The director of product development at Vendare explains how to develop a retargeting plan.
If Target and Retarget were on a boat and Target fell off, who is left? Retarget.
If Target and Retarget were on a boat and Target fell off, who is left? Retarget.
If Target and Retarget …
OK, you get the point… While targeting isn't really falling off anywhere, it is retargeting that is penetrating the massive sea of online ad campaigns like never before. There are now so many ways to retarget a consumer you may have encountered on the web previously that marketers should not underestimate the value of capitalizing on the exposure to those users. Advertisers large and small should be examining what forms of retargeting are appropriate for them and crafting a strategy around how to collect, mine and leverage retargeting data as a way to generate positive ROI.
Retargeting can help marketers achieve a host of different marketing objectives. Use it to rebrand, drive new sales, increase the number of qualified leads, convert leads into customers, cross-sell, up-sell or re-sell. It's really up to you to figure out how to best deploy the tools that are offered to accomplish your goal. You'll need to gain an understanding of the various touch points you currently have with the online consumer-- and then devise a retargeting plan using the various forms needed to accomplish your objectives.
Retargeting types
First, choose the type of retargeting that best suits your needs and look to customize your strategy accordingly.
Website Retargeting: Reach users after they leave your site by targeting against the behavior they displayed there. This could often be your most valuable marketing resource; targeting against click-stream, search path, registration activity or purchase history could well deliver you optimal return on your online marketing expenditure.
Ad Exposure Retargeting: The impressions served to users who may not have interacted with your ad represents perhaps the most under-used type of data in ad campaigns. Each campaign may include between 95 and 99 percent of impressions served to users who did not click on your ad. The data collected on this massive user-base can be leveraged to retarget based on which ads they were exposed to. Did you market one offer to them with no response? Then try remarketing another offer.
Search Retargeting: Today, some publishers and networks can retarget to users who have searched for particular keywords or who may have even clicked on your sponsored listing. Searching is sometimes the best indicator that a user is in-market, and if they have searched for an item within your offering or, better yet, have responded to your offer, you will want to profile those users to retarget at a later time.
Managing frequency & recency
Each profile you create and monitor, regardless of where you have encountered the user, will need to be managed according to how and when to reach those users. Have a clear understanding of what your sales cycle is and make efforts to target to your customers repeatedly throughout that time period. If your product typically takes 25 days for a user to mull over, you will want to reach that user within that recency period.
Advertisers may find greater success when the purchase cycle is of significant length. Look to reach this audience as frequently as possible within that timeframe, as your chance to deliver a message again is limited. Don't be afraid to start your campaign out at a zero frequency cap and then adjust upon seeing results.
Strategic messaging
The biggest mistake marketers make when testing retargeting is that they dismiss or ignore customizing creative to these unique profiles. Advertisers must embrace this medium by speaking directly to this precious audience based on their historical behavior. More advanced retargeting strategies should include sequencing creative as you encounter that consumer again and again throughout your retargeting window.
Be careful not to confuse retargeting with audience-based behavioral targeting solutions, which enable you to purchase media that is audience-targeted based on behavior displayed across the web, not against your encounter with the consumer. While retargeting has been around for years, publishers and networks are beginning to innovate and offer various methods to maximize the value of each of your exposures you have to the consumer. The success or failure of an ad campaign may depend on how strong your retargeting strategy is and how effectively it is executed.
Your marketing objectives just may depend on it.