Remarketing is often referred to as retargeting – it’s a way of connecting with people through your digital campaigns who have previously shown an interest in your brand, service or product. A tracking code is used to place cookies on users browsers. It works by tracking the actions of your site visitors and then building audience lists of users worth targeting with ads.
The advanced targeting makes it a powerful part of your PPC campaign and your overall digital marketing strategy. A user who demonstrates interest in your service is much more likely to respond to an ad than somebody who hasn’t visited your site.
Your remarketing strategy can be broken down, for example:
- The appropriate type of remarketing – This can be search, display, dynamic or video etc.
- How to build audience lists – Determining which site visitors should be targeted with what ad, depending on their online behaviour, demographics and interests.
- What to test – Which tests will contribute to higher conversion rates through your remarketing?
- Optimisation – How should you optimise your campaign depending on what will appeal to your prospects.
We’ve created this guide to explain your options when it comes to remarketing in PPC. We’ll be covering what works best with Google and what we have found from our experience as a digital agency.
What are your options?
- Standard remarketing –Google Ads allows you to display ads to your site visitors when they are browsing sites and apps on the Google Display Network (GDN).
- Dynamic remarketing – This is another Google Ads feature which lets you show your ads to past visitors. It can target any of your specific products or services that they viewed.
- Remarketing for mobile apps – If a user visits your mobile app or mobile website, Google Ads then allows you to target them with ads when they use other mobile apps or sites.
- Remarketing lists for search ads – Otherwise known as RLSA – this Google Ads feature enables you to target previous site visitors on the Search Network. It works by customising search ads for past visitors when they search on Google or Google’s search partner sites.
- Video Remarketing – You can display your remarketing ads to people who have interacted with your videos or YouTube channel. You can serve ads on YouTube or other Display Network videos and sites.
- Email list remarketing – Otherwise known as Customer Match – you can upload your email list to Google Ads. With this information, Google ads can serve ads to customers who have previously emailed you, if they are signed in to Google Search, YouTube or Gmail. See more remarketing options here.
How to select your audiences?
For your remarketing ads to be successful – you need to work out exactly which type of site visitors you should be targeting. Within remarketing campaigns – you separate users into different audience lists. This could include ones you will target with a specific ad, and ones you will not be targeting at all. So, how should you target your audiences? We’ve listed a few examples below:
- Product page visited
- Time spent on site
- Number of site pages visited
- Geographic and demographic testing
- Types of pages visited
- Pages not visited
- The point at which a user left your site
You can also use custom combinations which means you can target users who visited one page but not another. Why is this helpful? The strategy would be to target people who, for example, went to check out and buy a product on your site – but didn’t end up going through with the purchase and making it to the confirmation page. In this instance, custom combinations allow you to target people who showed an interest but didn’t get to the end of the buying process. Sometimes, people just need more encouragement or a subtle reminder to complete an action. They might also be browsing other options – and your remarketing ad could lead them back to your site!
You can target people based on URLs. When doing this, your confirmation page could be used to develop an audience list. So, the people who left before reaching the confirmation page could be added to a list and targeted with reminder ads. Similarly, you can target users who did complete a purchase. If they have bought from you before, they will likely be interested in deals, promotions, or new launches etc.
How can you optimise your remarketing campaign?
Ad testing – You can experiment with various messages in your digital ads. The difference between other PPC ads is that you might be targeting people who are not yet familiar with your brand or service. With remarketing, you are trying to draw people back in. If you want to essentially ‘win’ your customer back, then you might need to try different offers, call-to-actions, ad formats and images etc.
Custom combination testing – You’ll need to experiment to find what works well for your account. For example, a user who visited your site within the past 30 days is likely to be interested in a promotion, as they might still be browsing their options. A user who visited within a longer timescale might be more likely to engage with a ‘gentle reminder’.
Frequency cap testing – There’s a fine line between targeting too many users and coming across as invasive – and then being too limited therefore missing out on potential conversions. It’s also important not to target one audience list with too many ads. Try putting yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about what would be too much or too little for you.
Landing page testing – We mentioned previously that it’s important to remember you’re targeting people who are already familiar with your business. You can, therefore, experiment with sending them to different landing pages. Some things to consider are:
- Is your messaging aimed at somebody who has visited previously?
- Are you sharing any new information to their previous visit?
- Are you answering questions that a past visitor would already know?
Your landing page testing can reveal the type of content that resonated the most with past visitors.
What next?
Find out more about our remarketing services or get in touch with our London based team if you’d like to ask us any questions.