Have you ever visited a website and seen an ad for the same website the next day? Or did you ever put an item in your shopping cart without buying it and see an ad for that product later on? That was remarketing at work.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing is a very common and popular form of digital marketing in which marketers serve ads to users who have already visited their website or a specific web page, and who have or haven’t taken a specific action. It’s an effective way to target people who have already shown some interest in your business or brand.
It’s called “re”-marketing because you’re targeting past visitors or customers. It’s basically your second chance to convert, up-sell, or retain customers with online ads or campaigns. You can do remarketing in different ways and with different platforms, like Google Ads or Facebook Ads.
Remarketing is a must-have for any marketer out there.
The Difference Between Remarketing and Retargeting
While “retargeting” and “remarketing” are sometimes used interchangeably, there are some differences between them.
When it comes to retargeting vs. remarketing, the main difference is in the strategy. Retargeting is mostly about serving ads to potential customers based on cookies, while remarketing is usually based on email. Remarketing works by collecting the information of users and creating lists, which are used later to send sales emails.
Retargeting and remarketing are both effective methods in their own right, yet a combination of both is often the best strategy to improve your digital marketing activity.
How Does Remarketing Work?
It’s not difficult to set up a remarketing campaign for your website.
The first thing you should do is access your Google Ads account and get your remarketing tag. The remarketing tag is a piece of HTML code that you’ll need to insert into the body of all the pages of your website.
After that, you’ll need to create a remarketing list. Once you’ve done that, create a new remarketing campaign and target it to one of the lists you’ve created. Make sure you play around with the settings: language, geographic location, bid, etc.
The final step is to simply create one or more variations of your ad. And that’s it, your remarketing campaign is live!
What Is a Remarketing List?
A remarketing list includes people who visited your website and took a specific action while they were there. For example, a “Homepage” remarketing list includes all the visitors to your homepage over a specified period. As the visitor lands on your homepage, their cookie is added to the remarketing list.
Then, you can remarket only to the list of people who visited your homepage.
You can create all sorts of remarketing lists and tailor your ad messages to each list.
The Benefits of Choosing to Use Remarketing in Your Marketing Strategies
There are several benefits to adding a remarketing element to your strategy, including:
-
You can capitalize on lost website traffic
-
You can target people who have already visited your site and shown interest in your offering
-
You can target audiences who are more likely to convert
-
Keep your brand top of mind by strategically showing ads to interested audiences
-
Affordable marketing tactics are available across a range of platforms and channels
-
Suitable for every industry and vertical
-
Comes in many ad formats
-
For e-commerce: dynamic retargeting enables marketers to serve personalized ads to users based on the products or services they viewed on your website
Your website may be attracting lots of traffic, but the fact is, the average conversion rate for first-time visitors is low. The average conversion rate is just 2.86%. What does this mean? Although you’re getting the traffic, you’re not getting the sales. Remarketing is your best option to capitalize on all that lost traffic.
Targeting people who have already shown an interest in your business is one of the most effective ways to remind them to come back to your site. Retargeting can be used in all verticals and industries, though it is especially important in e-commerce.
When Should You Use Remarketing?
Some marketers use the “always-on” tactic, meaning they constantly run a remarketing campaign for all users who visit their website but don’t convert (i.e., don’t make a purchase, complete a form, or download an asset).
But many marketers opt for a more advanced and personalized approach to remarketing. You can focus your remarketing campaigns according to predefined criteria. For example, you may want to run campaigns only for visitors who land on certain pages, such as a particular product page, or only for users who visit your website at a certain time of day or year (for example, during a special sales period). It all depends on your overall strategy and what’s happening at the time.
Is Remarketing a Good Strategy for You?
Remarketing is an excellent strategy! While the conversion rate is generally quite low for e-commerce site users, remarketing is your last chance to get purchases after they’ve left your website.
Contact our Google Ads specialist for a free consultation.
