Advantages of Retargeting
We have to admit, the term ‘retargeting’ can be misleading. To those who don’t know the meaning of retargeting, it may suggest that it’s necessary to start again, when it comes to targeting prospects and efforts. While it is true that you’re targeting prospects or retargeting them, you’re not starting from scratch – far from it. Retargeting is a marketing practice, which allows you to continue following and communicating with a prospect who might have landed on your website or blog, but not taken the desired action, such as buying a product, subscribing to your newsletter or downloading an eBook, etc.
Retargeting primarily targets someone who initially showed some interest in what you had to say was selling or offering. As opposed to ‘cold advertising’ like PPC that targets mainly first-time visitors (many of whom will not convert), retargeting has higher conversion figures because the target already knows a little about what you are selling or offering.
Now, if you aren’t using retargeting, we’re pretty sure that you are losing out on a lot of conversions. In fact, we’ll go so far as to say that you’re burning a hole in your advertising budget by not allocating a portion for it towards retargeting.
Below we’ll examine some of the reasons you’ll want to invest in retargeting and make it a permanent part of your advertising strategy.
Retargeting Will Help You Generate More Sales
Generating sales – it’s the most important but obvious benefit of using retargeting. While all companies may use their own set of metrics, just about every business focuses on revenue, and that’s where retargeting offers the most bang for your advertising buck. The conversion rate figures alone from a retargeting campaign are enough to justify investing in it.
Reach Prospects Who Know You
Retargeted advertising and PPC advertising, in general, differ in the way they approach prospects. PPC or any form of advertising is a lot like cold calling prospects. Retargeting is a lot like calling a prospect who initially called you to find out about what you offer. When a customer shows potential interest in what you’re offering, often all they need is a gentle nudge to help them take the next step. Retargeting helps you reach interested prospects instead of a pool of unknown people you define as the target audience.
Retargeting Raises Brand Awareness
Retargeted advertising and PPC advertising, differ in the way they approach prospects. PPC or any form of advertising, can be likened to cold calling prospects, whilst retargeting is the action of calling a prospect who initially called you to find out about what you offer. When a customer shows potential interest in what you’re offering, often all they need is a gentle nudge to help them take the next step. Retargeting helps you reach interested prospects, as opposed to a pool of unknown people you define as the target audience.
Help Gain Insights
The other benefit of retargeting is that it allows you to understand where the most conversions are coming from after prospects leave your site. The analytics data from previous and current campaigns offer a sort of roadmap of all future efforts, which will help you pull more qualified traffic.
In time, you will be able to create more laser-focused campaigns which lower the price per conversion.
Retargeting is Cost-Effective
Retargeting is cost-effective when compared to regular PPC or PPV forms of advertising. You stand a better chance of converting for every £1 spent. Banner ads are highly effective, but there is an element of uncertainty surrounding the desire for most users to take the action you want. Though with retargeting, you can reach people who have visited your website earlier and are closer to taking the desired action.
You get Cross-Selling Options
Many companies sell their products globally, and often it’s more than one product. While there are exceptions to this, where service companies are concerned, the trend is to sell or perhaps offer multiple products.
One way to stimulate sales and growth is to target your previous customers with ads for perhaps similar products that they purchased before. For instance, if they purchased handbags in the past, you could target them with ads for your new line of handbag designs, or bracelet designs, that go well with those brands of handbags.
Help Push Leads Through Your Marketing Funnel Faster
Everyone who sells online will have some understanding of how the marketing funnel works; the goal is to push people down the funnel often and through the various stages. If you know where a prospect is in the marketing funnel, retargeting can help push them further down.
It’s estimated that 92% of customers aren’t going to purchase a product or a service the first time they visit a website, and retargeting works because it follows them around. Retargeting makes sure that they re-enter the funnel at the stage they left, which often means retargeting them using fresh content.
If a prospect lands on your homepage and leaves without converting when retargeting, the idea is not to send them back to the homepage, but to divert them to a page offering information on the problems your service of product can solve or troubleshoot. The result? They’re pushed further down the funnel.
Conclusion
Retargeting is one of the best ways to get the most bang for your digital advertising and marketing pounds. It also isn’t as complex as some people may assume. Platforms like Google AdWords make retargeting a simple process. Plus, it helps monitor your campaign’s effectiveness, allowing you to make fine tweaks to improve the outcome.
However, the problem for many business owners is that retargeting takes time, experience, and effort. That’s why the best way to maximise results from a retargeting campaign is to hire a professional who handles not only retargeting, but also other aspects of your digital marketing and advertising campaigns for maximum ROI.
