5 Tips: Shift From 'Creepy Ads' To Relevance!
Avinash Kaushik
Chief Strategy Officer, BOD, Croud | Best-selling Author, Analytics.
I'm a fan of smart retargeting/remarketing. The fact that someone interacted with us somehow (on our site, saw our ads, visited our competitor's website, yada, yada, yada) is a signal we can use as marketers to deliver relevance and value in our ads.
Sadly… most retargeting is lazy.
If you are unable to create a half decent display ad, proceeding to retarget the heck out of that awfulness will not yield spectacular results. I’m amazed that in those situations people are shocked, SHOCKED (!!), that retargeting does not work.
Also, some advertising platforms, including the largest ones, use the lamest possible signals in their possession to retarget ads. I was just served 10 ads on the right side, not a single one was remotely relevant. Lazy advertising platforms don't work.
Everything lazy does not work.
Blaming retargeting for stinking is silly. It is like blaming PowerPoint/Keynote for terrible presentations. Grab a mirror.
Here are five recommendations to dramatically improve effectiveness and ROI:
- Don't stink at creativity. Retargeting works best when you are creative with your ads.
- A single visit to your site does not signal an intention to buy. Invest in understanding Days & Visits to Purchase (standard metrics in web analytics tools), and Macro & Micro-Outcomes (helpful post: https://goo.gl/aJgR6K). The best retargeting strategies often target Micro-Outcomes!
- Recency/Frequency retargeting controls in your advertising platform are your friend. Nay. They are the only thing you should care about! Experiment with both those dials, control for them in your retargeting efforts, you'll quickly go from creepy to "omg, so helpful."
- Demographic and psychographic targeting worked in the TV world. If you have nothing else (and you always have something else in digital), use it. If you want to win retargeting, use other relevancy signals to increase the value from your ads including actual behavior on your site, clicks on your paid search results and even content consumption across industry digital presence.
- The near-past behavior, actual observed behavior, often trumps historical activity.
Like every other case in life, common-sense trumps everything when it comes to retargeting/remarketing. If you would not be happy to be at the other end of your advertising strategy it might be a fantastic idea to stop.
Retargeting/remarketing can be a great way to engage a relevant audience with relevant content/value. As with every other marketing weapon, you should educate yourself on its proper use and deploy it smartly.
Good luck!
Cartoon by Tom Fishburne: https://goo.gl/ZtnvEJ
Founder - HouseSitMatch.com
11 年I think your 'near past behaviour' comment is apt! Nice piece...
Digital Marketing Thought Leader, Head of Performance Marketing, Greater China / Japan / S. Korea, Merkle
11 年If first time you were trying to lure visitors to buy something and they didn't, in re-marketing, I think you'd better doing something more branding level creative. Let them know you are around but don't pitch them with the same "winning" creative again and again.
Head of US Sales & Global Agency Development, United Airlines
11 年"Everything lazy does not work" is spot on. If you're going to invest the time and money into something, spend the little extra time to do it right. It will actually save you time in the end, as it minimizes the million emails you'll get when it doesn't work, and make you more money in the long run because people/clients will trust your judgement and advice resulting in renewing business.and/or bigger budgets.
Writer / Director
11 年Are our businesses run by middle managers with one hand on a 'universal translator' and the other on 'management for dummies'? Is all this Vogon poetry really necessary? Whatever happened to 'Eat at Joe's'? Are we paying for advisers to advise us what we should be advising people to advise us what to pay for? Are we paying extra to pay advisers to advise us how to cover up the mistakes we were advised to make by previous advisers? Perhaps you could all discuss this while I go off to to quantum-doodle a nice picture of a rocket...