Getting in front of potential customers and existing customers is getting harder and harder. From the consumers perspective, it seems no matter where they turn, there is an advertising message front and center. Shopping carts and bathroom stalls are proof that nothing is off limits for advertising.
And the result, consumers have become "banner blind."
As marketers, how do we make our digital advertising stand out from all the white noise? Simply put, create relevant offers for the right audience. The execution of showing/demonstrating your relevance to the right audience, at the right time, is a wee-bit more involved.
REMARKETING TO THE RESCUE
Remarketing is defined as "tactics of serving targeted ads to potential and existing customers who have visited or completed an action on your website by placing a cookie on their browser. The cookie is used on remarketing platforms to deliver specific display ads through an ad exchange, based on criteria set within each remarketing list."
Here is an example of remarketing at work. Web user John Doe is buying a new car and has decided he would like a cross over, but there are so many to choose from. Ford, Toyota, Subaru, and Chevrolet to name a few. John's first search results in finding the Chevy Equinox. He reads over all the features of the Equinox and even downloads the vehicle brochure on chevrolet.com. John then leaves the site and moves onto the Kelly Blue Book website to continue his research.
But wait, what is this? There is a banner ad on kbb.com for the Chevy Equinox. Then later in the day, John gets on his local new website, low and behold there is a Chevy Equinox ad. He then checks in on Facebook, BAM, another Chevy Equinox ad. And that, in a nutshell, is remarketing.
The beautiful thing about remarketing is that you are marketing to people who have already shown an interest or need for your product or service. You are giving relevant advertising offers or a relevant audience.
Now you know the what, lets move on to the how.
Google Adwords
As the King of the internet, Google Adwords is a powerful tool to use for remarketing efforts. There are a few ways to implement remarketing. The first is within Google Analytics. Using Analytics to help build lists from the data it already collects is a good idea of marketers just getting started. Analytics provides a lot of predetermined remarketing lists to use in your Adwords campaigns. Once you familiarize yourself with how these lists work, you can give custom list building a whirl.
Google Adwords also provides a separate javascript tag you can place just above the "/body" tag on your site what will allow you to build remarketing lists from within Adwords.
Once you have implemented the tag, you can start building your lists and choosing what campaigns and ad groups to assign those specific remarketing lists. A good example of this feature in use is to offer users a different promotion if they already clicked on or converted on a previous offer. You can constantly be offering users different promotions that fit with needs.
Maybe you haven't heard yet, but Facebook just hit 2 BILLION active users! That's a pretty compelling number considering where your marketing (and remarketing) dollars are going to be funneled. Advertisers also get the added bonus of choosing to have their ads displayed on Instagram as well. 2-for-1.
Facebook works in a slightly different way than Google Adwords. When creating audiences for boosting posts or ads, you have 2 options. One is to implement Facebook pixels (Facebook's version of a cookie). Pixels get added to a users browse when they visit your site, use your app, engage on Facebook, or resembles a profile of a customer you upload. You can then build a list to show ads or boost posts and show these to Facebook users when they are scrolling through their news feed.
The second option is to simply build lists off of demographics, age, location, interests, etc. While not as targeted, can still increase your return on investment for running ads.
Facebook has proven to be a successful cornerstone for companies when it comes to social media marketing; and if businesses want to make sure that their target audience sees their content, the best strategy for Facebook is purchasing ads and created remarketing lists.
Remarketing keeps the conversation about your brand going and may just convince that person to buy a product or service you’re offering.
Written by Nikki Wardle
Nikki has a degree in Marketing from Boise State University and worked as an Inbound Marketing Specialist at Tribute Media from 2014 to 2019. She's a Google Whiz and dog lover, now serving as a marketing director for a local veterinary clinic.
