What Is Retargeting In Digital Marketing?
In a perfect world, every customer that browses your online store checks out their shopping cart. Unfortunately, this rarely happens. Over 95% of those visiting a website for the first time don’t buy anything. But that doesn’t mean they’re lost forever as a customer.
You can win them back through retargeting, which is a digital marketing strategy that enables you to send relevant ads to individuals who’ve left your site without buying anything. Show them what they’ve left behind in their cart. Shower them with notifications of exciting products. In short, you need to encourage them to return and complete a transaction.
Is Retargeting Effective?
Retargeting is a powerful conversion strategy that uses good branding and repeated exposure to generate sales. You’re tapping into a group of people that have already shown interest in your brand or products. That means that the intention was there, and they might only need a little push or reminder to go back and follow through with the checkout process.
Retargeting should be included when creating a digital marketing strategy, so make sure to bring it up with your creative digital marketing agency or PR agency during your strategy-building sessions.
What Is The Difference Between Retargeting And Remarketing?
Retargeting and remarketing are often confused. But the two use different means to re-engage customers. Retargeting works through ads placed on sites a customer visits after leaving your shop that are identified by using website cookies.
Remarketing follows a more targeted approach through email communications. The ads sent through remarketing are more personalized. They are created specifically for people on the brand’s remarketing list, an automatically compiled list of email addresses provided by customers.
How Does Retargeting Work?
Retargeting works through the use of cookies. These are small pieces of data stored by your web browser that track and remember your online activity. Marketers use this data to tag users who visited their site and serve them relevant ads while browsing other platforms.
For example, a customer visits your online store, browses your jewelry collection without buying anything, and then jumps to several other websites. While reading articles, listening to music or watching videos, she sees ads for the products she recently viewed in your store.
It happens several more times over the next few days as she visits other platforms. The constant reminder, and maybe a promo, reengages her. It compels her to return to your site and peruse the products further. Now, she’s ready to buy your product.
Benefits Of Retargeting
Motivating customers to move from browsing to checkout isn’t always a straightforward path, and tactics such as retargeting can help find the gaps potential customers might slip through. Here are some reasons why you should include retargeting in your marketing strategy.
Brand Awareness
Retargeting ads serve as a constant brand reminder that helps cement your brand as a top-of-mind name for customers. The next time they look for products you have, the greater the chance is they think of you first.
Higher Conversion Rates
Since retargeting zeroes in on individuals who’ve already expressed interest in your products, it’s easier to reengage them. That translates to higher conversion rates when compared to target audiences identified by marketing ploys that start from scratch.
Boosted Site Visits
Retargeting is known to increase site visits because it entices customers to return to your site through recall and awareness. It reminds them of forgotten information that makes them want to revisit.
Increased Sales
The higher conversion rates and site visits that come with retargeting translate to more sales, increasing your business’ profits.
When To Use Retargeting
Retargeting campaigns are long-term strategies, and they can be used not just to remind customers of items they’ve already seen but to show them what they missed. Here are three instances when you should use retargeting.
Promoting Bestsellers
Your bestsellers are known to be crowd favorites, so why not leverage this to attract more customers? Showing off your best stuff is a great way to increase the likelihood of conversion.
Moving Inventory
You may have some great products that aren’t getting their time in the spotlight. Retargeting allows you to draw more attention to them. In this case, the strategy works even better if the items are on discount (e.g., part of an all-must-go sale).
Introducing New Products
There’s a chance that the people receiving your retargeting ads have already seen everything on your site. You can segment these customers so they only see your new products, giving them a reason to return and check out what’s different.
Retargeting Best Practices
Retargeting should be strategic. That means you have to be intentional in the ads that you create, where you place them, and how you segment your market.
Make sure that your call-to-action is clear, doable and fulfills the goals of the campaign. Leverage the proper channels, taking care to show your ads in the appropriate context and not too frequently. And make sure that you know who you’re targeting. For example, maybe exclude those who’ve already converted.
Follow these tips, and you’re on your way to reaping the benefits of a successful retargeting campaign!