In a world of constant advertising it is hard to even process how many ads we see each day. With a first impression being so difficult, remarketing becomes an easy way to stand out from the thousands of other ads being blasted each day at your target audience.
So what is remarketing? Remarketing, also sometimes referred to as retargeting is a form of digital adverting that allows marketers to target individuals who have visited their website or other platforms by attempting to engage with them again by showing an ad based on their interaction.
If a customer leaves your site without making a purchase, there's a good chance they are going to see your ad several times and hopefully lead them into a purchase, if done correctly.
SO, What Are the benefits?
It Can Drive Conversions
Remarketing can help drive your conversions almost instantly. It is easy to visit a site, navigate away and completely forget about what you even looked at. I'm guilty of this constantly. When I start to see ads on Facebook, Google and everywhere else suddenly I'm remembering that L.L Bean Jacket I looked at 11 pm last night.
This is actually one of the first questions we get when people ask about digital marketing. "You know, last night I was looking at shoes and I've been hit hard with Adidas ads ever since.. How can I do that with my business?" That's remarketing my friend. Isn't it beautiful?
It Helps With Brand Awareness
It is hard to put a value on brand awareness, but it has been around for years. Brand awareness is just a way of becoming memorable and top of mind for the product or service you offer. Just because the customer or client isn't buying right now, doesn't mean that they won't be buying in six months from now. Becoming top of mind and making yourself a leader in that industry through remarketing will lead that customer to you when its buy time.
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Your Competitors Clients Can Become Yours Real Quick
Remarketing can be pretty complex even though it's such a simple thing to do. Create custom audiences by targeting the visitors of your competitors websites. This is a no brainer. Suddenly you become the leader in that industry to that individual since they are seeing your ads over the company website that they were visiting.
HOW DOES REMARKETING WORK?
When you begin to use remarketing you need to first create a pixel. (What's a pixel?) When this is created, you place the code on your website and it will start to track your websites user activity by using cookies. (Not the delicious kind, the browser kind.)
After you have this in place you can start to do some testing and refine your audience to show specific content to that audience based on what actions they took to get to your website and what actions they took on your website.
Example: I am in the market for a new vehicle. So I had searched "Affordable Crossover Vehicles." The owner of the website I visited now only shows me ads that send me to pages with content related to "crossover vehicles" on it.
Learn how Google Remarketing Works With Google Adwords
WHERE Do I Begin?
It used to just be Google and Facebook leading the way with remarketing but now you can basically set up remarketing on any platform. Each platform has their own unique pixel so keep that in mind when you are building a strategy.
There isn't one pixel that controls all platforms. You need to set up unique pixels for each platform and set them up and embed each on your site.
Unlike search or display ads, these ads won't start right away. You need to have a set number of people in your list to retarget to before they start to perform.
WHAT DOES IT COST?
Like any type of ad, the cost varies on the audience you are marketing to. However, since this audience is one that has already checked you out, it is a more defined list and usually a lot smaller. So with this in mind, the cost is usually A LOT cheaper than your typical search or display ad.
THE TAKEAWAY
The Internet isn't stalking you. Well, it is, but at the same time marketers are just getting smarter. Remarketing is acting as a way of brand awareness as well as a clever way to push the seller further down the sales pipeline until they reach buy time. Good remarketing can lead to higher conversion rates and return on investment.