Have you ever wondered: “how come those ads are following me, wherever I go on the web?!”
The technique is called retargeting and, if you spend any time on the web, you’ve almost certainly been retargeted. It’s when you visit a website and then, mysteriously, no matter where you go after that, you see ads for that website.
As a marketing tool it’s very powerful, because of what’s called the “mere-exposure effect.” That’s a psychological phenomenon where people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they’re familiar with them. (Sometimes it’s also called the “familiarity principle.”)
You see, it’s much easier to convert someone who recognizes you, than sell to a ‘cold’ prospect. Studies also show that, unlike most banner ads, a retargeted ad is more likely to be noticed – simply because of the repetition.
And, as with all online marketing, the performance of your retargeting campaign can be measured at every step.
The Two Campaign Types
There are two types of retargeting campaign: ‘pixel-based’ or ‘list-based.’ Each works slightly differently, and each has its advantages.
1. Pixel-based retargeting is a way to reach an anonymous visitor to your website. When they arrive on your page a “cookie” – a hidden snippet of JavaScript (called a pixel) – is placed on their browser.
When they leave your site then, as they surf the web, the cookie notifies retargeting platforms to show them your ads. It can even show different ads, based on specific pages they visited on your website.
Pixel-based retargeting has the advantage of speed: visitors can be retargeted pretty much immediately after leaving your site. It’s also behaviour-based i.e., specific to the particular pages they visited.
The downside to this method is that campaign traffic depends on how often people are visiting your website, viewing certain pages and leaving. So your campaign success relies on marketing efforts to draw people to your website.
2. The list-based retargeting method works if you already have your prospects’ contact details in your database. That is, you know who they are.
You upload a list of email addresses into a retargeting campaign, usually on Facebook or Twitter, and the platform will match those addresses to their users. Then it shows your ads just to them.
So it’s based on more than behaviour — you actually choose who goes on the list.
The downside is that someone on your list might give you one email address, but use a different address to sign up for their social networks. This means they won’t see your retargeting ad.
Retargeting Goals
Retargeting campaigns are wonderfully flexible. You can run them either for awareness or for conversion.
I recommend awareness campaigns for when you want to re-engage with your website visitors and remind them about your product or service.
There’s a catch: with an awareness campaign you’re serving less-targeted content to people who may have only briefly visited your website. So perhaps they’re not engaged with your brand, product or service.
Conversion campaigns focus on just that – you want someone to click on your ad and take an action step. You can even offer a direct call-to-action incentive, such as a free trial.
“How do I use retargeting?”
Like any other online marketing technique, it’s often easier to have retargeting campaigns set up and managed for you, in which case you would expect to pay a monthly management fee on top of your ‘ad spend.’
Contact me for a chat and together we can look at whether or not retargeting would be a good idea for your business.