How Retargeting Can Grow Your Business
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It’s a conundrum every online business has faced. You finally manage to get people to visit your website, but most of them end up leaving before taking that “next step” down your sales funnel, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for an event, opting-in for a newsletter.
Visitors don’t always do what we want them to, but you shouldn’t worry about it. Some studies say the average website has a conversion rate of just over 2% with first-time visitors. In other words, it’s standard internet procedure for people browse around and take off without converting. Or, at least, not during their first visit.
Before you get discouraged, it’s important to remember that every business on the internet faces this same challenge, and many are using tools like retargeting to turn those missed opportunities into successes.
understanding how retargeting works
When someone walks through the door of a brick-and-mortar store, strolls around and then leaves, there’s not much the storeowner can do. You can’t follow these would-be customers down the street, shouting offers at them and hoping they will come back and buy something. But you can do this online. You can “follow” your customers out the door and try to bring them back with retargeting.
Retargeting is a strategy that uses tracking cookies and JavaScript to market to users that visited your website and left without taking a specific action. When people come to your site, you can attach a harmless retargeting cookie to their web browsers. If the user leaves without completing a certain action, he or she will receive targeted advertisements about your brand and products on other websites.
Reaping the benefits
The benefits of retargeting are numerous, ranging from improved brand recall to superior dwell rates on your website, but most importantly, it boosts conversion rates and increases revenue (at least in the case of ecommerce sites).
The average person is far more likely to respond positively to an online ad if they are familiar with the brand and have looked at its products recently. Retargeting allows you to serve targeted offers to people about items they have already shown interest in, and the results can be powerful.
forms of retargeting
Retargeting doesn’t only apply to those first-time visitors who leave your website behind after a minute or two.
You can also send product recommendations or relevant bestseller lists to your existing customers. You can send them emails to people who abandon their shopping carts, reminding them to complete their transactions. This strategy is called “remarketing,” which is slightly different from retargeting.
Poor conversion rates are normal for first-time visitors. That’s a reality we all deal with. People want to get to know you a little before taking that “next step” with your brand. What separates successful online businesses from the ones that fail is perseverance, experimentation and initiative. If you have ever seen a good salesperson in action, you probably saw someone who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer, but also knew when to back off. Like any other strategy, retargeting can backfire when used to stalk people relentlessly for weeks or months at a time. An advertising agency can help you set up a campaign that delivers the right number of impressions over a set period of time, experimenting with offers that entice people.
Sometimes customers need a little prodding to open up their wallets and buy. Retargeting can help you win new customers, while also keeping your current ones happy with custom offers.