What is remarketing?

Did you ever notice that after you Googled a product or a service and clicked on the ad, the ad continues to follow you around like a puppy even after you started browsing other websites?

The answer is remarketing! Simply put, remarketing is targeting ads specifically towards people who have viewed your website before. This can be done through different marketing platforms such as Google AdWords, Facebook advertising, Twitter advertising, Bing ads, and many more. Remarketing allows advertisers to re-engage with customers that have interacted with your business in hopes of converting.

Below is a diagram that explains in a nutshell how remarketing works:

How does remarketing help advertisers?

It all comes down to ROI and sales! Remarketing is a powerful strategy for advertisers to reach customers and convert leads to sales. It allows for advertisers to track customer behaviour and their interest even after they leave the webpage. Remarketing allows for specific audience targeting and to have ads tailored to their level of interest in your product or service.

One of the main goals of remarketing is to achieve greater conversions and lower cost per acquisition (CPA). Instead of raising awareness about a business from ground zero, remarketing focuses on re-engaging with people who have already demonstrated interest in the business, therefore eventually driving down average CPA. Just by how much can remarketing lower CPA? A study done by Bluemint Marketing showed CPA from remarketing campaigns were 32% lower than regular search ads and 65% lower than regular display ads!

 

Other benefits of remarketing

How Remarketing Plays into Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Remarketing really helps CRO! You may ask what is conversion rate optimization, and why should I care about it? Conversion rate is one of the key defining metrics to a successful advertising campaign and is measured by the rate of which a customer takes a desired action on your website.

From a general business perspective a great conversion rate means improving your sales efficiency, which allows businesses to spend less money on acquiring a customer or making that sale, which leads to increase profits.

So how does remarketing work and what does it have to do with CRO? After potential customers leave your landing page the first time, remarketing reminds them to keep coming back to your business and to make the conversion eventually. People have busy lives, often people are just not ready to make the conversion the first time around simply due to timing, or they are just browsing and educating themselves about your product/service.

Stats show that of the people who didn’t make a purchase the first time they visit your online store, 67% do the second time around. Just like any other business, following up with your customer is important if you want more business in the future. Remarketing does just that.  

Remarketing Boosts Brand Awareness

Ever heard of persistence being the key to success? Remarketing allows you to keep displaying your ads in front of an interested audience. It is important that the potential customer keeps YOUR business in mind, simply due to repetitive exposure.

Remarketing can Increase Customer Engagement on Your Website

Remarketing can increase the duration a visitor spends on your website. Logically this makes sense, if you keep re-engaging with a visitor who shows a great interest in your product or service, the time they spent on your website site will be greater as they get ready to make that conversion. A study by WordStream showed retargeting was able to increase repeat visitors by 50%, conversions by 51%, and time spent on site by 300%!

Earn Cheap Clicks in the Google Display Network with Remarketing

In Google AdWords search ads is a more competitive industry and costs more compared to display ads. A possible strategy for your campaign and business is to put your budget towards the display network and use the remarketing technique for selective audience targeting to help drive up conversions.

There are 4 types of remarketing options in the Google AdWords. One of the most common remarketing technique used is the Standard remarketing option in the Google Display network. When you select this option, all you are doing is getting ads to show up on the browser of visitors that came to your website by display your ads on Google Display Network and all of its partners. Keep in mind the GDN is huge. With over 2 million websites reaching over 90% of audiences on the internet, this could be a great marketing strategy for your business!

In addition, Your CPC will most likely be much lower in the GDN and using remarketing this could allow your campaign to achieve a higher ROI. Google remarketing ads in the display network can make your budget super cost-effective!

Remarketing is a great technique when implemented correctly

But be aware, remarketing can hurt your search campaign like no tomorrow if not configured properly!

If you do choose to implement remarketing in search campaigns it can restrict your traffic, so be super careful about which settings you use. If a Google strategist recommends that you implement remarketing, but does not give you good instructions, really make sure you test out the settings and do your research before making the changes.

Tight restrictions on traffic can really hurt your campaign. Make sure to check in and review your campaign every day, so you can identify crazy drops in traffic if it does happen. Often remarketing is used hand in hand with bids, and a remarketing list is set up in the search campaign.

Remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) can be highly beneficial in search ads because it allows advertisers to have more control and flexibility of raising and lowering bids for customers on the remarketing list. In turn, this is another great channel for increasing conversions. Keep in mind however, that the remarketing feature cannot be used in Google search ads until the account has a minimum of 1,000 cookies.

Remarketing can be a great way to improve your marketing campaigns and increase your ROI! If you would like help with your marketing campaigns or would like to learn more about marketing strategies, contact us at Csek Creative.