What is retargeting? What are retargeted ads?

I talk a lot here about retargeting, and running retargeted ad campaigns. I’ve discussed some of the strategy and the technical points of getting your campaigns set up—but what about a simple definition? What is retargeting? And why is it so important?

What is Retargeting

Retargeting (also known as remarketing) is the process of delivering your marketing materials to prospects who have already engaged with your brand in the past. Presumably, people who have interacted with your brand have had some sort of experience with your marketing materials, so if we target ads to this group of people we are “re-targeting” them, or “re-marketing” to them. In practice, this means tracking who interacts with your ads, and creating new audiences based off of that behavior. Targeting your ads to that new audience, is retargeting.

Why we Need to Retarget

Targeting prospects who have engaged with your brand is the hallmark of building an effective inbound strategy, and a powerful sales funnel. We generally think of retargeting with regards to paid ads on social media. There are many ways to create audiences based on different behaviors that your prospects have taken (like page views, previous purchases, add-to-cart behavior and more). You can then target contextualized ads towards these groups depending on where they are in their journey toward buying your product or service.

Abandoned Cart Tactics

One of the ways we see this used all of the time in digital marketing is the “abandoned cart” outreach that comes in all forms and sizes. Have you ever been on a website, and looked at a particular product, maybe chose colors and sizes, or even added an item to your “cart” online… only to find ads for that very same product cropping up all over the web? This is a high-converting type of retargeting campaign.

The aim here is simple—to drive you back to your cart, to make that purchase. Targeting people who area already on the fence about purchasing from you is a much more effective tactic than putting your ads out to a wide demographic audience. It also allows you to deliver much more targeted ads. Rather than advertising a product line, or a service type, you can advertise the exact product that your potential customer has interacted with.

This is only one type of retargeting though. There are countless ways to segment and target your warm audiences to increase your ROA.

Other Retargeting Tactics

Beyond abandoned cart tactics, there are other ways to track your potential customers, create audiences based off of interested parties, and target again. One of my favorite ways to utilize retargeting ads and lookalike audiences is to create a simple three-step funnel

The Three-Step Funnel

This is one of the simplest ways to create a paid ad funnel. You start with a list of customers who have already purchased from you. Using Facebook’s lookalike audience tool, you create a much larger audience based off of your customers.

Using this lookalike audience, you can target a wide range of people who stand a good chance of being interested in your product. Now what to do is, put out an ad that people can engage with. This changes depending on the niche, or product/offer. One way is to put out a lead form, but that involves some serious buy-in from your potential customers. Another way is to put out an explanatory video, and track those who watch the majority of your video. By offering some value from your content, you’ll see more people interact with your posts.

The crux of this outreach, is to track who (in your lookalike audience) engages with your content. They are your most likely buyers. Once you have created a list of folks who lookalike to your customers, and have interacted with your content, you have a “warm” prospect list, that are ready to be sold to. Switch to a conversion-style ad, and start pushing your relevant products.

Conclusion

Retargeting is a vague but valuable skill set. There are countless ways to track your audience, make assumptions based on their behavior, and target ads accordingly. The best marketers are always finding new, creative ways to retarget. Utilize what you’ve uncovered about your prospects and their buyer’s journey to serve the right ads at the right times. If you aren’t retargeting your prospects yet, now is the time to start.

Reach out today if you need help getting your digital marketing efforts in order!