What is Remarketing? Advanced Retargeting Strategies and Tips

remarketing

Remarketing stands as an invaluable tool in a digital marketer’s arsenal. It focuses on targeting individuals who have previously engaged with your brand. In this post, we’ll unpack the essence of remarketing, its diverse approaches, and how to maximize returns from retargeting initiatives.

Table of Contents

What is Remarketing?

Remarketing, often referred to as retargeting, is a strategic paid advertising approach designed to keep your brand visible to users after they’ve left your website. The objective? Recapture their attention and usher them towards a conversion. It’s a notable fact that only about 2% of web traffic converts during their first website visit. Retargeting is the bridge that helps businesses connect with the remaining 98%, be it for lead generation, sales, or reducing cart abandonment rates.

The mechanics behind remarketing hinge on a pixel, a snippet of code embedded in your website. This pixel tracks browser cookies and subsequently displays ads to users who’ve interacted with your site as they continue their online journey. Crafting these ads can be an in-house effort or facilitated through remarketing partners such as Google Ads, ensuring your promotional content finds its way across the digital landscape.

Remarketing vs. Retargeting: Clearing the Air

While the terms “remarketing” and “retargeting” are often used interchangeably, they have subtle shades of difference in the digital marketing sphere. At its core, remarketing is an overarching term, enveloping all strategies geared towards re-engaging customers who’ve shown interest in your product or service, be it online or offline.

 

Conversely, retargeting is a specific subset of remarketing. It leverages device-based tracking to serve ads to individuals based on specific interactions taken on your website or other digital platforms.

Different Types of Remarketing Strategies

Here are the different remarketing types that you can leverage for a competitive edge:

Why should you invest in remarketing strategies?

Let’s flip the question: How often do you go through the entire process of researching, discovering, comparing, and ultimately converting, all in one single browsing session?

For the rare few who said “often,” you’re an exception. But for the majority, that’s an infrequent scenario. This insight lays the foundation for the value of remarketing, and here’s why:

Enhanced Brand Recall

Remarketing continually positions your brand front and center for individuals who’ve already displayed interest. As these prospects explore competitors, weigh options, or scour reviews, your persistent presence steers them towards choosing your brand when they’re ready to decide.

Augmented Website Traffic

Retargeting is your second chance at conversion, acting like a beacon guiding previously interested visitors back to your site. Maybe they were distracted, sidetracked, or just not ready initially. Retargeting nudges them further along the purchase path.

Increased Conversion Rates

With retargeted ads, you’re speaking directly to an already interested audience, amplifying the likelihood of conversion. In fact, retargeted ads can boast conversion rates up to 10 times higher than standard display ads.

Better Return on Investment (ROI)

As one of the most budget-savvy strategies in digital marketing, retargeting offers a prime opportunity to connect with your audience meaningfully, without burning a hole in your pocket.

Maintaining Presence in Prospects’ Minds

Life’s pace can be frantic. Amidst the hustle of work, the din of kids, or even a fleeting cute cat moment, it’s easy for consumers to get sidetracked. Retargeting acts as a gentle reminder, ensuring your brand remains audible above life’s cacophony, guiding them towards desired actions.

A Crucial Insight: Remember, the magnitude of the purchase often dictates the length of the purchase journey. As the stakes rise, so should the duration of your retargeting efforts.

Why Remarketing Campaigns Are the Key to Successful Digital Marketing

Remarketing campaigns strategically reconnect your business with online audiences who have previously engaged with your product or service.

Whether your website visitors have clicked through to a product page from Google Shopping or have clicked onto your service page from your online advertising campaign, remarketing is integral to your digital marketing strategy as it allows you to reach out to a target market that has already shown an interest in your business.

4 Main Remarketing Channels

These are the four most common digital marketing channels for remarketing campaigns:

1) Site Retargeting Ads vs. Search Retargeting Campaigns

Site and search retargeting are often confused but they’re two distinctly different types of ad campaigns. Site remarketing is a cookie-based form targeting users who have visited your website. On the other hand, a search remarketing campaign is a form of online advertising that targets users based on the keywords and search terms they have used on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

2. Display Retargeting

This type of remarketing allows you to serve ads on other websites and apps that are part of the Google Display Network. This includes YouTube, LinkedIn, Gmail and even CNN.com. Your Google remarketing ads in the form of banner, image and video ads, will be served to people who have previously visited your website, Google My Business profile or social platform. 

Google Adwords makes display remarketing effortless as they have an easy to install Google Remarketing function. You just need to copy the Pixel code to your website, fill out some information and you’re ready to go. Adwords also automatically creates remarketing lists for you, but you can always make a customised list too. Google remarketing ads operate on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis and are one of the most cost-effective ad campaigns available to reach your highly qualified target audience. .

3. Social Retargeting Ads

Social retargeting is a form of remarketing that allows you to serve ads on social media platforms. Your video, text or image ads will be served to people who have previously visited your website or interacted with your brand on social media. The most common social remarketing platforms are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.

Facebook

Facebook Ads Manager is your new best friend. Go to Custom Audiences and click Website Traffic. Here you will find a list of people who have visited your website. Just like Google remarketing, Facebook gives you a Facebook Pixel code to place on your website. Benefits of Facebook remarketing include:

Because Meta owns both, Instagram follows the same retargeting method.

Tik Tok

TikTok has a similar structure to Facebook. You can target both custom audiences and Lookalike Audiences for the highest conversion rate possible. TikTok Ads Manager also has four different bidding methods: cost per mille/thousand impressions (CPM), optimised cost per mille/thousand impressions (oCPM), cost per thousand views (CPV) and cost-per-click (CPC).

Tips for A Successful Remarketing Campaign

1) Clearly Define Your Goals

Are you trying to increase brand awareness, boost website traffic or drive sales? Defining your goals will help you create better ads and effectively measure your success.

2) Segment Your Audience

You can create different ads for different segments of your audience based on their behaviour on your website. For example, you could show one ad to people who visited but didn’t buy anything and another to people who added something to their cart but didn’t check out.

3) Create Compelling Ads

Your ads should be relevant, timely and attention-grabbing to encourage people to click. You can use images, video or text to create your ads. The four things you want to include are an enticing headline, visually striking images, a click-worthy call to action (CTA) and actionable words.

4) Test Your Remarketing Ads

Try out different versions of your ad copy and imagery to see what works best. Then track your results to understand what’s performing well and adjust accordingly. You can measure your success through both engagement and conversion metrics. For example, page visits, how many people open your email or sign up, click-through rate, cost per acquisition (CPA) and sales.

5) Develop Remarketing Audiences

Remarketing audiences can give you insights into what kinds of people are interested in your product or service. You can then use this information to create new marketing campaigns more targeted to your ideal customer.

Remarketing can be a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. But it’s important to remember that it’s just one piece of the digital marketing puzzle. To succeed, you need to have a well-rounded digital marketing strategy that includes a mix of tactics, along with expertly crafted reatargeting campaigns.

Our team of remarketing specialists is here to guide you if you’re uncertain about the initial steps. Reach out to us today to discover more about our remarketing services. 

What strategies have you used for remarketing? What’s been successful for you? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

Remarketing FAQs

What are some effective remarketing strategies?

There are many different ways to approach remarketing, but some of the most effective marketing tactics include:

Remarketing can be used at any stage of the sales funnel. However, it’s most effective when used at the bottom of the funnel, when people are motivated to buy and have already shown interest in your product or service.

The most common way to create remarketing audiences is to use Google Analytics, which allows you to track and analyse your website traffic. You can segment a Google remarketing audience by developing a remarketing list in Google Analytics. This list can be based on factors such as time spent on your website, pages visited and whether they are new or returning visitors.

When website visitors come to your site, Google Analytics drops an anonymous browser cookie on their computer. Later, when that same person is browsing the web, the Google Display Network will recognise this cookie and show targeted ads to potential customers.

Google Ads are simply online advertisements that businesses use to promote their products or services. These ads appear on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) and on websites in the Google Display Network. Businesses can use various targeting options to ensure their ads are shown to the right people at the right time. Without Google Ads, remarketing would not be possible.

The Google Ads network is a group of websites where businesses can display ads. This includes the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) and websites in the Google Display Network. The Google Display Network comprises over two million websites, apps and video content providers and reaches over 90% of internet users worldwide.

The Google search network is the group of websites that includes the Google search engine results pages (SERPs). This is where businesses can display their ads to reach potential customers searching for specific keywords.

Paid search is a form of online advertising that allows you to pay for your ad to be displayed on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs). This type of advertising is also known as search engine marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

The main difference between text ads and display ads is that text ads are generally cheaper to create and run than display ads. Text ads are also less intrusive than display ads, making them more effective. Display ads are more expensive to create and run because they require more design work. However, they can be more effective than text ads because they are more visible and capture potential customers’ attention.

The cost of running ads on digital marketing platforms can vary depending on the features and services they offer. According to WebFX, the average cost for digital marketing services in 2023 ranges from $2500 to $12,000 per month for small-to-midsized businesses. (WebFX) However, the cost of running ads on a specific platform can depend on a number of factors such as the platform’s popularity, target audience, and ad placement.

That being said, LinkedIn is generally considered to be one of the more expensive digital marketing platforms for running ads. The platform allows both CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) advertising, but it is more costly than other online platforms and requires a larger daily budget to be effective. Depending on your targeting criteria and competition on LinkedIn, CPC can start anywhere from $2.00 to $5.00 or more, which is quite high compared to other social networks. (TopDraw, 2021) 

Keep in mind that the pricing of digital marketing platforms changes (increases) over time, so it’s always a good idea to check with the specific platform you are interested in for the most accurate pricing information.

The cost of running ads on digital marketing platforms can vary depending on the features and services they offer. Here’s a breakdown of the estimated costs for running ads on TikTok, Facebook, and Google:

  • TikTok: The cost of running ads on TikTok can vary depending on factors such as the competitiveness of your keywords, industry, and target audience. According to NestScale, some companies have reported CPM (cost per thousand views) numbers ranging from $1.82 to $6.061. TikTok ads generally have significantly cheaper CPMs compared to Google and Facebook.
  • Facebook: The cost of running ads on Facebook is determined via an auction system that takes into account factors such as ad quality and estimated engagement. (AdRoll) On average, across industries, the cost per click (CPC) is approximately $0.44 and the cost per mille (CPM) is around $14.40. However, it’s important to note that these figures are averages and may vary depending on various factors.
  • Google: The cost of running ads on Google depends on factors such as the competitiveness of your keywords, industry, and target audience. According to WebFX, the average cost for digital marketing services in 2023 ranges from $2500 to $12,000 per month for SMEs. (Adroll) However, the cost of running ads on Google can vary significantly based on your specific targeting criteria and competition.

 

Sadly, digital advertising costs increase YoY as the competition and demand for digital services increases,with costs increasing across virtually all major players including Meta, Google, Amazon and TikTok.

 

  • Meta’s cost per thousand (CPM) increased by 61% YoY, reaching an average CPM of USD $17.601.
  • TikTok’s CPM increased by a huge 185% YoY, peaking at an average CPM of USD $9.401.
  • Google also saw programmatic display CPMs increase by 75% YOY, while search ad cost-per-clicks (CPCs) were up by 14% YOY1.
  • Amazon has also seen notable CPC growth for their sponsored products offering, up 14% YOY1.
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