Remarketing campaigns target ads to visitors who previously engaged with your brand in some capacity such as visiting your website, downloading an asset, abandoning a shopping cart or interacting with a recent promotion. Retargeting past site visitors or app users allows you to reconnect and continue nurturing them when they did not convert during that initial session.
This comprehensive guide covers what remarketing is, what makes it so effective, best practices for setting up campaigns, tips for segmenting audiences effectively, creative strategies, top platforms and powerful examples of brands seeing major conversion lift through persistent yet relevant follow-up communication.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing, also referred to as retargeting, serves targeted ads across channels like Facebook, Instagram, Google and more to specific users who previously interacted with your business in some capacity. Retargeting past visitors re-engages them while interest and familiarity with your offering remains high to drive them back for conversions during subsequent moments of purchase consideration.
The Basis for Remarketing Effectiveness
There are several psychological and motivation factors that explain why remarketing works so well:
● Familiarity – Visitors develop initial awareness, interest and context for your capabilities through prior on-site activity. Remarketing messaging has higher clarity and relevance since education foundations were built during that first exposure on your properties. There is less heavy lifting explaining value early in ads shown to those remarketed.
● Trust – Coming back to your brand, offers or content feels more comfortable and secure to users versus completely unknown entities since risks have essentially been partially vetted already during the first visit. A level of confidence exists.
● Intent – Any level of engagement with your digital properties demonstrates some intent already confirmed. Remarketing allows you to re-inspire consideration that temporarily stalled but evidenced underlying need or motivation.
Remarketing Strategies
To maximize remarketing outcomes, incorporate these best practices into strategy:
● Segment Extensively – Create groups around visit depth, pages seen, content consumed, funnel steps completed and other dimensions revealing their level of interest and context. You can promote far more relevant messages tailored to where individuals are in their journey when you slice audiences into smaller subgroups using filters available in remarketing platforms.
● Map Messaging to Moments – Offer reminders, exclusive savings or new information depending on their initial session behaviors and current context to resume dialogue with relevant reasons to re-engage your brand tied to their original underpinning motivations.
● Give Value, Earn Trust – Answer lingering questions, provide limited time offers, share new capabilities or double down on how you can now serve needs through brief educational and promotional messaging balancing help with offers.
● Expand Beyond Paid – Publish new blog content around topics visitors initially focused on for organic visibility in addition to paid remarketing visibility. Send tailored emails if addresses were captured to continue dialogue beyond ads alone.
Tools Enabling Powerful Remarketing Campaigns
Leading solutions facilitating sophisticated audience segmentation and adaptive communication based on individuals’ site interactions include:
● AdRoll – Powerful segmentation ensures messaging relevance even within broadly targeted campaigns by dividing groups into highly specific clusters based on past behaviors, attributes and product affinities.
● Criteo – Retail and ecommerce marketers rely extensively on Criteo’s shopper remarketing capabilities dynamically displaying product recommendations everywhere users browse post-site activity.
● Google Analytics – Free insights uncover drop-off pages, popular content and other on-site analytics revealing who to target and what to address in remarketing ads.
● Facebook – Detailed audience templates identify the most qualified past site visitors for focused follow-up ads.
Creative Execution Best Practices
● Test Different Ad Styles based on the segmented groups’ affinities and initial on-site behaviors to determine what visual formats garner highest post-click conversions for each micro-audience. Continually iterate.
● Share New Information like product releases, service enhancements and updates serving their needs. This added value earns attention while improving perception of your commitment addressing audience interests.
● Promote Persistently To Reach across their buyer journey awareness stages. Expand to additional interest and look-alike audiences but maintain consistent visibility through all platforms for your brand and offers to efficiently convert consideration into conversions over time.
Proven Examples Driving Conversions Through Remarketing
● Glassdoor saw 53% higher click-through-rates promoting limited time discounts to visitors who previously engaged jobs and salary content.
● Comedy Central increased YouTube subscriber conversions by 65% remarketing video viewers who did not initially opt-in after seeing over 50% of a clip.
● Online florist The Bouqs Co. focuses dynamic remarketing ads on visitors who previously bought Valentine’s Day bouquets specifically around gifting occasions synchronizing contextually relevant reminders to past purchasers when need likelihood seems highest again.
Bringing It All Together
Doubling down on re-engaging audiences already familiar with your brand by continuing conversations through remarketing both paid and earned amplifies conversions you may have lost from that initial on-site visit alone. Segment audiences based on behaviors then align follow-up messaging and offers to their original underpinning interests or needs.
Give past visitors new reasons to return tailored directly to their earlier areas of focus using analytics insights into on-site activity. Consistent visibility across channels and aligning communication contextually when seasons or events make your solutions highly relevant once again drives remarketing performance exponentially greater than hoping visitors remember and return on their own. Seize the opportunity to reconnect on their terms.