Retargeting is one of the newer kids on the street when it comes to internet marketing, and as display technology keeps improving, retargeting offers more and more benefits to businesses, and it definitely looks like its not going away anytime soon.
The original method of retargeting is a fairly simple process of bringing back prospects to your website that did not convert into customers the first time around. The graphic below shows how this works:
- User visits your website with retargeting pixel
- Web surfer visits other popular websites
- Your ad gets served to users as they are surfing other websites
- User can click your offer to bring them back to your sites
Retargeting is simple in theory, but the strategy you decide on can get quite complex depending on what your goals are. Segmenting your retargeting campaign by using different ad creatives is very important for pinpointing your message. Using different ad creative for different product pages on your site based on demographics, or target your homepage that has a lot of traffic.
Audience Segmenting
In addition, you will want to be “burning” your prospects that end up converting, which stops them from getting the retargeting message. Also, be careful about the frequency of your ads to each user. Retargeting can give your campaign a hugely negative impression if the same people get way too many ads from you.
Businesses can segment their retargeting message so visitors of different parts of your page can get delivered a different message. This is great if you sell multiple products with different demographics… Deliver them different ad creative and send to different optimized landing pages.
Other types of Retargeting
Search Retargeting is a newer technology that puts a new spin on traditional ways of retargeting… In this case, the person probably never visited your website before. The retargeting occurs based on the user searching on search engines and targeting their search queries in order to serve them advertisements.
IP Targeting – Target by specific company, neighborhood, or cable provider… This can even be used to target employees of certain companies.
3rd Party Data-Mining – Examples of this type of retargeting include targeting travelers to certain cities. Many companies like Orbitz resell travel information for companies to use to retarget users.
Ask Yourself: Is Retargeting Right for Your Business?
Do you have a long sales cycle? Do you have an expensive product/service compared to other industries? Do your customers research a lot before making a purchase? Do you have many repeat clients/customers?
If you said yes to any of these, your business could definitely benefit from retargeting. Education and Auto are examples of industries that can benefit greatly from retargeting.
If not, retargeting could still be a possibility. Just think of the 98% of internet traffic that is unconverted. Bring that traffic back to your site and earn the business the 2nd time around.
