Retargeting is one of those marketing words that pops up in almost every conversation you have with a marketer, or with someone trying to understand marketing. This is because it’s a basic principle of online marketing and brand awareness. As a basic principle, it’s easy for us all to think we know it. We get it. We could be tested on it frontwards and backwards and not even need to study.
That’s…probably not true. Sure, marketing experts are going to be very well versed in retargeting principles and strategies, but there’s always something to look at, some new angle to incorporate. Sometimes, we need to take a deeper look at these basic principles and remind ourselves of what they do, why they’re important, and how we can best work them into our growth strategies.
So, if you’re an experienced marketer, this is for you. If you’re a beginner, this is for you.
Table of Contents
What is retargeting?
Retargeting campaigns are specifically for people who visited your website and didn’t buy anything. The purpose of these campaigns is to remind these visitors of how awesome and helpful you are so that they return and make at least one purchase (and hopefully many).
Retargeting ads can be for first-time visitors or returning customers. The thing to remember is that these targeted audiences have visited your website at least once and therefore have some amount of interest in your brand, services, and/or products. You might try to entice them back by creating retargeting ads that show the specific product they clicked through to initially, or you might share something else you think they’ll find rewarding and relevant.
Research shows that the average cart abandonment rate sits at 70.19%. This means that 7 out of 10 people who visit your site don’t complete a purchase. Keep in mind, this is only the people who made it as far as putting items in the cart. It doesn’t take into consideration all the users who left without even making a potential selection. This applies whether you sell clothes, lawn care, software, or need more donors for your nonprofit. People are visiting and not committing, and that’s a problem.
Don’t let these visitors slip through the cracks. They have dozens of options to choose from depending on your industry. Remind them of why you caught their attention in the first place and boost your sales and customer loyalty with retargeting ads.
How does retargeting work right now (with third-party cookies)?
Retargeting uses third-party cookies, aka small pieces of data stored on a web browser. When someone visits your site, this cookie is placed on their browser. When they leave, the cookie acts like a little, anonymous, unobtrusive beacon. It says, “Hello, this browser visited this page on this site.” Retargeting platforms (aka third-parties) take notice and serve specific ads based on that information.
Retargeting in the future (without third-party cookies)
Major browsers such as Safari, Firefox, and Chrome have either already placed restrictions on third-party cookies or have plans to do so in the near future. With that said, how can you prepare for a future without cross-site tracking?
First, you need to start using first-party and zero-party cookies. These cookies are data that you gather directly from your customers, site visitors, and social media followers. This data includes:
- Purchase history
- Purchase intentions and interests: what pages did people visit? What links did they click on? What social media posts did they like?
- Contact information from subscriptions or purchase history
- Loyalty status
- Feedback from reviews
- Website and mobile app engagement: how long was someone on your site?
With that data, you have a few options. First, options with existing customers:
- Review your privacy policies and see what first-party data consent parameters you have. If someone has objected to being marketed to, make sure you don’t include them in any retargeting efforts.
- Create retargeting ads based on contact lists in your possession. In this case, you share email addresses with your retargeting platform of choice, such as a social network like Facebook. The platform compares the emails you provided with emails of its users and shows your ads whenever there’s a match. Keep in mind that this only works if someone shares the same email with both sites.
- Use purchase history to cross-sell and upsell other relevant products and services.
Now, options for potential and existing customers:
- Make it worthwhile for visitors to share first-party data with you. Have conversations and polls on social media, run competitions, have special deals for first-time customers, and create personalization options for accounts so people can tell you what they want and like and get better service in the process.
- Use contextual advertising – learn from customer behavior and think about the world your product lives in. Take that information and create focused ads for other sites, games, and social media that relate to your product and users. This can only loosely be considered retargeting since you don’t know exactly that a visitor to another site also visited your site, but it narrows down your advertising efforts. For example, if you rent vacation properties, advertise on travel sites.
Keep in mind that these are all strategies you can start using today. You don’t have to wait for third-party cookie restrictions to go into effect.
Why you want retargeting in your marketing strategy
Increase conversion rates
With retargeting, you’re talking to people who, at the very least, have an interest in you. They might even downright like you. This means you already have an open door to foster more conversation.
Retargeting also allows you to create more personalized, relevant ads. People love personalization. It makes them feel valued, noticed, and wanted. It shows that you care about them and their problems and wants. It makes you not just a name but someone to trust.
- Create a full paid media strategy
- Develop a keyword and bid strategy
- Create a customized customer journey for your paid media efforts
- Research audience targeting
- Write compelling ad copy
- Review ads, spending, keywords, and bids regularly to optimize your campaigns
- Prepare a list of the people you want to retarget using collected first-and-zero party data. If you don’t already have a list you can
- Install the Facebook pixel on your website to track website visitors
- Install the Facebook SDK to get more insights about app visitors
- Create a Custom audience specifying the people you want to retarget.
- Create ads and/or sponsored messages.
