Remarketing: the real power of web advertising

You know when you search for a product on a website and suddenly you find it everywhere (in your Facebook feed, on YouTube before watching a video, on the most diverse websites)?

Well, when this happens it means that someone is remarketing and you are one of the targeted users. :)

 

What exactly is remarketing?

Simply put: remarketing is advertising that is shown to people who have surfed a website but have not made the final conversion.

The final conversion is nothing more than the achievement of a goal.

For example: did the user not leave the contact e-mail? A remarketing action is triggered. Did the user not register for the service? Another remarketing action is triggered. Has the user not purchased the product? Another remarketing action is set. And so on.

 

How does remarketing work?

To set the remarketing process in motion, your site must be set up to record the visits and actions you want to monitor. The actual remarketing action starts after the user has left your website.

Here is how it works:

1. The user surfs the web
2. Goes to your site
3. Does not make the conversion you wanted and leaves your website

At this point your site has recorded the visit and the actions taken. The next day the remarketing campaign you have activated reaches the user browsing the web:

1. The user surfs the web
2. Starts seeing your advertisement on different sites and social networks
3. Clicks on one of your advertisements, returns to the website and this time converts

A classic remarketing process. The user sees you and remembers you, maybe they have more time, or they have been informed and are now more inclined to reach your target, the variables are many and need to be analysed. The fact is that remarketing works. And it works great.

 

How is remarketing done?

Remarketing mainly takes place on Google and Facebook. One therefore uses the tools that the two web giants make available to advertise on their channels. Let us look at them now.

Remarketing on Google

To remarket on Google, you need to use Google Ads (formerly called Google AdWords).

First connect your website's Analytics account to a Google Ads account. Create goals in Analytics and import them as conversions into your remarketing campaign on Google Ads.

These goals/conversions will be tracked and allow you to create specific remarketing audience segments directly from Analytics. If you have enough visits you can also create smart goals, which allow you to track the 'best' sessions that occur on your website.

Add other audience segments to be used for remarketing from the 'Manage Audience Segments' section of Google Ads, e.g. those who have visited certain pages of your site but have not visited others.

Google remarketing modes

In Google Ads you have access to several remarketing modes.

• Standard Remarketing: publishing banner ads on websites and apps that are part of the Google Display Network. The Google Display Network comprises more than two million websites and more than 650,000 apps
• Dynamic remarketing: users display specific products or services that they have already seen. Dynamic remarketing is a high-performance option that can be well adapted to the needs of an e-commerce with many products.
• Remarketing in the search network: displays advertisements while users are searching on Google
• Remarketing of customer lists: remarketing using the contact information of your customers

To sum up:

• Link Analytics to Adwords
• Create the targets you want to track and import them as conversions
• Create audience segments
• Activate remarketing

 

Remarketing on Facebook

To remarket on Facebook, you have to use the Facebook Ads advertising platform.

First track the visits and behaviour of your users by installing the Facebook Pixel on your site, a snippet of code that Facebook itself provides you with. What conversions can you track with the Pixel? Many, from a simple visit to an online purchase. Once you have set up your conversions, you create a customised audience, on which you will then run your remarketing campaign.

Facebook remarketing modes

The options for creating a remarketing audience are different, just like in Google Ads.

• Website traffic: create an audience of users who visit your site or perform a certain action
• Customer files: create an audience from a file with contact details of your customers
• Activities in the app: create an audience that has performed actions in your mobile app
• Offline activities: create an audience that has interacted with your company outside the web
• Interaction: create an audience who interacted with your content on facebook or instagram (who clicked, who liked, etc.)

Summarising:

• Insert the Facebook Pixel into your site
• Choose the conversion actions you want to track
• Create customised audiences
• Activate remarketing

 

 

Example of remarketing

Here is an example of how you can use remarketing.

You are running a campaign to acquire new customers. Specifically, you have created a simple Google Ads campaign in the Search Network. Those who click on the ads land on the home page of your website.

You are tracking visits with the Facebook Pixel. You could split the users into:

1. Those who only visit the home page
2. Those who visit three or more pages of the site but not the contact page
3. Those who visit the contact page

The three actions above form a kind of funnel, which goes from the highest (visit to the homepage) to the lowest (visit to the contact page).

Thanks to remarketing, you can subdivide users on the basis of these three actions, thus creating three distinct audiences.

Once these audiences have been created, start three separate remarketing campaigns that push users forward in the funnel and get them to the final goal, which is to contact you via the form on the contact page to request a quote.

 

Conclusion

It is essential to remember that the audiences created need different messages and communications, depending on the position they are occupying within the funnel: the user who has only visited your home page will need different communication from the one who has visited your contact page.

This in fact is the great power of remarketing. Being able to segment the audience in order to send them the most specific messages possible.

What do you think? Would you like to learn more about this topic or are you interested in our web marketing services? Contact us to talk about it!