Have you ever visited a website and after you left noticed ads from that website follow as you browse the web? It isn’t a coincidence, what you’re seeing is retargeting.
With less than three weeks until 2013 it’s time to give serious thought to your marketing plans for the new year and retargeting should be on your to-do list.
Despite being powerful, retargeting is still underused by many SMBs. Here are 5 ways you can use it for an added marketing edge in 2013:
What is Retargeting?
Retargeting allows you to display ads to visitors who have left your website but did not convert (e.g did not purchase a product, make a download, fill up a form).
When the visitor leaves your site and browses other pages across the internet you can show them ads encouraging them to come back.
Website owners can specify what ads people see based on the pages they viewed. For example a book retailer could target anyone who visited a Tintin product page with special Tintin ads.
Getting started requires inputting small snippets of code on your site and away you go.
Here are 5 ways to use remarketing in 2013.
Converting Lost Customers
The most obvious application of retargeting is serving ads to anyone who abandons the conversion funnel on your site.
For ecommerce retailers this is anyone who visits the shopping cart but didn’t buy. SaaS businesses should target anyone who visited their signup form but never submitted payment details, while B2B business may serve ads to anyone who visited a whitepaper download form but never filled it up.
The subsequent retargeting ads could remind visitors to return to your site, mentioning benefits like free shipping or a 30 day free trial.
Staggered Ad Variations
It’s also a good idea to stagger your ad copy. Depending on how long ago a person visited your site, you can tailor different ad copy to them. People who visited 1 week ago probably have good recall of your site so subtle ads will suffice.
After 14 days, if they haven’t converted, you can use ads with stronger messaging like top 5 reasons to buy from your site along with customer testimonials.
By day 21 you can get aggressive with a limited time offer of free shipping or 1 month free on your subscription.
Retargeting works a treat when it comes to branding. Every business wants to position themselves as the number 1 in their category and retargeting is a great tool for this.
For visitors who leave your site without showing any intent to buy (e.g did not go to a checkout page but just read your blog) can get general ads which contain information on awards you’ve won, reviews from the media or big achievements like 9/10 customers would recommend us.
They may not be ready to buy now but when they are, or know someone who is, your brand will be front of mind.
Upselling
Who better to keep marketing to than your customers? Customers have paid you once and could do it again via upsells.
Ecommerce retailers should be promoting products related to a customer first purchase, SaaS business can showcase benefits of higher tier plans while B2B marketers can promote complementary services or solutions to what customers already use.
This one requires strong business relationships but if you know someone who runs a website with a similar audience, why not negotiate to get your retargeting code placed on their site?
A venue booking website could negotiate to have their retargeting code placed on the websites of all their different venues. That way the venue booking site can send ads to people who saw function room details on the “Joe’s Cafe” website.
So there you have it, a small scratch on the surface of retargeting. There are so many more applications for retargeting that make it worth investing into for 2013. If you need help getting started with retargeting, you could try using Tweaky’s retargeting setup service.
