Most likely you have visited several online shops to browse through their products. Once you leave that site, have you ever seen the exact product that you were browsing for in an advertisement while going through your favorite online blog?
At first, it seems a weird coincidence. In reality, you were just the latest target of a digital marketing technique called retargeting. This tactic is soon becoming a favorite of digital marketers, and you are about to find out why.
What is Retargeting
As the name suggests, it is merely targeting people multiple times. They don’t do this with a bullseye aimed at your back but with creative ads designed to draw your attention. These advertisements focus on people who have already shown interest in your products or services. When you advertise in this fashion, the chances of converting a visitor to a buyer are higher.
Why is Retargeting A Requirement Today?
Studies estimate that about 98% of the people who are visiting your website will not buy anything on their first visit. These people are essentially window shoppers. Thus, you are making money from only 2% of the people who are visiting your website.
There are several reasons why such a massive percentage of people fail to make the purchase. Some of these maybe distractions, financial problems or even their lack of will to by the product. There might be many more, but the critical thing to remember is that we can combat all these reasons with effective retargeting.
We will see how we can do this later. First, let us find out how the whole process works.
How Retargeting Works
It is quite simple to start retargeting your visitors. All you need to do is add a little snippet of code to your website’s pages and partner with an excellent online ad agency.
The process starts with someone visiting your website through some external marketing. This first step may be through social media, SEO, or maybe even word of mouth. Once they do visit, this little snippet of code drops a type of tracker on this visitor with information about what the person is viewing.
Once the viewer inevitably forgets about the purchase, the tracker you conveniently placed starts to work its magic. It tracks when the viewer is online next time on a website to which your ad agency has a tracking pixel installed.
As the user is browsing through the content, they find an ad related to what they were trying to buy earlier. Looking at this ad, we remind the previous visitor of what they were trying to purchase. As they see this, they may or may not go back to your site to buy it.
If they buy it, then congratulations! You win! However, if they don’t make a purchase, the cycle continues, warming them up each time with each new exposure.
The Difference Between Retargeting and Remarketing
If you have visited some digital marketing blogs, then by now you must be wondering what is remarketing? Simply put, retargeting is a part of remarketing. You can do the same thing but with different forms of media.
While retargeting primarily uses adverts, remarketing relies more on emails or chatbots. Both of them are incredibly useful techniques. However, when put together, they convert a lot more people that would alone.
For this reason, experts in the field suggest that you should combine retargeting with other forms of digital marketing to have the highest success rates possible.
How Retargeting Relates to Sales Funnels
When trying to sell a product or service, digital marketers typically follow a process known commonly as the “sales funnel.” It is a step by step procedure on how you can subtly narrow your customer in on your product. You can take this simple quiz to figure out if you are already using one or not.
Retargeting is a technique that uses sales funnels exceptionally efficiently. While the top of the sales funnel is more to do with creating awareness or regular marketing, the middle part is where the retargeting starts.
You start with products they liked and gain their interest at first. Then you take the next step and divulge key selling points about the product. Finally, you make them purchase it by advertising an offer that they cannot resist.
You can then target them further into buying more products from your site by showing similar offers or products. A few periodic ads to ensure you stay in their mind for their next purchase will go a long way too.
The whole process may not be over as soon as you expect it to but remember – never giving up is a vital quality of any good salesman.
The Many Advantages of Retargeting
Now that you know how retargeting helps you overcome some of the pitfalls of online marketing, you should also know what other benefits it holds.
Brand building
One of the most significant advantages of retargeting is that it builds brand awareness. Sometimes, the user who views your site might not make the purchase. However, because they will get to see your name on the web quite frequently after that, the image that your products are quite popular will be instilled in them. Then they might suggest it to a friend or buy something themselves and boost your sales.
Higher conversion rates
The most apparent benefit to retargeting is higher conversion rates. In simple terms, this means that you will be turning more number of viewers into buyers than you did before. Professionals use various other techniques grouped with retargeting to get you even higher conversion rates. We will see some of these later in this post.
Great value for money
It is impossible to retarget someone without marketing your product on a larger scale first. However, not everyone you promote your product to will be interested in it. Retargeting focuses on people who visit your website out of interest or curiosity.
Retargeting these people leads to higher chances of conversion. Thus, you have a higher chance of getting a return on your investment when you invest in these people.
With multiple iterations, you might even be able to narrow down a demographic and reduce your marketing costs.
Common Retargeting Mistakes
As a concept, this seems simple – find out who visited your site and put yourself in front of them often them until they purchase something; right? Unfortunately, many people make blunders while retargeting and end up losing money.
Boring ads
The whole point of advertising is to grab attention. However, people forget this quite often, and that is why their retargeting ads aren’t nearly as effective as they could have been. It is essential to ensure that every retargeting ad supplies the correct information to the right user. A great ad agency can create compelling ads for your business as they know how to find out exactly what a person is thinking by observing how they browse your site.
Posting too often
Have you ever been nagged by your mother to complete your chore? You never end up doing something if someone is always harassing you to get it done. Similarly, many inexperienced marketers retarget the same customer multiple times with irrelevant information. This mistake creates a negative image in their minds and may lead to a loss of numerous customers.
Not compromising on the price
One of the main reasons that people don’t complete their purchase is that they end up feeling that the product is too expensive.
If you keep retargeting such a person without compromising even a bit on the price, you won’t make much headway. However, if you change your price by just a bit, you might be able to add another customer to the list.
Of course, this can depend on if you are selling a higher-ticket item. Giving a discount on an expensive item can damage its perceived value in the marketplace. It’s like seeing a discounted Ferrari. What would you think if you saw this? Most likely you would think that the car still looks pretty, but the engine might be missing. Something has to be wrong with it.
Keep in mind that the lower you drive the price for an item, the more likely you will have people sending complaints and demands for refunds. Be careful with this strategy.
Focusing on the wrong customers
Even while retargeting, it is essential to know who is more likely to buy the product.
Amateur marketers retarget everyone visiting the site. Doing this wastes a lot of time and money which you could otherwise invest in talking with people who were already on the verge of buying your product.
Professional marketers can quickly identify these groups of people through their actions and focus on them to spend more efficiently.
How Hiring Marketing Professionals Will Help You Build an Effective Remarketing Campaign
Throughout this article, you might have read how a professional would always do it better. I’m sure by now you have started to wonder why professionals come as recommended as they are. Well, here are a few reasons why.
Correct Frequency of ads
As mentioned before, when you continuously nag people, they are less likely to buy the product. The recommended frequency is about seven ads or so a month, but this varies depending on the customer. Depending on the viewer’s internet usage and your business, a professional team can recommend the exact timing and frequency of these posts.
Knowledge of how to build out effective retargeting ads
The retargeted ads should be just as attractive as the main one. Moreover, they should contain just the right amount of information. It is essential to combine the points related to the sales funnel and the discount ladder that you read earlier in this post. Only people with experience in this field would be able to tell you which ads should be displayed to which viewer.
Combination of various other marketing strategies
Retargeting isn’t the only way to go when you are trying to acquire new customers. In fact, retargeting works best when combined with other marketing techniques like remarketing or SEO. However, this combination depends a lot on what kind of business you are running, and which avenues require your internet presence.
Knowledge of how to combine customer information for effective advertising
The tracking cookie that your site leaves on the user can find all kinds of information. For example, you can find out what types of products the user is seeking out.
If the user is searching for a stove and grill, then a seasoned would advertise a barbeque grill with a side stove the user directly that is available on your site. In this way, you will be able to satisfy precisely what the customer needs and increase your sales.
Knowledge of how to work with the most effective ad networks for your target audience
One of the most important things that you should search for in a professional marketing team is what kind of reach they have. The whole concept of retargeting relies on the idea that the viewer will see your advertisement no matter which part of the internet he or she is browsing. Only the best of the best will know most of the ad agencies in the game will be able to work with them.
Wrapping It Up
Retargeting is one of the most powerful sales tools that you can have at your disposal. It can drastically improve your conversion rates and increase your sales. However, unlike continuity offers, you may need to keep at it for some time before you begin to see real change in your overall business performance.
At the same time, you will need to ensure that you are utilizing your entire sales funnel to get the most out of your remarketing efforts. Take this sales funnel quiz now to ensure that you are using your sales funnel to its fullest potential.
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