Have you ever been shopping online and searching around for the perfect shirt, jumping from site to site with no luck? You find one that seems nice, but you’re not quite convinced to purchase. Then a few hours later you start to see that same shirt on your Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Before you know it, you’re convinced that this specific shirt is going to be the perfect solution for what you need, and so you hit that “purchase” button.
This is the power of retargeting. It’s the ability to stay engaged with potential customers past that initial touch point of simply viewing your product, and unlocks the ability to convince them your product solves their needs.
Sounds pretty powerful, right? It is.
Let’s keep going...
How it Works
Retargeting works a little differently across each advertising platform, but simply put retargeting uses a “cookie” to track users and their actions on your website. From this small “cookie crumb” of data, you’re able to create custom audiences based on users’ actions like: when they last visited, if they added to cart, if they purchased or not, and much more.
From these audiences, you can use platforms like Facebook, YouTube, or other Ad Networks to show these users highly curated & targeted ads.
Type of Ads Concepts
Now we have our audience, but what do we show them? Here are a few ideas I personally love, but the concepts here are limitless.
Keep in mind that your goal for these ads should be to handle all the objections your customer may have and convince them to buy.
Ideas:
- Sale or discount (helps handle price-sensitive customers)
- How it works (helps users understand how to use the product in more detail)
- Day in the life (shows how the product will improve their day-to-day life)
- Customer testimonials (helps bring social proof from other happy customers)
- User-generated content (let your current customer base speak for you)
- Provide value / educate them (builds trust that you’re the expert)
FAQs
How much should I spend on retargeting?
Simply put, this comes down to your audience size. A group of 600 users isn’t going to require as large of a budget as a 60,000 user group, so start by creating your audiences and see where you land. When you’re ready to launch, start small and scale your budget up slowly. Keep an eye on key statistics and ensure your ads are effective.
Most platforms offer a statistic called “Frequency,” which means how many times one user is seeing your ads. As you start to scale your spending, keep an eye on this statistic. When you see your frequency jump from 5-8 to 12-15, then you know your budget is too high (see pro tip #2 for more details). Research says it usually takes around 8 touchpoints for a consumer to fully understand the benefits of your product, so past that 8th touchpoint, your budget may not be as effective..
Pro tip: You can use Google Analytics to get a breakdown of your monthly visitors which will help you understand your potential audience size.
Pro tip #2: If your frequency jumps and your campaign is still profitable, that’s okay! Some products may need more convincing than others. There is no hard-set number here, 8 is just a good baseline metric to start understanding your retargeting audience.
Which platform is best? Facebook? YouTube? Something else?
This comes down to a few factors, but the main question here is: where is your target audience? Whatever platform they are on, that’s the platform you should use.
Not sure what platform your users are on? That’s fine. Since pretty much everyone has Facebook/Instagram, it’s easy to recommend starting here. Facebook also has the lowest barrier to entry and often leads to the highest return on investment - so it’s worth testing for all companies and brands.
