Retargeting ads are good for conversions, as you remind them about what they’re interested in, reach them when they need to hear from you, and gather statistics to optimize your campaign.
But it’s experience that has taught us the truth – which is that for almost all site visitors, it just isn’t true. This is where retargeting comes in.
As a proven conversion driver from window shoppers, retargeted ads that target the right demographic can be a business game-changer for you.
They’re banners that appear all over the internet for people who have come to your website or otherwise shown an interest in your brand but aren’t yet customers.
What is retargeting?
Retargeting is a marketing method where ads are shown to the individual who has already visited a website or brand.
Retargeting is based on cookies or pixels to monitor your user behaviour and serve appropriate ads across websites and platforms.
If, for instance, you come to an online store but never buy anything, you will also get retargeted ads for the same products when you come back.
Ad retargeting keeps your business front of mind for prospective customers and drives conversions.
How do retargeting ads work?
Ad retargeting: Ad retargeting is a marketing strategy by which an advertiser displays ads to those users that already indicated interest in their service or product.
It does so by adding a little code to the advertiser’s website called a pixel or tag. This pixel tracks the visitor’s activity like landing page they go to, products they browse or actions they take (like shopping cart).
If you leave the site and don’t buy something, the pixel stores this data.
The advertiser can then use this information to target you with advertisements on different websites and channels reminding you of the products that interested you.
Suppose you’re ordering a pair of shoes online. You go to a certain website, check out the styles, maybe purchase a pair.
Then you get bored or don’t make a purchase immediately.
You click away from the site, and you see ads for those same shoes or that online store on other sites such as news portals or social media.
Here is ad retargeting at work.
You want to get you back to their website and convert (buying).
Different types of retargeting ads
Let’s discuss 5 retargeting ads.
- Display retargeting: This type of retargeting usually targets users who have clicked on an image ad (Display Ads from Google Display Network or GDN). e.g., if you browse an online clothes store and go away without buying anything, advertisements may appear for their products on other websites you’re browsing.
- Search retargeting (RLSA, search ads remarketing lists): Targeted ads using cookies or email lists that show to people who have visited a website in the past. So, for example, if a user shops in a shoe store and then search for a related term later (such as “women’s boots”) the advertiser can leverage RLSAs to bid higher on that particular search term. This is competitive for search ads as they attract targeted audiences.
- Email retargeting: Targets audience with emails from customers that are already shopping or have visited but never clicked. First-party user data that is provided by a user signing up to your newsletter. They’re loyal customers who bring in lots of ROAS if you advertise in different search engines and on social media platforms.
- Retargeting via social media: In social media tools such as Meta (Facebook Ads & Instagram Ads), the advertisers can retarget the user based on social media engagement, email list, website visits, sales history, etc. If you were a follower of a brand or went to their profile, you might have seen their ads on your newsfeed.
- Dynamic remarketing campaigns: This feature creates ads in real-time according to the products or services that the user’s browsing about on your website or mobile app, and then adjusts the ads to meet the user’s liking. If a user just saw sunglasses, for example, it’ll show you the products or services that they saw with custom messages.
The distinction Between Retargeting and Remarketing.
Retargeting has also merged with remarketing in recent years. (We have both in the sentence above.)
This has caused some to interchange the two terms, and that’s OK and okay.
Retargeting and remarketing are the same, both are strategies for returning customers and only slight differences exist between them.
Remarketing is a type of email outreach to re-target website visitors and ex-consumers who find a product or service online and subscribe to its mailing list.
This example email marketing piece is sent by Mt. Capra to subscribers of its email list who lose items in their cart:
Retargeting, on the other hand, employs ads in paid media like paid search or social ads to attract consumers who engaged with your brand.
But it doesn’t use one, but a number of them, from Meta, to Google Ads, to Microsoft Advertising, to Yahoo, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Here’s an ad example from LinkedIn:
Retargeting ads are shown to customers who recently did some activity on or off your site but did not convert. This can be in the first visit and second visit of the user.
Have you ever clicked on something like headphones as you’re browsing the web and just left it out of your cart?
If you are on another site like Facebook and you get a pop-up ad for that same item, you were in a cart abandonment campaign.
Retargeting and remarketing are tried and tested techniques to make customers more likely to convert. Retargeted website traffic is even 70% more likely to convert!
So now that we’ve explained the retargeting vs remarketing difference, let’s get into the 4 steps of how to make a retargeting ad.
What Are Retargeting Ads How to Create a Retargeting Ads Campaign.
Have you decided to build your first retargeting campaign? We’ll get you up and running — just do this:
1. Identify your retargeting audience
For every advertisement campaign you need an audience to choose from. Otherwise, you will be receiving clicks that do not matter from upconverters.
‘The biggest error that companies make with retargeting is creating the generic retargeting ads for their entire audience’, says Rachel Corak, associate director of search engine marketing at HawkSEM.
“The best retargeting ads start by getting an idea of who is the subset audience, so you can build catered assets that’ll please them.”
Suppose Nordstrom were to have a sale on shoes, for instance, their ROI would be higher if you could focus on those who browsed the shoes category of Nordstrom’s website instead of all the people who ever went on its site.
2. Determine advertising platforms
Like with any online marketing campaign, you have to make sure what you say appeals to the right people. You also want it to appear where they go online.
And the same thing applies for your retargeting ads. Choose which ad networks are going to be most helpful in retargeting your target users.
Most popular advertising platforms are Google, Microsoft and social media. Learn about your audience demographics and behavior to see which platform works best for retargeting ads.
You’ll be able to know your target audience so you can put the right people at the right time with the right message. This way you won’t have to stress that you’re wasting your budget on crappy ads.
3. Collect data for retargeting campaigns
Retargeting ads appear when the user does something. How then, do you know these are the people who see your ads?
Having data for the actions you are wanting is what will drive your retargeting campaign.
The most common way of getting this data is pixels or manually curated lists. You may have to know a little techie about how to install a tracking pixel.
Connect if you need to, with your trusted tech or dev teams, or marketing agency you collaborate with, to make this all work.
Retargeting an email list is also another way to reach out to those who already know about your brand so you can keep developing long term connections.
Retargeting pixels
A pixel is code you insert into the HTML on your website, product page, online advertising, or email.
After that, it starts collecting various visitor data and metrics from their browsers and forwards the data to the favourite advertising platform.
If a visitor leaves the page without performing the desired action, your advertiser partners will be informed that they should be shown relevant retargeting ads.
This approach is a quick, and at the end of the day, hands-free way to get your ads seen by the right people.
Retargeting lists
List based targeting means that you can reconnect with the customers or site visitors whose emails you have already harvested (perhaps by way of a sign-up or free trial).
An CRM solution is one of the best solutions to develop a structured contact list to be retargeted with.
Even if you like to do it the old-fashioned way by signing up with an in-person signature, a CRM will organise those emails.
Now that you have your contact list (or saved on your phone), submit it to your ad platform. After adding this group, they should see your retargeting ads on the internet.
4. Set your retargeting goal
Like with all marketing efforts, before retargeting, you need to set objectives. Two objectives are similar — to gain brand/product recognition and convert previous visitors.
An awareness campaign can be used to inform customers about new products or other announcements.
This target will usually have a bigger following of those who have recently made an acquaintance with your business. This is why it’s perfect to test before a conversion campaign.
Conversion campaigns: Guests are those who have engaged with your company or services but have not yet taken the purchase step. These ads are designed to target the past visitor to convert into future purchase.
From the audience segmentation you have figured out for retargeting to perform, and so on. Some segment examples include:
- Visitor of specific pages
- Frequency of site visits
- Existing customers
- Cart abandoners
- Past converters
Targeting your audience means you’ll be talking to the right audiences who will deliver on your retargeting objectives.
5. Optimize your retargeting ads
We’re not fans of the “set it and forget it” approach, you know. Because we know that making your ads work is the secret of a great campaign, whatever type of campaign it may be.
In a good retargeting ad, you might use something like some high impact images, videos and text that is connected to the ad topic that grabs the viewer’s attention such as the ad product or service featured.
These are some things you need to consider if you want your retargeting ads to make an impact:
- Catchy headline: Think about it: is the headline compelling? Does it depend on what someone did on your website? And is it for the right demographic?
- Eye-catching media: Be it photo, animation, video or whatever, keep it pertinent to the ad copy and previous interaction with your site.
- Simple copy: Copy, copy, copy, you don’t want it long. If people don’t know what is in it for them to look at your ad quickly, they’ll move on to the next thing and click away from your ad.
- CTA (Clickable Call to Action): If you’re offering a newsletter signup, a webinar signup or any other actionable CTA, be sure your audience knows what to do next with an actionable CTA button.
Another way is to work with HawkSEM’s team (yes, that’s us!).
We help businesses drive traffic, leads, and conversions with ad retargeting. Consider Grayson Living, a luxury furniture company in Beverly Hills.
They had come to us for their ecommerce store sales growth. So what did we do?
We executed retargeting ads, custom landing pages, and feed optimization. The results: 279% rise in sales for the first year and 11% rise in average order value.
Types of ad retargeting strategies
The opportunity is there to reconnect with your consumers. So how should one do this? Here are some (not all) of our HawkSEM favourites:
1. Search retargeting:
- Customizes based on the site interaction activity of the user.
- Display ads to people who have visited the site in the past.
- Enables targeting of users who expressed an interest in products or services of the corresponding interest.
2. CTV/cross-channel retargeting:
- Advertises to people on multiple devices and platforms, including Connected TV (CTV)
- Offers ads to users who have visited a brand on multiple sites.
- Improves brand awareness and builds content with cross-channel alignment.
3. Social retargeting:
- Sensitizes according to the users who use social media, or visit the website.
- Offers ads to visitors who have visited a brand’s pages, clicked on their profiles or browsed the website.
Allows you to message based on social media actions and interests.
4. Conversion retargeting:
- Shows content to people who have performed certain actions before in a site.
- Shows ad based on previous purchase/form completion or other types of conversion.
- Targets conversion or getting users to do what they want, again and again.
5. Retargeting audiences for exclusion:
- Don’t allow users to be targeted in particular campaigns.
- Advertisements do not appear to users who have already made the purchase or done the action you desire.
- Ensures proper spend on ads as new possible customers.
6. Retargeting existing customers:
- Displays on the customers that have made a purchase from your site at least once.
- Shows upsells, cross-sells and any other products or services they might want to buy next. Based on previous purchases Ads shown in context of previous purchases Upsells, Cross-sells, and other items or services they may want to buy next.
- Drives repeat purchase to get most ROI of campaigns and retain brand loyalists coming back.
With these ads retargeting tactics, SMBs can boost their advertising budget and target those who already expressed interest — increasing long-term brand awareness, engagement, and conversions.
Top retargeting tools and platforms
We’re all for software platforms and tools to take a certain job off your hands and streamline campaigns.
Here are a few retargeting tools at your disposal:
- AdRoll
- Remerge.io
- Mountain
- Criteo
- Google Ads Manager
- Outbrain
- Meta Advantage+ (aka Facebook Retargeting Ads Manager)
- SharpSpring
The takeaway
Retargeting ads are so much good. Retargeting campaigns can maximize your ROI with a targeted audience who are already interested in your brand or product if used well.
Retargeting allows you to target exactly your customers wherever they are most active in your campaigns thanks to the versatility.