Retargeting 101: How to Bring Back Website Visitors and Boost Conversions

As a business owner or marketer, you know the importance of driving traffic to your website. You invest time, effort, and money into SEO, content marketing, social media, and advertising to get people to visit your site. But what happens when they leave without making a purchase or taking a desired action? That's where retargeting comes in.

What is Retargeting?

Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a form of online advertising that allows you to show ads to people who have previously visited your website or interacted with your brand. It works by placing a small piece of code, called a pixel, on your website. This pixel tracks visitors and adds them to your retargeting audience lists. You can then serve targeted ads to these individuals as they browse other websites or social media platforms.

Benefits of Retargeting

Increased Brand Awareness: One of the primary benefits of retargeting is increased brand awareness. You keep your business top-of-mind by repeatedly showing your ads to people who have already shown an interest in your brand. This is especially important in today's competitive online landscape, where consumers are bombarded with marketing messages from multiple brands. Retargeting helps you reduce the noise and remind potential customers of your existence.

Higher Conversion Rates: Retargeting has been proven to boost conversion rates. Studies have shown that retargeted ads have a click-through rate (CTR) 10 times higher than regular display ads. This is because you're targeting people who have already been interested in your products or services. They are further along in the buyer's journey and more likely to convert than cold leads.

Cost-Effective: Retargeting is relatively inexpensive compared to other forms of online advertising. You're not wasting ad spend on people who have never heard of your brand or have no interest in what you offer. Instead, you're focusing your budget on individuals who have already engaged with your website and are more likely to convert. This targeted approach results in a higher return on investment (ROI) for your advertising dollars.

Personalized Messaging: Retargeting allows you to create personalized ad messaging based on a visitor's behavior on your website. For example, if someone viewed a specific product page but didn't make a purchase, you can serve them an ad featuring that product and a special offer to entice them to buy. This level of personalization makes your ads more relevant and compelling to potential customers.

Cross-Device: Targeting In today's multi-device world, people often start their online journey on one device and continue it on another. Retargeting allows you to reach potential customers across multiple devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This ensures that your ads are seen by the right people at the right time, regardless of their device.

Best Practices for Retargeting

Segment Your Audience: Not all website visitors are created equal. Some may have browsed your site briefly, while others may have added items to their cart but abandoned the purchase process. To get the most out of your retargeting efforts, segment your audience based on their behavior and create tailored ad messaging for each group. For example, you might make a segment for people who viewed a specific product category and another for those who started the checkout process but didn't complete it.

Personalize to Each Persona: What will motivate a potential buyer to return to your site will vary based on the individual. While you cannot craft an ad or promotion for that specific person (unless you are doing account-based marketing), you can craft each ad to resonate and address the pain points of a particular buyer persona and where they fit in the buyers' journey.

Set Frequency Caps: While retargeting is effective, it's important not to overwhelm potential customers with too many ads. Set frequency caps to limit the number of times an individual sees your ads in a given period. A good rule of thumb is limiting ad exposure to 15-20 monthly impressions per user. This helps prevent ad fatigue and maintains a positive brand experience.

Limit Duration: If a prospect has visited your website, they will likely investigate your competitor and find other solutions to the problem or issue that prompted the search. Typically, a person will focus those efforts for a limited duration before deciding on a solution or moving on. To have the most impact and to reduce your overall cost, we recommend that you limit your retargeting efforts to the first 72 hours after a person visits your website.

Omnichannel Approach: If you engage in a retargeting program, you want that visitor to see you everywhere they go on the internet for the next 72 hours. If they are surfing a social media app like X, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, ensure your ad is there to remind them of your value proposition.

Use Compelling Ad: Creative Your retargeting ads should be visually appealing and communicate your brand message. Use high-quality images or videos that showcase your products or services in action. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that tells the viewer what you want them to do, such as "Shop Now" or "Learn More." Test different ad creatives to see what resonates best with your target audience.

Exclude Converted Customers: Remove them from your retargeting lists once someone purchases or completes a desired action on your website. Continuing to serve them ads for products they've already bought can be annoying and may harm your brand reputation. Instead, consider creating a new customer audience segment and serving ads for complementary products or loyalty promotions.

Retargeting Platforms

Several software platforms provide retargeting services. We recommend that you utilize a retargeting platform that incorporates either machine learning or artificial intelligence to strengthen and improve ad performance. Here are a few of the most popular options:

Google Ads: Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, is the largest and most widely used online advertising platform. It offers retargeting through its Google Display Network, which includes over 2 million websites and reaches over 90% of internet users worldwide. Google Ads allows you to create custom audience lists based on website behavior, such as page visits or abandoned carts. You can also upload your customer lists for retargeting.

Google Ads uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help businesses improve their online presence and advertising performance. The AI is effective in helping improve the following areas:

• Setting bids: AI helps set the correct bids for ads.

• Reaching searches: AI helps reach the right searches for ads.

• Creating relevant ads: AI helps create the most relevant ads for consumers.

• Automatically creating assets: AI can create headlines and descriptions based on the context of an ad.

• Conversational experience: AI can use natural language conversations to develop keywords and assets.

Facebook Ads: Facebook Ads is another popular platform for retargeting. With over 2.7 billion monthly active users, Facebook offers a vast audience for your ads. You can create Custom Audiences based on website traffic, customer lists, or engagement with your Facebook page or ads. Facebook also offers Lookalike Audiences, allowing you to reach new people like your existing customers.

Facebook uses machine learning to generate the estimated action rate and the ad quality score in the total value equation.

AdRoll: AdRoll is a dedicated retargeting platform that allows you to reach potential customers across the web, social media, and email. It offers advanced audience segmentation capabilities, dynamic ad creation, and cross-device targeting. AdRoll integrates with a wide range of e-commerce platforms and marketing tools, making setting up and managing your retargeting campaigns easy.

BidIQ® is the artificial intelligence engine that drives AdRoll’s bidding and optimization for web display ads. BidIQ® leverages data from thousands of advertisers and billions of user behaviors to maximize ROI on ad campaigns. It handles critical tasks such as bidding, ad optimization, budgeting, and audience discovery across multiple platforms, including web, social, native, and mobile devices.

Perfect Audience: Perfect Audience is a retargeting platform for small and medium-sized businesses. It offers a simple, user-friendly interface for creating and managing retargeting campaigns across the web and social media. Perfect Audience provides real-time reporting and allows you to set custom campaign goals and budgets.

Criteo: Criteo is a global retargeting platform that specializes in e-commerce advertising. It uses machine learning algorithms to deliver personalized product recommendations to potential customers across the web and mobile apps. Criteo offers dynamic ad creation, advanced audience segmentation, and cross-device targeting capabilities.

Criteo's AI identifies complex patterns in customer behavior to accurately predict your next-top shoppers or at-risk shoppers. The calculation is done individually in real-time, resulting in a continuously refreshed and ready-to-use predictive segment.

Conclusion

Retargeting is a powerful tool for bringing back website visitors and boosting conversions. By serving targeted ads to individuals who have already shown an interest in your brand, you can increase brand awareness, drive higher conversion rates, and get a better return on your advertising investment.

To get the most out of your retargeting efforts, segment your audience, set frequency caps, use compelling ad creative, define an appropriate retargeting window, and exclude converted customers from your campaigns.

When choosing a retargeting platform, consider your budget, target audience, and advertising goals. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are great options for businesses of all sizes, while dedicated platforms like AdRoll, Perfect Audience, and Criteo offer advanced features and specialization for specific industries.

By incorporating retargeting into your overall digital marketing strategy, you can effectively re-engage potential customers and drive more sales for your business. Start experimenting with retargeting today and see the results for yourself!