More times than not, your customers see your ads, consume your content, and ultimately leave your store without purchasing anything. Sometimes, they’ll even put something in their cart (virtual or physical), then for whatever reason, abandon it. Maybe they’ll search for something, find it, then have something come up. Whatever the case, the ratio of engagements & interactions to conversions is never quite where you want it. So how can you turn more impressions into more conversions? Through effective retargeting!
How Does Retargeting Work?
Retargeting captures digital data (cookies) from your site visitors. It then uses that data to deliver personalized ads to those visitors after they’ve left your site. Those customers aren’t seeing random ads; they’re seeing ads for a product or service they’ve already shown interest in. Best of all, you can even use retargeting to upsell or cross-sell as well!
For example, if a customer buys a particular product, retargeting can advertise for a related product, add-on, or accessory to complement the purchase. It’s all personalized, based on the customer’s history, and carefully integrated into their overall digital experience.
Retargeting is an invaluable tool for brand awareness because it helps engrain your brand into your audiences’ minds. Remember, it takes several interactions with your brand before a customer is ready to buy. Effective retargeting is a way to strategically progress those interactions and convince the customer they need to buy now!
Arguably the most effective way to make retargeting work is through push notifications. You’ve probably seen or received a notification along the lines of “you forgot these items in your cart!” That’s retargeting in action. It’s also the product ads on the side of the screen-for products you’ve previously viewed and considered buying.
Why Does it Work?
Most first-time visitors to a website never return to that site once they leave. That was the reason retargeting was invented in the first place. If not for retargeting, customers would have to either bookmark a site or type in the URL each time they wanted to visit. If nothing else, retargeting provides an easier way for customers to get back to your site in the first place.
While the majority of retargeting is aimed at turning one-time or first-time buyers into regular, loyal customers, it can also be used to create first-time buyers. In other words, you can retarget an ad to a customer who has shown interest in a similar product. Maybe your product is cheaper, better, more accessible, etc. Whatever the case, make sure you let your customers know why they should buy from you in your ad!
In a nutshell, retargeting gives your brand more opportunities to engage the people most likely to spend money on your business. Let’s look at the different types of retargeting.
Types of Retargeting
Search re-targeting: target people based on keywords and search engine queries. Once a user searches a target keyword, he or she will start seeing custom ads automatically. Be careful, however, as just because someone has searched for something related to your business doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy now.
Site re-targeting: target visitors to your website. However, instead of a blanket or catch-all, you can focus on visitors to specific pages-like product pages on your e-commerce site.
Contextual re-targeting: target people who engage with content related to your product/service. For example, if you purchase a seat on a flight, you’re likely to start seeing related ads for hotels, rental cars, and other things travel-related.
Engagement re-targeting: target customers based on their level of engagement. You can also personalize these to deliver video ads to folks who consume more videos, infographics to folks who like infographics, and so on.
Email re-targeting: target customers based on their interactions with your branded emails. For instance, you can create personalized ads for the folks who regularly click your links and different ads for the folks who open but don’t click.
Geofencing: Target customers based on where they are geographically. Geofencing is particularly effective for event marketing, breaking into competitors’ markets, and improving brand awareness (especially if your brand is just starting out).
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