By CEO/Founder
Retargeting is one of many fancy marketing terms that are bounced around. Although it sounds very complicated, it isn’t. Retargeting simply means that you target people who have come in contact with your brand before (with ads).
It’s like starting a second conversation with someone you have talked to previously. You use the information you have shared/received previously and build a conversation on it.
In business, the goal is always to attract people to interact with your brand by reading about you, buying from you or whatever your goal might be.
Why Should You Retarget?
It has been proven that the average brand is remembered after 7 impressions. The goal in business is to interact with as much audience as possible and staying in front of them throughout the buying process.
Get more sales
Goal is to have people come in contact with your brand and consider your product/service as an option. Retargeting boosts the awareness to those people who have visited your website/ad and makes them think twice before acting on any spending decision.
On average around 10-20 percent of the traffic that lands on your website converts. Are you following up with the rest?
Retargeting works, website visitors are 70 percent more likely to convert after you retarget them with display ads.
An opportunity to cross-sell your products
Cross-selling is another opportunity that presents it self when using retargeting appropriately.
If your business is focused on solving a specific problem - which it should - then you probably have multiple products/services that you can offer. Some examples are sales and service, restaurants and catering etc.
You have the ability to retarget current and potential customers. You can introduce your different products/services to gain more sales and to create loyalty. Make sure the products/services are non substitutable and they add value in different areas.
Example, if you’re a phone store and a customer bought an iPhone, you should not retarget them with a different phone (unless it’s after the average lifespan of a phone). Instead, you should retarget them with a suitable phone case, earphones, or screen protector.
Your business builds a reputation
The last benefit we’ll talk about here is the perception people get of your business when they see your retargeting ads.
It’s more of a psychology thing, but when customers see your ads, they think you must be quite a big brand to be able to pay for those ads. This thought pattern leads to more trust and authority down the road as more and more people are seeing your retargeting ads.
Especially when you use more than one channel to retarget people, you create an Omni presence.
Ways of Retargeting
It’s great to know that retargeting can help your business grow massively, but what’s more important than that is knowing how to use it.
Display advertising is one of the most used ways to retarget people. Display ads can be used on social media channels, websites, and even mobile apps.
Retargeting is available on the following channels.
● YouTube
YouTube
One of the most aggressive retargeting advertisers on YouTube at the moment is Tai Lopez. People see his ads so many times that they can’t avoid him. He is creating an Omni presence to constantly staying in front of his audience and constantly educating them to better their life while introducing his products.
He has so many programs that he easily cross-sell through constant retargeting.
On YouTube, you can target people who viewed, liked, shared, visited, commented, subscribed, or added a video to their playlist from any channel. The ads can be in a banner, video, or recommended video forms.
Facebook has its very own tracking tool. It’s called Facebook pixel. The pixel absorbs every bit of information of an individual and discovers patterns. The more you use the pixel, the more information it contains.
With the pixel, you can track people’s purchases and use this information to cross-sell products. You can also track people who’ve come in touch with your brand and attract them back to your website.
Google AdWords is the platform you use to create Google advertisements. There are a lot of options for placements of Google ads.
● Google search engine
● Display advertisements on relevant sites and apps in the Google network (via Google Adsense)
● Video advertisements on platforms like YouTube
● Advertisements of your app via Google search, Google play store, and YouTube.
Instagram ads are all about the visual aspect since the whole platform is that way. On Instagram you can post:
● Photo ads
● Video ads
● Carousel ads
● Stories ads
● Collection ads
Since Instagram is now a part of Facebook, it works the same. The visuals are just a bit different. Something that makes it easier to categorize your ads (or posts) in Instagram are hashtags. Hashtags make it easier to find your unique audience.
Twitter ads are not necessarily the most effective type of ads since you can reach a lot of people with paying for it on Twitter. Twitter ads come in the form of:
Trends are hashtags that can be used by Twitter users which can go viral if you do it the right way.
Email retargeting is a bit different than all the other ways of retargeting mentioned above since there’s not one platform where everyone dumps their emails and you can use them in whatever way you like.
You have to gather the emails first in the form of a subscription, sale, or any other way where people sign up with their emails.
Blogs usually have something that’s called a ‘lead magnet’. This is an offer that people can get for free if they sign up with their email. Once you have their email, you can retarget them with similar offers.
If you have an online store, this lead magnet can be as simple as a 10 percent discount for their next purchase. You can even put a time limit on it and follow up with them as you come closer to that date.
LinkedIn is a bit different platform than the rest since there is more room for B2B businesses than any other industry.
You have three options with LinkedIn Ads. You can post sponsored content in the form of an image or video that shows up in people’s feeds.
Send personalized messages to their LinkedIn mailbox or put a small (50x50) image at the right side of the feed, which promotes your company/service/product.
Pinterest ads come in the form of:
● Promoted pins
● Promoted video pins
● Promoted carousels
● Promoted app pins
In Pinterest, it’s easier to discover what people like since everything is categorized. If you’re a fitness brand, your audience will more likely pin photos in the health, yoga, wellness, nutrition, or bodybuilding areas than anything else.
Retargeting strategies
Besides having all these different ways to retarget your audience, there has to be a strategy behind it. If you want to be as effective as possible, you need to know which retargeting strategy fits your business.
That’s where REV Marketing can help you. We know how complicated it gets when you have to figure the digital marketing part out all on your own while also performing the daily activities to keep your business rolling.
What you just read is merely a touch of the surface of what you can do with retargeting. Are you ready to allow someone to help you? Get in touch with us now, and we’ll help you on your way!
The 3 Rules of Successful Retargeting Ads
Just like any other sales process, an average sale happens between the 5th and 12th point of contact. After somebody hits the website or watches a video or interact with your Facebook page, you can follow up with them via a retargeting ad campaign.
There are specific rules you have to follow to make retargeting work for your brand.
Personalize as much as possible
Personalizing your ads make people connect better with you and the more they can connect with you, the more they like you (and your brand). The more they like you, the more they buy from you.
Find out who they are and speak to them on an emotional level. Discover their occupations, interests, and daily routines. Make them feel understood.
Think outside the box
Entrepreneurship is all about thinking outside the box. People who are successful now, always thought differently than the rest.
Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs. They all had a vision that was completely different than most people.
Experiment with your retargeting ads (A/B testing) and with your audience. Don’t be too aggressive, be subtle.
Always keep track of your audience
Keep track of what works and what doesn’t work with your audience. It doesn’t make sense to bid more on retargeting ads that aren’t working.
Always create ads that you base on your data. The more data you have, the better decisions you can make. Never choose to do something because it ‘feels good.’
How Retargeting Fits in Your Business
Now, all that’s left to do for you is implement retargeting into your business. While the process is different for every company, we’ll give you a few steps to take to get started.
Don’t be afraid to try retargeting for your business. It has worked for a lot of other companies. If fear is holding you back, this article might be able to help you.
Step 1: Identify your ideal customer
If this isn’t clear by now for you, you have to know your audience into the most profound details. For retargeting ads, this involves:
● Demographic
● Interests
● Behaviours
Also, find out on which platform they are hanging out on.
Step 2: Sign up to start your first retargeting campaign
Once you know where your audience hangs out, you can sign up for the platform with a business account. On every platform, this is different, but you can easily find it out for yourself.
Setting up your retargeting ad campaign is also different on every platform. On Facebook, you open your business account, create a custom audience based on website visits, and you can target people who visited specific pages.
TIP: Make sure you install the Facebook pixel code on your website before you do anything, this will keep track of every single behavior of your audience. The longer its installed, the more data you have.
Step 3: Reflect and adjust
Once your campaign is running, all you have to do is optimize is consistently to get the best results. Be sure to create different ad sets based on demographics, interests and behaviors.
If your ad doesn’t have a high click through rate (CTR), there may be something wrong with the ad. Adjust text, image, colors, your message and call to action (CTR) to get better results.
Last but not least, do your research. Figure out how retargeting works or seek consultation from marketing companies like us, REV Marketing. The Internet is full of information; you can either take time out of your business and build it yourself or let us be your outsourced CMO.