With 2013 almost in the books, marketing teams have been working for months to identify and establish strategic company goals and set budget spends to help plan campaigns for the next year. According to an extensive survey recently conducted by DigiDay, more than half of all marketers noted plans to allocate more of their budget towards an improved retargeting strategy in 2014.
Retargeting is the practice of identifying consumers who have visited your website, and shown interest in your offering, to target them with future promotions. After they leave, they may see display ads for your company pop up while navigating the web, looking up news, weather or sports scores on countless sites that allow placements. This is a great way to hone in on your target audience; however, if not properly executed it’s easy to annoy your potential customers and actually turn them away from your business.
While I recommend integrating retargeting tactics into any company’s web marketing strategy, I urge these companies to keep in mind proper setup and planning to maximize the results of this approach. When carried out correctly, retargeting can be helpful in boosting both brand awareness and increasing lead conversion rates.
For those looking to make the most of their investment in retargeting campaigns this year, I would suggest taking the following best practices into consideration.
Place a frequency cap
When structuring your retargeting campaign you should place a limit on the number of times a day any given individual will see your advertisements. By placing a cap, you can limit frustrations and avoid creeping out your customers with an overzealous number of ads. I’ve found that 3-5 times a day is a reasonable range.
Segment your audience
Breaking your audience into subcategories will help to streamline which products or services they are most interested in. Google AdWords and other retargeting platforms allow marketers to target visitors based on the specific pages they’ve viewed. For example, people who have just visited a Honda dealer’s homepage would be shown general ads for the dealership, while those who had specifically viewed inventory for the Honda Civic would see ads with a Civic lease offer. This strategy makes retargeting prospects more personal and effective, allowing for a greater return on your investment.
Update ad creative frequently
Fresh images and messages will help keep your audience interested in your advertisements. If your company continues to show the same ad over and over, customers will lose interest and in the worst case write you off completely. In addition, testing the performance of different images and copy can help to increase the number of actions associated with your ads.
Combine targeting settings
Retargeting can be a great tool when used on its own, but when combined with other targeting factors it can zero in even more specifically on your target audience. Google AdWords lets you use any combination of retargeting, keyword-based targeting, specific site placements and topic categories to reach your prospects.
In one case, for a pest control client, I’ve set up ads to appear through retargeting and added keywords to ensure they are only displayed on pages related to pest control, extermination, etc.
The best approach to any PPC campaign, especially retargeting, is to understand your customer and what they’re looking for in their searches. By utilizing this information in setting up campaigns, your approach to gaining their attention, and eventually their purchases, will be more concise and effective.