Remarketing And Retargeting: Different Strategies
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If you’ve ever surfed the web and noticed a retail site you visited a few days ago popping up everywhere – you’ve already seen retargeting in action.
People love to call this form of advertising “creepy” or “Big-Brother-ish,” but, generally speaking, people are used to being chased by advertisers online. They also respond to it, and for that reason alone you may want to check it out.
Some people refer to these placements as “remarketing” and “retargeting,” using the terms interchangeably. This is pretty common since they sound similar, but these two strategies are actually pretty different.
retargeting customers using display ads
Retargeting is a digital advertising strategy that puts your message in front of users that have visited your website, but didn’t convert.
These display ads are delivered to people based on their interactions with your website. When they visit a specific product page and then leave, they carry a piece of code with them (called a “cookie”), allowing you to target them with relevant ads elsewhere on the web. Hopefully, your ad will get them to click through to your site and make a purchase.
Only 2 percent of visitors convert on their first visit to a website. Retargeting is popular because it gives businesses a way to reach the other 98 percent and entice them back. The campaigns are usually administered by an in-house marketer or advertising agency that partners with a third-party network, like Adroll. These networks give you access to literally millions of sites, which you can use to target users.
Retargeting is also highly contextual. It displays ads based on demonstrated user interest rather than their persona profiles, and it shows in the results. A MarketLand study from 2014 claims that retargeting can deliver click-thru-rates (CTRs) as high as 0.95 percent, as much as 10 tens higher than banner ads targeted through other means.
remarketing completes the conversion using email
Despite the confusion between retargeting and remarketing, the latter has evolved into a unique approach to accomplish the same goal.
Remarketing drives conversions through email, a tactic commonly used when users leave a website with their shopping carts full, or when the retailer wants to cross sell you other products and services. Amazon is the master of this strategy. They note the products you’ve browsed through and sends a customized email that shows you other items of interest. When done well, these cross-selling tactics can increase the average size your transactions.
The key to successful remarketing is timing, especially when a user leaves with his or her shopping cart full. Rejoiner quotes a study by MIT that your chances of getting a visitor to complete a purchase drop significantly one hour after he or she leaves your site. Therefore, it’s crucial to get a follow up email with a one-click purchase button in front of users within minutes of leaving their shopping carts behind.
Retargeting and remarketing accomplish similar goals – they both draw visitors back to your website to complete a specific action – but the methods used are different.
Retargeting is a flexible tactic that can be used to drive any user action, like signing up for a webinar or scheduling a product demo, and it targets the user through display ads; whereas remarketing is primarily used for completing transactions through a follow up email. In both instances, you can use them to get visitors to follow through on an action they started to take and get more out of your digital marketing.