What Is Remarketing? A Beginner’s Guide

Nick Arthur

What Is Remarketing? A Beginner’s Guide

No buzz word has more invaded the digital marketing psyche as of late than the term “remarketing.”

But do you know what this word really means?

Do you understand its importance?

And even more so  — do you know how to use it?

Did you know that over £3 trillion in online merchandise is abandoned in the basket? And data shows that nearly 63% of these lost sales are recoverable?

If you’re not remarketing, you’ve just binned a significant portion of your sales.

In this guide, we’ll explore what you’re missing and find out why you should start remarketing today.

If you spend any time online, you’ve undoubtedly experienced remarketing — in Facebook, on a vendor’s website, on a site with a slideshow of funny kittens.

Remarketing — or retargeting — is those banner adverts that appear to magically know where you’ve been online. They summon you back their site.

They sub-consciously remind you that you left items in the basket, although the advert may not say this in so many words.

They follow you across the Internet. If you visited the contact page of a business and then continued on to check out the weather on another site, they pop up on that site, welcoming you back.

You may be wondering…

If I’m already paying for banner adverts, am I remarketing without knowing it?

The answer to this is a definitive “no”. This is a hyper-targeted type of marketing that not only targets people based upon their interests, age, gender, etc. but also based upon their actions.

Just because I’m a boy doesn’t mean I like sports.

All girls aren’t interested in pretty dresses.

Remarketing cuts through the stereotypes to judge people on their actions.

Why Is Remarketing Important Today?

People today have the attention span of a goldfish.

Researchers studied the attention span of 2000 Canadians and found that their attention spans have fallen from 12 seconds to around 8 seconds over the past 15+ years.

While those of us here may be saying, that’s just the Canadians. Research shows, that all of us are suffering from attention span loss.

People bounce from page to page online. They forget what they were doing.

They fully intended to complete their purchase. But without a reminder, hours become days, become weeks until either their priorities change or they simply no longer feel the impulse to buy.

With this technique, you can change that by subtly reminding them that they have unfinished business with you.

The more time that passes, the less likely you are able to seal that deal.

Before modern online shopping, you might have to wait until someone saw your regularly scheduled advert.

With this method, you reach the person immediately when you still have a high chance of converting that sale.

Loews Hotels launched a remarketing campaign on Google Display Network.

They achieved a:

  • 10% increase in revenues
  • 9% lift in hotel bookings
  • 5% increase in new traffic (a side effect of remarketing)

What could you do with a 10% increase in revenues?

How Does Remarketing Work?

Remarketing isn’t limited to basket abandonment, although that’s a great place for many to start.

Consider these stats:

67% of people who visit a site a second time make a purchase.

39% of business decision makers call the vendor after completing a marketing video.

What is the value in simply getting someone to revisit your site?

If you could target a B2B customer who started but didn’t finish your marketing video, what could you achieve?

Remarketing works because it targets visitors exactly where they are in the buyer’s journey.

While you may not know the unique identity of a visitor online, remarketing software like Google Analytics Tags can tag a person based upon a behaviour that you pre-determined that you wanted to track.

In a cause and effect scenario, you then give this tag (cookie) an automated consequence.

For example, someone started watching a video on your site but didn’t finish it. You know that if they finish the video they are likely to contact you.

You set up a tag that follows that unknown person to the next several sites that they visit. The target sees a banner advert that reminds them to return to your site.

The target then remembers that he/she didn’t finish the video. He/she returns to finish the video.

He/she buys as a result.

What are the Types of Remarketing?

Site Remarketing – A person is shown an advert after leaving your site

Search Remarketing – Targets users who search for certain key phrases

Social Media Remarketing – Displays retargeting adverts in social media

Email Remarketing – If you use Gmail or a similar free email account, you’ll notice contextual adverts that are based off the content of your emails. Remember, this is all automated. No one is actually reading your emails.

With various tags (cookies) you can target people at different levels. A few examples would be:

A Visitor – The person visited your site. You simply want the person to come back.

Specific Product Visitor – The person viewed a specific product. Your advert will be specific to what the target was viewing.

Abandoned Basket Visitors – Described above. We remind someone that they abandoned their basket.

How is Success Measured?

As with anything in business, the results must be measurable.

These are the most common ways to measure your remarketing efforts to assure you’re getting a decent return on your investment.

CTR – The number of times that someone clicks your advert, click through rate. You want a high CTR to determine that your ads are luring people back.

Because the only ones who see these advertisements are people who you’re retargeting, you don’t have to wonder if these are random clicks or your retargets.

CPC – Cost per click. A low CPC indicates that you’re getting the greatest value out of your spend.

eCPM – A measure of how many people per 1000 clicked. If the rate is high, you know the advert is effective.

eCPA – Cost per acquisition. How many conversions did you achieve?

ROI – Return on Investment. How much more revenue did you earn after you subtract the expense of your efforts. This is the “was it worth it” measure. It very rarely is not.

It’s Time to Seize Lost Opportunities

Don’t let another opportunity slip through your fingers. Remarketing is no more difficult than setting up rules in your email account. But it does take some thought into what you want to achieve and how to best lure visitors back to your site.

What would you add to our beginner’s guide to what remarketing is?

What have your experiences been?

We’d love to hear from you.

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