Remarketing is one of the most effective types of PPC campaigns available to marketers, and yet, too often businesses overlook remarketing campaigns. Remarketing ads display to users who have previously expressed interest in your brand, whether by visiting your website, downloading a tool, or following you on social media.
Remarketing ads work based on browser cookies. That means you can display a personalized ad to relevant users up to 120 days after they engage with you. Image-based ads on platforms like the Google Display Network entice customers to return to your site.
For most marketers, remarketing is a second-thought. But since the majority of users don’t take action on your ads the first time around, remarketing is a critical component of PPC success. In fact, it has an incredibly high ROAS: remarketing can get up to a 161% conversion rate when done right. That means attracting more interested, qualified traffic to your site.
Get more interested leads, boost brand awareness, and earn more repeat business when you get creative with your remarketing campaigns.
5 strategies for smarter remarketing
Instead of relying on one shotgun-style remarketing campaign to bring users back to your site, create a remarketing strategy with finesse. Get creative with these five out-of-the-box remarketing best practices.
1. Segment your remarketing list
Most remarketing campaigns are very general. The majority of advertisers set up one remarketing campaign for all of their ads in a generalized approach. But remarketing is still PPC; that’s why you still have to segment your audience if you want to get more results.
People visit your site for so many reasons. You’ll get more conversions when you personalize your remarketing ads based on that audience’s interests. In fact, 88% of marketers see better results from personalized PPC campaigns.
Consider these segments when creating your next remarketing campaign strategy.
Leads at the top of the funnel
Your top of funnel offers, like free downloads, are a goldmine for audience retargeting. Instead of hoping the lead magnet will push your buyers through the funnel, give them a nudge with a personalized remarketing campaign.
Remarket to this audience to pull them through the funnel faster. If someone downloaded your free checklist, display remarketed ads inviting them to join your webinar.
Abandoned carts
81% of all carts are abandoned, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on those sales. After all, these customers were interested enough to add something to their cart. Create a remarketing audience targeting users with abandoned carts. Push ads about your product features or send over a discount code to bring your customers to conversion.
Current customers
You should never stop selling to your current customers. It’s five times cheaper to advertise to an existing customer than it is to find a new buyer. Translation: you can see significant ROAS with this remarketing segment.
Increase your customer lifetime value by encouraging customers to return. Consider cross-promoting or up-selling to this audience. Promote complementary products to bring these customers back into the fold. If that isn’t relevant for your business, consider a remarketing campaign that invites customers to join your loyalty program.
2. Optimize your bids
While search campaigns are important, remarketing strategies can earn significantly more ROAS. It makes sense to bid just as much, if not more, on your remarketing ads as you do on your other search or social media ads. No matter how much you spend on remarketing, though, it’s still important to optimize your bids and make the most of your budget.
For example, when you run a remarketing campaign on Google, you can choose from several bidding strategies:
- Enhanced CPC: This automatically adjusts your bids to spend a little more on clicks that will lead to a conversion. Keep in mind that you need a lot of historical conversion data to use this feature.
- Target CPA: This bidding strategy does real-time optimization of your bids, so you don’t have to manage anything manually.
- Target ROAS: Set the maximum you’re willing to spend per bid so you can keep your budget in check.
- Maximize Conversions: If you need conversions no matter what, this strategy optimizes bids to get engagement, although often at the detriment to your budget.
3. Enhance your audience
The larger your remarketing list, the more opportunities you have to reconnect with an interested lead. Many PPC platforms, like Facebook and Google, let you target audiences similar to your existing remarketing list. This is the perfect way to expand your reach to an audience that’s open to your message.
See if your advertising platform allows you to expand your audience. It’s a free tool that gets even more traction for your remarketing campaign.
4. Use engaging ad formats
Static images are the standard for remarketing, but you don’t have to stick with just image-based ads. For example, Google will create Dynamic Ads for you. This reformats your ad creative to fit nearly any size of ad space, saving you time and boosting your chances of showing up in the PPC auction.
YouTube Ads is another great way to boost your reach. While you can display static images on YouTube Ads, video ads are an engaging option.
Google also offers Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA). This targets users in your audience and offers hyper-customized ads based on their search queries. It’s as close to mind-reading as you can get with Google Ads.
5. Set limits
In the frenzy and excitement of growing your business, it’s easy to forget about the user’s needs. The thing is, unless you want your audience to install ad-blockers, you have to set limits on how often they see your ads.
If your audience isn’t online at, say, 3 AM, adjust your remarketing schedule to only show ads during a set time. This preserves your budget and ensures you’re showing up to the right audience at the right time.
Frequency caps are also important. This limits how many times someone sees your ad in a day. If you’re concerned about advertising overload, set a frequency cap to around 5 views a day or fewer.
The bottom line
Get even more engagement from your remarketing campaign with smarter data, better segmentation, creative ad formats, and simple tweaks to your campaign. The name of the game for PPC is bringing customers to conversion. Make this year for remarketing success. Embrace these 5 out-of-the-box remarketing ideas to improve your customer experience, boost loyalty, and generate more revenue.
Ready to get more from your remarketing campaigns? Get in touch with Logical Media Group. Our team of experienced PPC strategists will help you strategize and manage your remarketing campaign for more results.
