So, what is remarketing and how can businesses use it to convert more people into customers or clients?
Remarketing is a form of advertising that allows you to re-engage with visitors who have previously visited your website. The way this works is you add a small piece of code to your website which adds a cookie to the visitor’s browser. Following this you can display ads to that visitor, to continue marketing your products or services.
If you are using Google ads as your remarketing channel, this will mean you can retarget people as they visit websites across the web that serve Google ads. This type of advertising is known as display advertising and consists of millions of websites that partner with Google to display ads. This also includes YouTube.
How much does remarketing cost?
This is going to depend on a variety of factors including:
- Industry
- Your budget
- Current site visitor volume
- Frequency capping
- Etc.
However, remarketing is usually extremely cost effective compared with other forms of advertising, such as search advertising. There are several reasons for this, but mainly it is due to display traffic being far cheaper, and the fact that you are targeting people who have already expressed an interest in your business.
It is not uncommon to see conversions costing far less than your existing search campaigns.
The thing you need to remember, is not everyone that visits your site is ready to buy something on their first visit. Some people will be actively looking to buy right now. However, others may be doing some research, with the goal of learning more and buying later. By using remarketing, you can continue to advertise to the people that didn’t convert.
When used effectively remarketing allows you to stay top of mind with potential customers. This means that when they are ready to buy, they are more likely to choose you, rather than one of your competitors.
What is remarketing for search ads?
Up until now we have been talking about remarketing via the display network, but Google do give you the opportunity to remarket to people via search also.
The way this works is similar to standard remarketing, however you are targeting people who have already visited your website with more search ads via Google. This can have several benefits including:
- Cheaper CPC’c
- Higher click through rates
- And obviously increased conversion rates
The other good thing is you can target these people with a broader list of keywords. As you are retargeting, you already know they are interested in the service you are offering, so you can use broader keywords and match types, to appear for a wider variety of searches they may perform related to your business.
How to set up Google ads Remarketing
To use remarketing, you will need to create a new campaign in your Google ads account. To get started, navigate to the campaigns tab in your Google ads account and click on the blue add campaign button.
Next you will need to select a goal and campaign type:
Select “create a campaign without goal guidance and choose display. Just below this you can choose to create a standard display campaign, or a Gmail campaign. Select standard display campaign.
On the next page you will need to name your campaign choose your bidding strategy and give it a budget.
On the same page you will also need to create an ad group, this is where we define who we will be targeting.
Under audiences you want to select “How they have interacted with your business (Remarketing and similar audiences)”.
If you already have your Google site tag added to your site Google will automatically create a list called “All visitors”.
By selecting All visitors, you will automatically be targeting everyone who has visited your website in the last 30 days. You can also create new lists with duration’s of up to 540 days by visiting your audience manager in the tools drop down after your campaign set up is complete.
The final thing you will need to do is create an ad. You have the option to create responsive ads or upload image ads. You also have the option to skip this step and create your ads later.
Once your ad is created your campaign is complete and you can click save and continue.
Why is my remarketing not working?
There are a couple of reasons your remarketing ads might not be working:
- Your list is under 100 people – Google will not start displaying ads to your remarketing audience until the list you are targeting is over 100 people.
- You may need to wait 24 hours for newly created lists to start working.
- Also, you should check the list status via the Audience manager tab, some lists may not be able to run if they are non-family safe or adult in nature. Also, there are other policies relating to personalisation that can affect an ads eligibility to run. You can read more about what Google has to say about personalized advertising here: https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/143465?hl=en-GB
Conclusion
Remarketing is a highly effective way to re-engage with potentially lost customers. Its easy to set up and usually very cost effective. Even if you aren’t using any other forms of advertising you should consider remarketing to your existing visitors.
We hope you have found this article on remarketing useful and if you have any questions please ask them in the comments below.