In the age of communication, we receive an average of 120–130 ads a day, most of them via TV, Google searches, Facebook and, as banners, on every website we visit. With so much information, advertising impact keeps shrinking and is obviously less effective.
To solve this problem, Remarketing emerged: a tool that lets us serve advertising better matched to users’ interests.
To learn more about Remarketing, keep reading and find out what it is and what it’s for.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing lets you show ads to users who have visited your eCommerce store or website without making a purchase on their first visit. To understand how it works, here’s an example:
I’m looking for a pair of sneakers. I go into a store, check prices and models, and end up leaving without buying anything.
From here, two things can happen:
- If the store isn’t doing Remarketing, nothing happens and I keep browsing the internet without remembering where I’d been.
- If the store is doing Remarketing, from that moment on I’ll see the sneaker store’s products as ads on the pages I visit and, if the campaign is well built, I’ll see an ad for the exact model I’m interested in.
So we could say the real purpose of Remarketing is to reach users who have already shown interest in your products and follow them with ads so they complete their purchase.
How can I do Remarketing?
To run this type of advertising you need tools. I recommend three: Google Adwords, Adroll and Criteo.
Google Adwords lets you run three different types of Remarketing campaigns. It works by placing a cookie on the user’s computer that stores their preferences and interests and later shows them ads related to what they searched for. The cost is generally per click, so you can choose how much you want to invest. With this tool you get the full reach of Google’s network, and your campaign’s impact can be as big as you decide.
Adroll is very interesting and works just like Adwords, with the advantage that you can do Remarketing on Facebook.
Criteo: Similar to the previous tool. It creates and serves ads, optimizing campaigns in real time. Its cost is also measured per click.
Tip: combining two tools will let you achieve huge impact by covering two of the main browsing channels.
Types of Remarketing
There are three types of Remarketing, although, strictly speaking, there are really two.
- Dynamic Remarketing: The best for businesses and online stores. This type of remarketing shows you ads for the categories and products you’ve visited. These ads display several products dynamically.
A clear example is searching for flights on a travel search engine. If you look for a flight to Rome and don’t book, you then get followed by hotels in Rome, car rentals in Rome and more flights to Rome…
- Display Remarketing: Similar to dynamic, but here the advertising is banner-based and the ads are static. First you create the ads (as many as you like), and then the display network shows them to users.
- Search Remarketing: Works exactly like display. Ads are shown to users, but on the search engine.
Pros and cons
Like any initiative, it has its pros and cons.
Advantages:
- Remarketing is an effective campaign that drives conversions, because the ads go directly to users who have already visited your eCommerce store.
- ROI is much higher with Remarketing than with traditional SEM campaigns.
There’s always a catch…
- It tends to be a slow process, because it works with lists built as users browse your eCommerce store. List size depends on traffic, so at first it takes a while to see the campaign’s effectiveness.
- Campaign optimization has to be fine-tuned so you don’t wear users out. Being chased by ads can damage the company’s image.
As with everything, you always need to think about the strategy for your online store and keep testing options that help improve sales.
Ready to try Remarketing?
