Get Started Remarketing Today! Part Two
This is a two-part series designed to help you get started remarketing today! Keep reading or go back to Part One: What is Remarketing? And How to prepare for it now.
Now that you know what remarketing is, the value of it to your business and how to prepare for it the next step is to actually do it! Don’t worry if you are not quite sure where to start the important thing is to get started. You can adjust your campaigns as you learn.
Plan your remarketing campaigns
As with all marketing campaigns when planning for your remarketing campaigns you should start with the customer. Think about the types of people who visit your website and their behaviour patterns. Take a look at your Google Analytics to get more insight.
Your remarketing lists will be made up of these user behaviour patterns. Remember your campaigns can target and exclude more than one list at a time. Remarketing, and targeting, in general, is a series of ands and ors. People who did A or B and did not do C etc.
Take the time to sit down with a pen and paper to map out your target audiences.
Once you’ve examined your user flows and defined audiences from them it’s important to think about the type of campaigns which will resonate with each of these audiences.
Are your audiences in the awareness, consideration or purchase intent stage of their buyer journey? If they are ready to buy chances are they don’t want to read a blog article about your brand. Similarily if they are just starting to think about your product or service then they won’t appreciate a hard-sell product-focused remarketing ad.
Creating a Google remarketing campaign
Google Display campaigns
Display campaigns are probably the most common and recognisable form of remarketing. These are image or rich media ads which appear on the Google Display Network. The Google display network encompasses a huge volume of sites across the internet.
Display ads are a great way of keeping your brand top of mind for a remarketing audience. Invest in quality images with calls to action that are relevant to the audience.
You can pay for your remarketing display ads in a variety of ways: Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM), Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Aquisition (CPA). Decide your bidding strategy depending on the goals of your campaign as aligned to their stage in the buyer journey. If you’re uncertain Cost Per Click is generally a safe bet.
One drawback to Google Display remarketing is that it can sometimes lead to over-exposure causing users to become irritated by seeing the same ad over and over again. To counteract this (and save money!) you can add ‘frequency capping’ to your campaigns which puts a limit on the number of times a user can see an ad in a given time period.
Google Video campaigns
Video is a great tool for engaging your remarketing audiences. Google video ads show on YouTube and across the Google Display Network. There are a variety of formats available:
In-stream ads run before, during, or after other videos on YouTube or across Display Network sites, games, or apps. After 5 seconds, the viewer has an option to skip the ad.
Video discovery ads are shown on YouTube when people are browsing videos. When a viewer clicks the thumbnail for your ad, your video plays.
Non-skippable in-stream ads are 15 seconds or less, and cannot be skipped by viewers.
Bumper ads are designed for awareness being just 6 seconds or less and non-skippable.
Outstream ads are only available on mobile and tablet to extend reach beyond YouTube.
Google Search campaigns
It’s worthwhile creating search campaigns for your remarketing audiences.
For example, you may want to add a higher bid for searchers who have already visited your website. It can also be valuable to use different search ad copy depending on the remarketing audience while still remaining relevant to the search term.
Finally, you may want to create a special offer for people who have shown a high purchase intent previously and direct them to a dedicated campaign landing page.
Creating a Facebook remarketing campaign
Facebook can be a surprisingly powerful remarketing tool allowing brands to engage their audiences in creative ways.
One of the unique advantages of remarketing through Facebook as compared to Google is in the constancy of the Facebook Pixel over the Google Cookie. Because most of us stay logged in to Facebook all the time, usually on our mobile phones this means that the Facebook pixel is always active and ready to advertise to us.
However, there’s also a significant challenge associated with retargeting, and advertising in general, on Facebook. Facebook is a social media platform where people go to have fun.
Facebook is a platform where you are the party-crasher and if you don’t want to get thrown out you better have brought some beer. You can do this by creating engaging advertising (video is particularly effective), running competitions or trying a less commercial more fun or informative approach to re-engage your audience.
Remarketing when correctly implemented is not invasive, but can, in fact, be used to reduce the total amount of advertising which we are all exposed to and make what we do see more relevant to us. So go on, give it a go and be relevant to your audience.
Get Started Remarketing Today! Part One | Part Two