If you are like me and have been doing a lot of online shopping this holiday season, you have probably been remarketed to. Have you noticed ads on random sites that seem to ‘know’ what you recently searched for or want to buy? Yep, that’s likely remarketing.
With remarketing, you can serve your ads to users who previously visited your website as they go on to browse the display network. Remarketing can be an extremely powerful method of reminding your potential customers of your brand or reconnecting with them as they click on your ads but navigate away from your website.
If you are advertising with Google, you can set up remarketing through your Google AdWords campaigns. To get started, you’d need to first define your audiences or who you’d like to target, create a separate campaign for remarketing, and you would need to place some code on your website. Below, I am outlining some basics about remarketing and things to keep in mind as you set it up.
Remarketing Costs
Your remarketing ads should be different for the various segments and audiences you are looking to capture. So, the first step of setting up a remarketing campaign will be to define your audiences or who your ads should reach. Here are some recommended audiences:
- All Visitors: Anyone who came to your site. This is the most basic way to set-up remarketing but also the least targeted.
- Non Converters: All visitors minus those that purchased a product or became a lead. Targeting such audiences can remind your non converting visitors of your brand and entice them to come back to your site and convert. You could get really specific here and target visitors who saw a particular brand or product and then show them the most relevant ads highlighting that particular brand.
- By Products or Services: You could target users who visited specific pages on your site with custom ads and messages.
- Topic Layering: You could further subdivide any of your chosen audiences by adding in topics in AdWords. This would segment a given audience by type of site they are browsing on the display network. For example, you could chose to show your remarketing ads to all non converters who browse finance related sites.
- Converters: You could target those who already purchased a product or became a lead and continue to nurture your relationship with these visitors. Most direct response focused marketers do not see this audience as a priority, as it is more of a branding strategy.
I recommend doing a combination of text and image ads for greatest reach. Your message should be customized to the audience you are trying to reach. For example, if you are targeting visitors who did not convert, your ads should remind them why they should go with your brand or you can offer customers special discounts for coming back.
After you set-up remarketing, continue to test and experiment with audiences and settings until you find a method best suited for your goals. It is a robust tool for both branding and lead or sales generation. As you tailor it to your many unique audience segments, you can make a powerful connection with your customers.