Remarketing is tricky because there is a fine line between appealing and annoying. Too much remarketing or the wrong kind turns off potential customers—but the right amount of remarketing, skillfully delivered, can produce conversion rates substantially higher than the typical SEO, PPC and email marketing campaign. Here are important guidelines for executing an effective remarketing campaign:
Segment Your Audience
If you deliver the same ad to every visitor to your website, your message will be watered down, welcome by some but unwelcome by many. Site visitors can be categorized in many ways: by time spent on a page, product page(s) viewed, forms submitted, number of visits to the site—to name some of the most common.
Shape Messages to Each Audience Segment
A first-time site visitor who spends just a little time on a few pages is probably a “tire kicker”—that is, not ready to buy. If that’s the case, a hard-sell remarketing ad will be perceived as premature and overly aggressive. Result: a potential customer becomes a disaffected non-prospect.
At the other end of the spectrum, if a visitor has abandoned your shopping cart in midstream, he or she has clearly demonstrated intent to purchase. In such a case, an ad offering 25% off on relevant products may be extremely well received and result in an immediate online sale.
Test Systematically
If your remarketing campaign includes effective testing, it will improve month after month. Important items to test include ad design, ad content, ad format and calls to action. While there are many variables to test, it is wise to change only one variable at a time; otherwise, you will not be able to tell which change produced an increase or decrease in conversions.
Limit Ad Frequency
If website visitors see your remarketing ads every time they go online, they will be annoyed or completely creeped out. As with inappropriate ad messages, overly high ad frequency turns potential customers into former prospects. Ad displays to a visitor can be limited based on, for instance, a number of times per day or a number of visits to your website.
Limit Ad Destinations
Having your ad display on certain types of websites can undermine your brand image. For instance, if your e-commerce site sells baby food, you probably don’t want your remarketing ad displayed on “adult” websites.
Use Strong Calls to Action
Display advertising of all kinds is frequently ignored, and there is a lot of bad display advertising cluttering websites. As a result, your remarketing ad needs a very strong call to action to get people’s attention and motivate them to act.
A strong call to action is simple and compelling. For instance, “25% off any purchase” is simple and compelling, whereas “5% off Product A until December 31, quantities limited, credit card only” is complicated and marginally interesting — in fact, you’d probably lose most prospects after “5%.”
Have Powerful Landing Pages
When users click on your remarketing ad, where they land makes the difference between a sale and a useless conversion. Effective landing pages have several key characteristics:
- Content completely relevant to the ad
- Persuasive copy giving visitors strong reasons to buy
- Easy to use submission forms (or shopping cart)
- Visually engaging and relevant imagery
Companies err by directing remarketing ad clicks to the website home page or a generic “products” page. This forces the visitor to click to another page or otherwise figure out how to take action. Most users won’t do it, so sales opportunities are quickly lost.
If your current remarketing campaign is underperforming, don’t lose heart. If any of the elements listed above are missing from your campaign, you can add them, all at once or gradually as your budget allows, and see conversion rates improve.
Straight North is a paid search agency that assists e-commerce companies with their retargeting campaigns.
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