Remarketing gets a lot of flak for being “creepy” and, as a result, many online marketers avoid it like the plague. I don’t buy the hype. In the wise words of 3LW, “haters gonna hate.” But, despite their bad reputation, data shows that people actually respond to remarketing ads positively. Yep, those “haters” are actually clicking on remarketing ads!
In fact, our data shows that people are 76 percent more likely to click on a remarketing ad than a non-remarketing display ad.tcale
This data was compiled by Mark Irvine of WordStream. It is based on a sample size of 85 WordStream client accounts, representing U.S.-based SMBs of all verticals. The data is from June 2014 and was taken from the Google Display Network.
It makes sense. People react favorably towards remarketing ads because they’re super-customized to them. Rather than a standard old display ad, which is served based on general, assumptive criteria like your gender, location or “interests”, remarketing ads feature content that the viewer has already expressed an interest in. Because of this, remarketing ads are incredibly powerful. Here are the top three reasons remarketing can work wonders for your bottom line.
1. Remarketing Is One of the Best Lead Nurturing Programs Money Can Buy
It’s extremely rare that anyone converts the first time they land on your website. In some cases, buyers simply get distracted or have a case of cold feet before whipping out their credit cards. In other cases, especially for products with longer buying cycles, this lag time is expected. Shoppers may need time to evaluate their purchase, do some comparison shopping, or get to know your brand better.
Either way, most of us have implemented email marketing programs to nudge prospects down the path to conversion. Rather than pummeling their inboxes with emails, which are easily avoided, why not use remarketing to boost your brand awareness and push people to convert? Remarketing ads are great because they’re not intrusive, they can be hyper-customized to the recipients’ interests and people don’t tire of them quickly. In fact, our data shows that people are more likely to convert after seeing a remarketing ad six times!
The reasons remarketing ads are so compelling is because they often feature something you actually want and they’re tough to ignore. For example, a few years ago, I fell head over heels for a dress that I found online. The only problem with it was its price tag, which practically matched that of my monthly rent check. I resisted the urge to follow through with the purchase, ditched the site, and considered it a done deal. A day or so later, I saw an ad featuring that very dress. I ignored it. Hours later, I got another ad offering me 10 percent off my purchase. I still held strong. Finally, I saw the dress again, broke down, and pulled out my credit card. My self-restraint could only last so long. Remarketing FTW.
2. You Can Squeeze More Out of Your Existing Customers With Remarketing
Just because a prospect converts, doesn’t mean your work is done. Instead of excluding these new customers from your remarketing efforts, switch-up your strategy and use remarketing to upsell or cross-sell them. Implementation of this tactic will differ depending on your business offerings. Here are a few examples that I love:
Prior to receiving the ad above, I purchased a new phone on BestBuy.com. After making this purchase, the crew at Best Buy knows that it’s unlikely that I’ll be purchasing another phone, so they put a spin on their ads and started pushing phone accessories for my brand new model. Pretty smart, huh? In situations where customers are likely to make many repeat purchases throughout the year, use remarketing to periodically remind them about your band and give them a reason to come back to your site.
For example, this Kate Spade notifies the viewer of new arrivals that she has not yet shopped before, in hopes that it will compel her to click through to the website to view the new collection. That tactic comes in handy even if you’re not in the e‑commerce space. If your company provides recurring services, try leveraging remarketing ads to remind customers to schedule future appointments. For example, a salon that offers online booking for hair coloring appointments could set up a remarketing campaign to display ads reminding these customers to book appointments every few weeks to get their roots touched up. Works like a charm!
3. RLSA Is Like Search Ads On Steroids
Not sold on the idea of display advertising? Try leveraging Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) to boost your search performance. This campaign type allows you to apply the genius of remarketing – prioritizing people who have already demonstrated an interest in your site – to the search network. In fact, RLSA is one of the only ways you can do identity-based targeting via search. You know that past site visitors are top prospects, so you can “up the ante” for this crew.
For example, imagine that you’re advertising for a company that sells basketball tickets online. In your standard search campaigns, you’re probably avoiding generic terms like “basketball game tonight.” The intent behind a super-broad term like that is unclear. Is the searcher trying to figure out what time the game starts? Do they want to stream it online? However, if someone who has already been to your website does this search, it’s a different story. You know he’s thinking of going to a game – he’s been perusing tickets! You definitely want your ad to show for him.
With RLSA campaigns, you can bid on specific sets of keywords that are only eligible to trigger ads for past site visitors — a safe way to bid on those broad, generic terms. You can also boost bids for past visitors who match to your regular search keywords to prioritize your visibility for these prospects. Using RLSAs, not only do you know that your audience visited your site, you also know which pages they viewed. Imagine that someone visited your ticketing site, viewed Celtics tickets, added them to his shopping cart and never completed the purchase. Let’s say he comes to the SERP an hour later and searches “basketball game tonight.” With your standard search campaign, you’d probably serve him an ad touting “basketball tickets.” However, because your remarketing cookies detected that added Celtics tickets to his shopping cart, you can use RLSA to serve him an ad featuring exactly what he’s looking for, “Celtics tickets.”
Ready to give it a roll? You can learn more about RLSA implementation here!