What is Remarketing?
Have you ever visited a website and then for days afterwards saw adverts related to that website? If so, then you've seen remarketing at work. In simple terms, remarketing is the ability to show ads to people who have visited your website; but there is more to it than just that. Remarketing is a form of Display Advertising and is most common on either Google or Facebook.
How does Remarketing target ads?
There are lots of different ways to choose targets (audiences) for your remarketing ads, depending on the platform you are using. Let's look at the main audiences:
Google Ads
- People who have visited your website or a specific section of your website
- People who did something on your website, such as download a file or watch a video
- People who have visited your site several times or for the first time
- People who bought something on your site
- A list of your customers
- People with similar characteristics as your customers (Like Audiences)
Facebook Ads
- People who have visited your website or a specific section of your website
- People who did something on your website, such as download a file or watch a video
- People who have visited your site several times or for the first time
- People who bought something on your site
- A list of your customers
- People with similar characteristics as your customers (Like Audiences)
- People who engaged with your Facebook page
Once you've decided on what you want to target you can further refine via demographics, traffic sources, technology used and a range of other characteristics. From this you create what's known as an audience list to advertise to.
How does Remarketing show ads?
Most remarketing ads are display ads. This means you need to create a design that meets the platforms' pre-requisites for layout, size and shape.
Upload your own ad graphics
Traditionally with remarketing ads you needed to design your own ads and then make sure you had versions of these for all the different sizes and shapes where the platform may show the ad. The advantage of this was you had complete control over how your ads looked, but the downside was it meant a lot more work creating all these ads. The good news is there are platforms out there that will help streamline this process.
Responsive display ads
To further streamline the process, Google introduced responsive display ads. With these you only need to upload a logo, an image, a headline and a brief blurb and Google will create your ad when it is shown on a website. The big advantage of these is obviously they are quick and easy, but the downside is you lose some control over how the ad will look.
Dynamic display ads
These remarketing ads are specifically for showing products on an ecommerce website. These are those ads where you see a product that you had been looking at recently on a website.
The advantages of Remarketing
The main reason you would run remarketing is to improve your conversions. In most cases (like audiences excepted), remarketing is about showing ads to people who have already visited your website or Facebook page. So you aren't reaching out to new people who don't know who you are. So unlike normal marketing, which is about getting your business out there in front of people, remarketing is about following up with people you've already found.
So remarketing is all about conversions. You want to keep your business in front of someone who may already be considering your products and services. This could be something as simple as your business name and products, or more creative, like a special offer to try and convert.
Isn't Remarketing a bit creepy?
This is a comment we hear all the time. The short answer is YES, if it is done incorrectly. When you set up a remarketing campaign, you choose how often to show the ads and for how long. If you choose to follow someone around every day for weeks on end, then it can be a bit stalkerish.
If we consider traditional marketing, we used to say that on average someone had to see your business 7 times before they would buy from you. This meant that they saw your ad in the paper, heard it on the radio, saw a vehicle etc before they felt comfortable enough to buy from you. Remarketing is the same process, except you have a lot more control over it.
What about email remarketing, is there such a thing?
Yes there is. There are platforms that can trigger when someone on your customer database visits your website so that it sends an email to them. This is similar in concept to the above, but a email is sent instead of showing display ads.
So if done correctly, remarketing is a very powerful tool for increasing your conversions. It is especially powerful for products or services that generally have a longer lead time before someone makes a purchase decision; for example a solar system or ducted air conditioning. Conversely, it doesn't work as well for products or services that people make decisions quickly; such as a blocked drain.