Today, customers have more choices than ever before when it comes to where they shop and take their business. They’re browsing the internet from various devices, channels, and platforms, and demands are increasing. Because of this, brands need to go the extra mile to turn their website visitors into customers.

Enter retargeted advertising.

What Is Retargeted Advertising?

Retargeted advertising helps keep your brand in front of potential customers–even after they’ve left your website. By targeting these former website visitors with specific ads on other websites and search engines like Facebook and Google, you’re able to build brand awareness, stay in front of the consumer, and bring them back to your website.

The ultimate goal of retargeted advertising is to get visitors to come back to your website and convert them from visitors to customers. When you’re able to optimize your ad campaigns to include retargeted advertising, you’re able to tap into additional marketing power that will help convince a new visitor to give your brand another look.

How Does Retargeted Advertising Work?

Retargeting campaigns utilize “cookies” that are embedded as code on your website. Cookies are small pieces of data stored by web browsers that record data about the users who have visited your website, webpage, or interacted with your advertisements. 

This data can then be used by a marketing team to deliver advertisements to those users again. When retargeted advertising runs efficiently, after a user leaves your site, they’ll begin to see your ads in other places, like when they’re reading an article, browsing other stores, even listening to music, or browsing social media.

Delivering this relevant and personalized type of ads to users who’ve previously interacted with your brand helps increase brand awareness and adds to your total conversions. 

Why Use Retargeted Advertising?

It’s important to note–these days, most visitors don’t convert the first time they visit your website. In fact, depending on your industry, most users have to see your brand 7 to 12 times before they even recall your brand image. Retargeted advertising can help you expedite that process.

• Capitalize on Expressed Interested

Visitors have already expressed an interest in your brand. They’ve browsed your website but weren’t ready to purchase at the time. Filtering these browsers into a retargeting campaign helps keep your brand at the front of their mind until they’re ready to convert. 

• Increase Brand Awareness

Rather than waiting on your customers to naturally or organically come back around to your website, you can go back to them. This is especially important for new visitors who are likely shopping your competitors too. Through retargeting, you can get and stay in front of website visitors, encouraging them to come back and make a purchase.

• Improve Your Ads With Data

Using the data collected by those cookies embedded on your site, you’re able to segment your audience in ways that can improve your advertising. However, should you choose to retarget these prospects, you’ll have access to data that will help you create relevant ads and experiences that drive sales.

• Leverage the Power of Automation

By automating your retargeting efforts, you can capture customers’ attention and recapture sales as these automations run in the background. This frees up time and human resources to focus on other important business and marketing endeavors, all while increasing visits and conversions. 

How Does Retargeting Fit Into An Existing Marketing Strategy?

The more channels you leverage in your marketing strategy, the less likely consumers are to drop out of your sales funnel.  

By targeting customers on multiple channels, you increase the opportunity for customers to convert. When you deliver a cohesive brand image and message across multiple channels, you’re driving more traffic and building brand awareness.

Retargeting can be used through the customer’s journey with your brand. It’s not only about new visitors, but getting those return visitors. Why? Because visitors who are served retargeted advertisements are 70% more likely to convert. 

There are two primary goals with retargeted ad campaigns: awareness and conversion.

Awareness: top of funnel awareness campaigns are used to introduce new visitors to your brand, products, and services. These ads are generally targeted to individuals who have not previously visited your website or engaged with your brand.

Conversion: conversion campaigns target individuals who are more familiar with your brand but haven’t yet become a customer. These campaigns can be broad, by highlighting an ongoing special, or hyper-targeted by displaying a product the prospect viewed.

Types of Retargeted Advertising

1. Pixel-based Retargeting 

Pixel-based retargeting refers to the code placed on a website, so when a visitor comes to your site, the pixel places an anonymous browser cookie in their browser. This cookie then notifies your retargeting platform when a visitor leaves your site. Providers such as Google AdWords and Facebook use this as a cue to start serving ads to them.

1. List-based Retargeting 

List-based retargeting allows you to utilize an existing list of contacts to serve specific ads to. Retargeting users in your existing database helps you identify users on social networks and is another way to keep your brand top of mind for consumers.

Segments to Retarget

The success of your retargeting campaign relies on how you decide to segment your audience. For your campaigns to drive the results you need, you must create the following audience segments: 

1. Behavioral Segments 

When segmenting based on browsing behavior, it’s essential to differentiate between interested and disinterested visitors. This is usually easily determined by how much time they spend on your website. If they bounce quickly, they’re likely not interested. If they stay around, visit several pages or products, they’re more likely to be interested in what you have to offer. Once you’ve discovered your interested customers, you can further segment them to determine which type of retargeting ad they see. Soft-sell campaigns should be used for customers visiting low intent pages. For high intent pages such as product or pricing pages, you can deliver a hard-sell campaign. 

1.  Time-based Segments 

Always filter out the shorter visits amongst your customers when segmenting. Then, use your remaining data to discover the difference between browsing and consideration. This will help you identify which type of campaign to serve. You’ll then have a good idea of which customers are high intent or low intent.

You can adjust the length of time visitors are enrolled in your retargeting campaign. If your customer journey is longer because you’re a B2B brand or you sell high-ticket items, you may want to extend the duration of your campaign. You can also amend the frequency with which shoppers see your ads. 

1. Existing Customer Segments 

Targeting existing contacts can yield fantastic results. By segmenting this audience according to personas, you can establish the inactive from the big spenders. Inactive and lapsed customers are perfect for a win-back campaign, reminding them why they were interested in your brand to begin with. You can also use this segment to align your retargeting ads with your marketing campaigns. If you’re launching a new product or sale, targeting existing customers who are more likely to convert is a great way to boost sales. 

Ultimately, retargeting campaigns are a great way to start or supplement your multichannel marketing strategy. They provide some of the best opportunities available to marketers today to build brand awareness and stay top of mind for existing customers.

If you’re looking for more advice on capturing customers, dive into our new Marketing Resources Page full of free tools to help you grow your brand!