Remarketing 101 — the simpler guide to understanding and profiting from remarketing
There has been a bit of confusing information bezzing around the Interwebs recently with regards to remarketing. So here, as succinctly as possibly is an introduction to remarketing and what it can do for your business.
What exactly is remarketing?
Remarketing in its most simple form is a method of showing adverts to people who are already aware of your business. One of the most popular methods of remarketing uses the Facebook Ad platform. You can use Facebook Ads to show adverts to people who have visited your website. Remarketing is also available on Linked In, Pinterest, Instagram (via Facebook Ads), Twitter and many more platforms.
Remarketing sounds ‘interesting’, but how can it increase sales
There are many ways remarketing can help improve sales, but there’s one scenario that I see working better than others. Imagine for a moment that someone is shopping for the product or service that you provide. There’s a very high chance that they’ve not just looked at your website; they have probably been shopping around and checking out your competitors. If you were running a remarketing campaign on Facebook (for example), that person would see adverts for your business while they browse Facebook. This greatly increases the shopper’s awareness of your brand.
Just by being exposed to your brand on a more frequent basis (via your remarketing adverts) brand trust can be nurtured. When that potential customer or client decides the time is right to commit to a purchase, and your advert is right there for them to click, then there’s a decent chance they’ll buy from you. So in short, using remarketing makes you more visible than your competitors.
Remarketing sounds great, but is it complex to implement? Where do I start?
Remarketing campaigns might sound like technical wizardry, but they are surprisingly easy to implement. Let’s stick with Facebook for now. First up you’ll need to install something called the ‘Facebook Pixel’ on your website. This is a small chunk of code that Facebook uses to figure out which of their users has visited your website.
The Facebook pixel is very easy to install, especially if you are familiar with tools like Google Tag Manager. Facebook work very hard to make installing the pixel as simple as possible; the more pixels they have installed on websites ‘in the wild’ the more money they make from advertising revenue. Once the Facebook pixel is installed on your website your next step is to create an ad campaign. During the setup process you will be asked who the target audience for your campaign is. When you select ‘saved audience’ you are given the opportunity to target people who have visited your website. Although the Facebook Ad platform might not overtly call this type of audience a remarketing audience, that is absolutely what it is.
Is remarketing an entire strategy, or does it need to be implemented alongside other marketing activities ?
Once you understand the basic principles of remarketing, and have experimented with it, you’ll probably realise that it has many uses. Showing adverts to people who have visited your website is great, but it’s not the only potent marketing use for remarketing. In fact the uses are so broad I’m going to pick just one example: If you run an online store you can use remarketing to encourage shoppers who abandoned their carts to return and complete their purchase. Perhaps you could offer a discount code to ‘abandoned carts’ to boost sales. This is just one idea, there are many, many more.
I’ve heard of ‘retargeting’, is this different to remarketing?
Depending on who you ask you may be told there is no difference between remarketing and retargeting. Some folk claim retargeting is the method for displaying adverts to users who have visited your website, and remarketing is a method for building email lists. In my opinion the two words are largely interchangeable.
Remarketing has many uses, displaying adverts or building your email list are just two examples. Like a lot of digital marketing jargon I don’t think the name is important. I’m yet to find a client who cares deeply about naming semantics, they want the same thing I want them to have; more money.
My number 1 remarketing tip:
My biggest tip would be to start! Remarketing can be set up on Facebook Ads for just a few pounds a day. Cliché (and fact) dictates that ‘all marketing is experimentation’. So start your remarketing experiment small. Marketing is an investment, but in this case it doesn’t need to have big money chucked at it to get results. Find out what remarketing tactic works for you, then scale it up!
Dig this? You might enjoy my ‘Internet Marketing for Humans’ podcast…
