Remarketing Solutions

Imagine if a marketing strategy existed that allowed you to follow a potential customer from one website to the next with precise ad placement. If it seems too good to be true, then perhaps it’s time you discovered remarketing. Yes, that’s right. Such a method exists (and it’s really quite simple).

Remarketing is a solution that Google created to help you place targeted ads within the Google Ads Network based on a user’s search history. In other words, if they’ve visited your site or viewed your products, they’ll see your company’s targeted ads on other in-network sites. All of this is made possible by a clever string of software code. So, what is remarketing and what does it allow you to do?

Google Remarketing

So, what does Google remarketing look like in action? Does it actually work as intended? The performance metrics, no matter where you look, are staggering. One recent study determined that regular site visitors are 70% more likely to follow through on a purchase if they are retargeted with your company’s ads. As they say, persistence pays off.

Think of remarketing as allowing you to “checking in” with your customers.

Okay, so they didn’t make a purchase initially. That doesn’t mean they won’t at some point in the future. There are a variety of reasons they didn’t make that purchase, some of which you can control with strategic changes to the user experience of your site. Other barriers preventing your customer from making the purchase might include the desire to think the purchase over, and possibly, the customer’s attention was diverted elsewhere (people are busy, after all).

Remarketing Definition

Is remarketing the same thing as retargeting? While they are similar, it’s important to note there’s a distinction between the two. Remarketing, as we stated earlier, is a way of re-engaging customers based on their interaction with your site. In most cases, remarketing strategies revolve around email marketing based on user engagement on your site, which is tracked by the usage of cookies.

One common method of remarketing is to create email campaigns based on shopping cart abandonment. This is because it’s such a common problem that 3 out of every 4 shoppers will leave a website without going through with their purchase. Other remarketing techniques might include cross-sell emails or lifecycle marketing emails.

On the other hand, retargeting takes a more zoomed-in “photo” of the user’s actions. Not only can retargeting give you insight into who visited your site, it can also tell you how they interacted with it.

Remarketing allows you to begin retargeting almost instantaneously, since the code stores the user’s information and interaction (Facebook defines this as a ‘pixel’). A user may view a specific pair of shoes on your e-commerce site. Five minutes later, they are watching a YouTube video and notice an ad display that shows the exact pair of shoes they just viewed.

Retargeting also allows you to reach new customers. By analyzing trends and keywords attached to your target audience, you can craft seemingly personalized messages aimed at these potential buyers.

Google Retargeting Ads

The Ads team at Google has created a vast digital marketing platform, which you can utilize with some careful planning and strategic focus. The important thing to remember is that you’re not only trying to match the ad sense of your competitors, you’re trying to separate yourself from them by standing out.

The best way to launch a successful and lucrative marketing campaign on the Google Network is to use a pay-per-click, or PPC, campaign strategy.

Utilizing the Google Ad Network

It may seem fairly obvious, but in order to set up remarketing campaigns with the Google Ads Network, you’ll need to create a Google Ads account. Once you’ve created your account, you will receive a tag that you can place strategically throughout your site. 

The tag is a way for Google to begin collecting data on your users. Don’t worry, you’ll have a great deal of control over how the tag is used. For example, you can assign the tag to a specific action taken (a user subscribes to your email newsletter or follows one of your social media pages). You might also place the tag on a new product you’re working to market. The data you’ll receive will help you create your remarketing campaigns, which you can build around re-engaging existing customers.

You’ll also want to consider the fact that the Google Ads Network is actually made up of two distinct ad networks: Google Display Ads and Google Search Network.

Google Display Ads

The Google Display Network, which can reach 90% of all internet users, is an unrivaled tool for creating brand awareness. Because of its reach, the Display Network allows you to target customers in hundreds of countries, with a variety of languages on tap.

These ads are placed strategically in visible locations on various Google sites such as Blogger, Gmail, and YouTube. Not to mention, there are thousands of partner sites available via the Display Network.

You can also tailor Display Ads based on a few customer traits:

• Affinity Ads – Ad campaigns that are targeting a specific group based on interest. For example, an ad that is targeting ‘college baseball fans’ or ‘frequent movie goers’.
• Custom Affinity Audience – A form of affinity grouping that allows you to have narrower, more specific search parameters. In the previous example, we mentioned ‘college baseball fans’. Custom Affinity Ads could allow you to narrow this search down even further to ‘Northwestern Wildcats baseball fans’.
• In-Market Audiences – Allows you to target customers that are merely in the market for similar products to what you offer.
• Demographics – Display Ads can also be set to target users based on three key demographics: age, gender, and parental status.

One downside to the Display Network is that users tend to be in the passive state when they encounter these ads. In short, the user is less likely to act upon a strategic ad on YouTube, mainly because they aren’t in the active process of shopping at that moment. The conversion rates of Display Ads, thus, is less so than the Google Search Network.

Google Search Network

One should expect more success utilizing the Google Search Network, mainly because customers in this case are actively seeking to make a purchase. In comparison to the Display Network, Google’s Search Network has a conversion rate of 3.75% (0.77% for Display). 

It’s important to think of the context. Users in the active state are seeking an immediate solution to their problem. Using Google’s Search Network, you can bid on keywords that will allow you to rank high on search page results. That way, your product or service will be the most visible solution that’ll help solve the user’s problem.

Putting Remarketing Theory into Practice

In today’s digital marketplace, it’s imperative that you learn the art of online marketing. As we discovered, Google has created their own platform that you can use to run targeted ad campaigns to cast a wide net, or conversely, a narrowed strategic approach meant to advertise your products to a smaller segment of the marketplace. In either case, Google Ads gives you full control over the lifecycle and delivery of your product ad campaigns.

And whether you utilize the Google Search Network to corner the marketplace of active and engaged customers, or the Display Network to pique the interest of customers in the passive state, Google Ads gives you great insight with the variety of data analytical tools, not to mention the many customizable features that’ll help your ads reach prospective buyers in a timely, effective manner.

Launching a New Remarketing Campaign

Now that we’ve discussed all that remarketing allows you to do, it’s time to walk you through the simple process of launching a new ad campaign. After all, we can discuss the theory behind the approach all day – it’s ultimately that first step and the start of your first active campaign that’ll deliver the results.

First, you must ask who you’re marketing toward. Is it a subset of customers who are entering certain words or phrases into the search field on Google’s search engine page? Or maybe you wish to re-introduce your product to site visitors by having strategic ads placed on various sites. Either way, you’ll need to define your approach and your goals before you create your campaign. Once you’ve brainstormed your target audience and business goals, it’s time to launch your campaign

The nice thing about using the Google Ads Network is the streamlined two-step process for creating ad campaigns on their network:

1. Choose your goal and determine your advertising objective (text ads on search results, image ads on websites, and so on)
2. Select a campaign type (Display, Search, etc.)

And that’s it.

Start Using Remarketing Today

Utilizing the Google Ads Network is crucial to your success in the e-commerce arena. Like traditional marketing methods, remarketing takes careful research and planning, close monitoring of ad performance, and the ability to adjust if needed. 

Remarketing allows you to receive instantaneous feedback regarding how your users are interacting with your digital products. Also, you’ll have the ability to place ads that’ll follow prospective buyers from one site to the next. And as we know, this will only hold their interest over time. Thus, it will increase the likelihood that they’ll purchase your product.

FAQ:

• Are remarketing and retargeting the same thing?
• How do I start with Google Ads Network?
• What are the two parts of the Google Ads Network?
• How do I start a Google remarketing campaign?
• What are the conversion rates of the different Google Ad types?