve left your website. By targeting individuals who have previously demonstrated interest in your brand, ads can be strategically positioned while they browse on other websites and social media channels. Displaying your remarketed ad content increases the chances of re-engaging a visitor to encourage a conversion.

How does remarketing work?

When a user visits your website and completes an action such as clicking on a particular product, visiting a specific page or placing an item in their basket, a cookie is set in the browser. Said cookie allows you to retarget the user with ads based on their interactions once they leave your site. Examples of triggers you can use in retargeting include:

  • History of online searches
  • Users who share the same interest with your current audience
  • Users who have interacted with your content through social media, your website or ads
  • Users who recently visited a similar website or page
  • Subscribers who have interacted with your emails
  • Visitors of a page during specific dates
  • Visitors of a page with a specific tag
  • Data can also be imported to run remarketing campaigns too

These ads are placed by third parties such as the Google Display Network which serves them on partner sites your user is visiting. But that’s not all. A remarketing campaign also allows you to track certain pages on your site. This means you can identify users who spent time on those pages without converting. Once you’ve identified these individuals, relevant, targeted and personalised ads can be displayed to promote the products or services they’ve already shown interest in. Remarketing ads are also a great opportunity for cross-selling, up-selling and announcing sales promotions.

What are the different types of remarketing?

Remarketing provides the opportunity to reach out to visitors who have left your site without converting or to re-engage with customers who haven’t bought from you in a while. You’re essentially being presented with a second opportunity to sell your brand – who wouldn’t want that? There are a variety of remarketing methods that can be used to re-engage customers. It’s important to select the optimum one for your brand and objectives but Google has kindly separated them into five main categories:

Standard remarketing

This tactic serves display ads to past visitors as they are navigating their way through different websites and social media. Standard remarketing also targets visitors using search engines. This is a great advantage as you can effectively target users searching for specific terms related to your brand while they have high search intent.

Dynamic remarketing

Dynamic remarketing ads are specifically tailored to visitors depending on how they have browsed a webpage. This form of remarketing increases the chance of a visitor returning to your brand by providing relevant and personalised ads.

For example, dynamic remarketing ads can be used on your eCommerce website for abandoned cart reminders. These ads can include the exact items the user had in their cart before they clicked away, making them more likely to click on them again when the ad is served. Or, if a visitor spent their time on the pricing page, your dynamic ad could focus on pricing to remind them of a free trial or discount. You could also show dynamic remarketing ads to visitors who have browsed your blog or FAQ encouraging them to download a guide or join a webinar related to the information they’ve shown interest in.

Remarketing lists for Search Ads (RLSA)

Alongside displaying ads on other websites, you can also display ads on the search engines themselves. This is a tool offered by Google AdWords, allowing you to customise search ad campaigns for past visitors by tailoring bids and targeting specific ads. It’s predominantly used for visitors who leave your website and return to Google to find similar solutions. Using this information, you are well equipped to find high value prospects. There are two strategies to follow when using RLSAs:

  • Set specific bids for existing keywords for visitors on your remarketing list. For example, you could increase bids by 15% for users who have been on your website in the last month. Or, you can target visitors with specific ads who have performed a specific action on your website such as visiting a product page or putting an item in their cart.
  • Bid on keywords you wouldn’t normally bid on specifically for users who have been on your website or bought something from you in the past. For example, you could bid on broader keywords just for people who have previously visited your site. By widening the net in this context, you’re increasing the likelihood of them returning.

Video remarketing

Users who have recently visited your website can be shown remarketing ads through a video format. Video remarketing ads can be displayed through Google on YouTube at the beginning or in between videos your target audience is viewing. There is also the option to display remarketing ads on YouTube’s right-hand margin where users browse for further video suggestions. Following our research from BFCM, we found 45 percent of consumers who saw a BF related YouTube ad went to buy from that category, demonstrating the effectiveness of video remarketing when done right.

Email remarketing

Email remarketing can be used in conjunction with your remarketing campaigns to target people on your email list. Workflows can be created for specific objectives such as order follow ups, abandoned cart reminders, rewards and loyalty programmes or inactive customer accounts. Each can be personalised with specific products, recommendations and offers most relevant to your audience.

Since the people who have signed up to receive your emails have already shown interest in your brand, email remarketing helps to keep your offering in their mind. This opens the door to bring them back to your website when they are further down the conversion funnel.

Whichever form of remarketing you use, it’s important to properly segment your audience in order to serve targeted, personalised emails and ads to users. Customer intelligence can help inform data segmentation. Use it to its full potential to generate a true understanding of your customers’ behaviours and create strategies to reflect this in your remarketing campaigns.

Why is remarketing important?

Whether you’re wanting to drive sales, increase sign-ups or promote brand awareness, remarketing is an integral and strategic part of advertising. Marketing Land reported that retargeting campaigns show higher engagement than non-retargeting campaigns while retargeted website visitors are 70 percent more likely to convert. This comes as no surprise. It’s much easier to market to those who you know more about and those who have already expressed an interest in your brand. Here are some of the top benefits remarketing can provide:

  • Highly targeted and relevant: Your remarketing ads can be displayed to users who have previously interacted with your brand while they are searching or browsing elsewhere. Once an individual has interacted with your online offering, you have more information available on their behaviours and preferences. This can be used to create ads that fit the preferences and needs of each segment.

    Dynamic ads can be used to automatically adapt content to each user, ensuring they are always exposed to the most relevant ads. Combining this with remarketing lists, you can effectively advertise for specific scenarios such as abandoned shopping carts, making them tailored to the individual.  
  • Guide users down the conversion funnel: Remarketing not only reminds visitors of their interest in your brand but can also act as a steppingstone to the next stage in the conversion funnel. For example, if a user has left a specific product page, the served remarketing ad could lead them back to this product page where they could be incentivised to move onto the next stage of the funnel.
  • Reduces lost customers: Remarketing allows brands to re-engage with visitors no longer on their website. This can help improve brand recall by essentially giving a second chance to interact with an individual. Reducing customer losses not only helps prevent the loss of leads but also increases the chance of conversion, as those individuals have a higher potential to convert.

Remarketing can help you reach the large percentage of visitors who leave your website without converting and is also a great way of reminding customers who have previously bought from you of how great you are. By creating segmented audience lists and combining these with remarketing ads, you are not only increasing the probability of a customer converting, but also generating brand awareness too. Enhancing your visibility to high value prospects, your brand awareness and trust increases further along with the likeliness of a user purchasing from you.

Remarketing maximises your investment in existing traffic, no matter which channels you are using to drive it. Using our data-driven approach, we can help you leverage valuable data to build tailored remarketing strategies that refine your target audience and generate impact results. By helping many of our clients reengage with their audience through remarketing, we have seen impressive results generated. If you would like to find out more about how we can help you, reach out to our team of paid experts today.