Retargeting platform AdRoll states that only 2% of shoppers usually convert on their first visit to an online store. That’s a lot of people slipping through the cracks. What’s a marketer to do?
Enter retargeting. Retargeting allows you to target the 98% of visitors who didn’t convert, giving them a second chance to convert. Retargeting is a method of marketing whereby ads are specifically targeted at potential customers who have visited your site before. This is done via search engines, social media platforms, and other websites. They look at your ads, then go to your website, and hopefully make a purchase. Retargeting allows you to keep your audience engaged, increases brand recognition, and increases conversions. This benefits all areas of your marketing strategy.
There are so many opportunities with retargeting that it can be difficult to decide which types of campaigns to run. We’ve created a list of things you can do to make your retargeting strategies more effective. Check them out below.
Pixel-Based Retargeting
Pixel-based retargeting allows you to show your ads to anyone who has visited your site, regardless of where they are on the internet. This is the most common form of retargeting, which will be familiar to anyone retargeting through Google’s display network (Note: Google refers to retargeting as ‘remarketing’). Pixel-based retargeting is also available on Facebook and Twitter. List-based retargeting requires a large list of email addresses, making it more accessible for new inbound marketers.
Bright Ideas for Running Smarter Retargeting Campaigns
Promote your best content.
Retargeting ads are often used for pushing products, but they can be used for other purposes as well. By using retargeting, you can drive people towards blog content, for example. Many of your leads are likely to originate from social media. According to Larry Kim of Wordstream, retargeting his content saw a 50% increase in repeat visitors, a 300% increase in time on site, and a 51% increase in conversion rate.
An Irish Digital Marketing agency, Wolfgang Digital, is using retargeting to promote a new piece of content. By placing a pixel on their website, they are able to track when users visit and then serve them targeted ads on other websites that they visit. Everyone who visited the website was targeted, with the exception of those who had already read the study. The ad below was only shown to the user when they were reading relevant content, due to contextual targeting being combined with the ad. The CTR for some of these ads was 0.8%, which is double the amount that some experts suggest you should aim for.
But how do you figure out what content should be promoted using retargeting ads? Simple.
You can use your new content for retargeting, but you should also check your analytics to see which pieces of content get the most social shares and have the highest conversion rate. You can then include these in your retargeting ads.
Promote specific content based on the types of pages people have visited on your website.
Imagine you’re a clothing retailer. Why not create lists out of your product categories? For example, you could create ads specifically for people who visit the shoe category on your website, and another set of ads for people who visit the jackets category. By showing relevant ads to people based on what they’re interested in, you’re more likely to get their attention and make a sale. You could then show ads for shoes to people on the first list, and ads for jackets to people on the other list. Retargeting efforts are only effective if the right people see the relevant content. This can be ensured by always delivering the content to the right people.
You can also take this a step further. AdRoll’s Liquid Ads allows you to show past visitors the exact items they were looking for. This can be incredibly effective, especially in eCommerce. Apparel company Cubbies Shorts has had great success with this type of advertising, with a 10.5X return on investment (ROI) and a 33% lower cost per acquisition (CPA) than the industry average. This means that, compared to other channels, retargeting resulted in a lower cost per website visitor purchase. This campaign resulted in a 35.5 times return on investment.
There are other ways to do this type of targeting, this is just one way.
Pull people through the funnel.
How would you feel if you visited a page on a website and didn’t convert? They are still early in the process of research and discovery. Why not create ads that follow people on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google to a blog post about that topic? If they don’t convert after visiting your site, try retargeting them with an ad for a downloadable ebook on the same topic. If they are not converted at this stage, encourage them to schedule a consultation or take a free trial.
This is a basic way to map out a retargeting path, and you can add more steps to it depending on your needs. Retargeting can be a strategic and effective way to reach potential customers, rather than just focusing on those at the top or bottom of the sales funnel.
Capitalize on events.
In marketing, time is always of the essence. The online flower retailer 1-800-Flowers saw great success in using Twitter retargeting ads for Mother’s Day, which significantly reduced the cost per acquisition (CPA).
This can also work well for events. Consider HubSpot. We could target ads toward people who have visited our website in the past, in the lead-up to our Inbound15 event. We could offer a discount to people who have visited the Register page but not registered. You can use this technique for all types of industries – just brainstorm how you could promote your products during different seasons. lists can be a good strategy to keep in mind when retargeting
Exclude visitors who have spent less than 10 seconds on your site.
If someone spends less time on your site, they are probably not as interested in your content. You could be wasting your budget by retargeting to them.
If you’re not having success budgeting, try doing it for a longer period of time. You could also prevent people who have bounced from your website from seeing your offer, as they are more likely to be uninterested in what you have to offer.
In order to set up Google Analytics lists, you will need to create a few lists and import them into your Google Analytics account. You can create sophisticated lists by taking a little extra time with this method.
Out-of-the-Box Inbound Marketing Ideas To Get You More Leads
This article provides a list of inbound marketing ideas that can help to improve results.
Develop a Loyalty Program
Loyalty programs are a great way to build trust with customers in your target market. Referral software programs that focus on business-to-business connections, such as Influitive’s AdvocateHub, can help you create a loyalty program that captures customer excitement and uses it to improve your marketing-qualified lead generation and sales efforts.
The brand encourages customers, partners, and employees to speak positively about the brand to others in their community by rewarding them for completing challenges. Rewards may be given for creating content, posting online reviews, participating in forums, commenting on blogs, and submitting testimonials and case studies. Creating additional traction and opportunities for business and brand engagement by sharing testimonial content can help convert new leads. Advocates who earn points and badges can advance to different levels, where they can redeem perks and privileges.
These programs interface with CRMs, providing additional visibility and engagement opportunities for your sales team, which can lead to new business and revenue opportunities.
Beyond Adwords, Utilize Social Paid Ads
Each of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn provides paid advertising opportunities to increase the number of sales leads who meet the criteria for marketing qualification, through targeted ads that are paid for based on clicks. PPC/social paid ads may be effective if you have a larger budget. Everything you do with social paid ads will align with inbound strategy since you’re still creating content people love to attract, convert, close and delight—only now you’ll have to
Every action you take with social paid ads will correspond with your inbound strategy, as you will still be creating content that people will love in order to attract, convert, close, and delight them. The only difference is that you will now have to pay to play on most social platforms. It is important to have a strategic approach to social paid ads because marketers can no longer rely on organic reach alone. It’s important to make ads that will stand out and hold people’s attention, as well as targeting specific groups of people. You can also make your ads more relevant by considering things like who your target audience is, where they live, and what might be going on around them.
To be successful with social ads, you need to have clear measures in place, optimize your ads for continuous lead and customer generation, and test what is working with your PPC campaigns. This will ensure that you are not paying for impressions and clicks that are not related to your keywords.
There are four main types of social paid advertising on Twitter: Promoted Tweets, Followers (Promoted Accounts), Apps, and Videos.
Promoted tweets are a great way to get people to view your blog post or visit your webpage. promoted account Promoted Tweets are more successful than other tweets, since most marketers want people to visit a specific webpage.
Ads on LinkedIn look like normal banner ads with a picture and short text on the side of the screen. Sponsored Updates are different though and may be more effective. There are two types of Sponsored Updates: Direct Sponsored Content posts appear in users’ feeds but not on your LinkedIn page, and standard Sponsored Posts appear on your page and are boosted with money.
The following text can be paraphrased as: Using specific tracking tokens with Direct Sponsored Content can help you determine which leads come from paid channels, learn more about target audiences, and test different ads to see which ones are most effective.
Utilize Retargeting Campaigns
You might know about retargeting already. Retargeting ads are a type of paid display advertising that are served to people who have already visited your website or are a contact in your database. Retargeting uses cookies to track where your audience goes on the web after they leave your site. This information is anonymous. You can target ads at people who have visited your site but not converted, by showing them ads for another blog post on a related topic when they’re using Facebook, Twitter or Google.
It is unlikely that more than 2% of visitors to your website will convert before leaving. Retargeting helps you focus on the people who have already shown an interest in your product or service by visiting your website. By retargeting these people, you can encourage them to return to your site and convert into paying customers.
Typically, retargeting ads have been used to push products. You can encourage visitors to your blog to convert by providing opportunities to do so. According to Hubspot’s Siobhán McGinty, retargeting content leads to a 50% increase in repeat visitors, a 300% increase in time-on-site, and a 51% increase in conversion rates. You can make your retargeting ads more effective by sharing new pieces of content, such as eBooks. To figure out which parts of the content are most popular, study your analytics to see how often the content is shared and how often it results in a conversion.
According to Siobhán McGinty of Hubspot, retargeting content leads to a 50% increase in repeat visitors, a 300% increase in time-on-site, and a 51% increase in conversion rates. You can also improve your retargeting ads by sharing brand new pieces of content, such as eBooks. To figure out which parts of the content are most popular, study your analytics.
To make your retargeting campaign more relevant and efficient, target the right ads to the right people. When choosing your retargeting campaign, you want to make sure your ads are relevant to your audience. To do this, consider the demographic, geographic, and contextual variables. You’ll want to reference your buyer personas. Make sure you are not wasting your time and money on something that is not working.
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