Whether you have heard of “retargeting” or not, you’ve more than likely seen it while you are browsing the web.
You visit your favorite online retailer and minutes after you’ve left you see an ad for their site again, or even an ad for the product you were viewing. Likely the ad jumped out at you because it is aligned with a specific interest you have. This is the very principle that makes retargeting (aka remarketing) so effective. For all the complaints that retargeting is creepy, data repeatedly shows us how consistently effective it is.
1. It Provides a 100% Open Rate
We have been told for years that email marketing is king in online advertising, and actually a true opt-in email subscriber list is gold for any company generating leads or sales. But email marketing has its share of drawbacks. For instance, most marketers experience open rates that generally peak at 30% (national average is 13%). For a list of 10,000 subscribers, that means only 3,000 are opening the email in most best-case scenarios, with the average being 1,300. Of the population that opens the email, generally less than 25% click through on the links in the email. In the end, you may see 750 responses from your 10,000-member list – at best. From experience, we know we should not email our list more than once or twice per week – at most.
With retargeting, we flip this whole dynamic on its head.
Rather than asking our visitors to opt-in or subscribe, we automatically add them to our retargeting pool. Less than 3% of Internet users understand how to opt-out of retargeting, so generally about 97% of your website visitors are now available for you to continue to market. And rather than contacting them once or twice in a week or once a month, you can control the frequency of contact via retargeting ads over hours, days, weeks or even longer. Since your ads appear on other websites, including premium news websites and digital properties, it means your visitors continue to see the offer you present and in a context that lends credibility.
2. Retargeting Keeps the Sales Cycle Rolling
On our websites sometimes we get carried away with our own industry jargon and making sure to say the things we think are important to potential customers. But reality is that customers are concerned about one thing – what they want to know. Often, they don’t care who you are until they know you can deliver what they want.
Most lead generation programs require multiple touches to develop a qualified lead. Before retargeting, once a visitor came to your website, if they didn’t complete the form, subscribe, or make an inquiry, that user was lost. The conversation was over before it really got started.
Let’s face it: we can’t sell them if we can’t talk to them.
Using retargeting smartly, we can pose new and thoughtful questions designed to deliver your value proposition even after they have left your website. If the user did not engage with your sales-critical content on your website, retargeting gives you the chance to introduce it directly to them and bring them back to it. Now you are back to controlling the sales conversation.
3. You Get (Quick) Feedback About What Prospects Want to Know
On our websites sometimes we get carried away with our own industry jargon and making sure to say the things we think are important to potential customers. But reality is that customers are concerned about one thing – what they want to know.
Often, they don’t care who you are until they know you can deliver what they want.
The hiccup is that they often don’t stay on your website long enough to get all the details. Maybe they get frustrated not seeing the key words or phrases that matter to them, even though they are part of your offer.
With retargeting we can take the information that potential customers really need and add them to your ad creative. By measuring click-through rates for each ad, we can determine which of those messages matters the most to them. They tell us what they want by their click actions. And we can use that data to improve all of your other advertising and marketing initiatives.
4. It Enables Us to Create Multiple Funnels with One Prospect
If you are generating leads, then you’re familiar with lead funnels. It’s the process of taking a potential customer from research to inquiry. Depending on your business, this can involve multiple steps. Each step is critical to putting the prospect on the right path to a meaningful conversion.
With retargeting, we can move a potential customer from one sales funnel to another based on interactions with your ads and your landing pages. We create rules through the system to segment users based on their ad clicks. Progression from one funnel to the next can take a potential customer through a more sophisticated sales process so that when they reach the point of contact they are ready to buy.
5. Retargeting Lets Us Segment Prospects by Their Behavior
Admittedly, this use of retargeting is more advanced, but the power is quite fantastic. Through this setup we actually form groups of users based on the page-level interactions they have had on the website.
For example, if they visit the product page, but not the service page, we may need to segment that user to identify them as such. This user would be valued differently than a user who had seen both, and therefore should see different messaging.
By segmenting your users we can laser-target your ads to those audiences more appropriately, and have the ideal conversation to drive them further into the sales funnel.
Selecting the Right Retargeting System
Before you begin your retargeting program, there’s one last detail that is important to note.
Not all retargeting systems are created the same.
They do not all offer the same level of tracking you require, nor do most systems offer any strategy or consultation on the funnels you want to create. The value of a strategic agency in developing and deploying your retargeting program is vital to your success.
At Altitude Marketing, we understand retargeting strategy and understand how to put it to work for you in a way that works with your brand’s overarching messaging, so contact us today.
