The Three Secrets to Building a Killer Remarketing Campaign

In my previous article, I gave an overview of remarketing and explained why it’s the one type of marketing that can improve all of your other marketing. If you’re not familiar with the concept, I highly encourage you to check out that post first. 

In today’s post, I want to share the three secrets to getting the absolute most out of your remarketing campaign. In my experience, only a small fraction of businesses – maybe 1% - are using all three of these tactics. So, if you’re already driving a steady amount of traffic to your website (i.e., at least 100 people per month), then implementing the strategies below will not only help you improve ALL your marketing initiatives, but will also give you a serious leg up on your competition. 

Secret #1: Be Omnipresent

Woody Allen once said, “80% of success is just showing up”. And while that may sound cavalier, there’s some truth to it when it comes to marketing.

In my previous article, I highlighted the fact that 95% of website visitors will leave your website without ever taking action, even though they were clearly interested enough to find you in the first place. For a multitude of reasons, humans usually take their time when making buying decisions, especially with purchases that are high dollar or have long-lasting impacts (e.g., painting their house a new color). So, odds are that even after prospects have left your website, most of them are still going to be in the market for your product or service for the next several days, weeks, or sometimes even months.

But just because they’re still in the market does NOT mean they’ll remember you. Consumers have shorter attention spans than ever, and often make judgments about your business after being on your website for less than 10 seconds. And without a way to remind those visitors about yourself, most of them will never remember visiting you in the first place. Given this context, remarketing works almost by default. Just by putting your ads back in front of potentially interested customers reminds them not only that you exist and offer what they need, but also ensures that you’re staying top of mind throughout the entire buying process as they continue researching, weighing potential options, and eventually making a purchase. 

And the numbers back it up. According to Spiralytics, customers who see your remarketing ad are 70% more likely to buy from you than a competitor. All because you simply “showed up” in front of them again before they made a final buying decision. 

Secret #2: Be Omnichannel

As you can see, just by using a remarketing campaign you will immediately be ahead of some of your competitors. However, if you want to get the most out of your remarketing efforts, rather than just picking up the most ready-to-buy prospects, then you need to take it a couple of steps further. 

Secret #2 – being omnichannel – is what is going to truly start to separate you from 99% of the other businesses marketing online today. Many businesses out there (but certainly not all) are running at least one basic remarketing campaign. This means that if they’re running Facebook ads, the odds are that they’re running a remarketing campaign on Facebook to people who previously clicked on one of those Facebook ads. Likewise if their running ads on Google search. But that’s where businesses usually stop. And because of that, they’re missing out on a TON of opportunity. 

The fact is, your customers and prospects don’t just live on one channel of the Internet. Many of them check Facebook a couple of times a day, go to their favorite news sites or blogs once they get into work, sneak in a YouTube video or two sometime in the afternoon, and scroll through Instagram before bedtime. And since that’s the case, why not remarket across ALL of these platforms? Between Google (which owns Gmail, YouTube, and can show display ads on 20% of the world’s websites) and Facebook (which owns Instagram, in addition to Facebook), you can immediately be seen on many of the most used apps in the world today, in addition to some of the biggest news websites and blogs out there.  

You see these types of omnichannel marketing campaigns all the time, but usually only from giant corporations who have millions of dollars in ad spend – the Geicos, Staples, and Coca Colas of the world. But what if you could affordably achieve this same effect for your own business on a local or regional level?

The fact is, remarketing allows you to do EXACTLY that. And because you’re only marketing to people who have previously visited your website, you’re able to reach them across most or all these platforms even with a relatively small budget. The result is that, in the eyes of your prospects, you’re absolutely everywhere. Not only is this going to ensure top of mind awareness for when they’re ready to buy, but they’re most likely also going to start to perceive you as THE go-to business to help them solve their problem.  

Secret #3: Be Omnirelevant

So you know you need to have a remarketing campaign, and that you need to make sure it appears across most of the major Internet sites and platforms. But what types of ads should you show? That’s where the 3rd secret – being omnirelevant – comes in. 

Showing one single ad to customers over and over again will quickly result in diminishing returns, meaning that after the first several impressions, clicks start to go way down and costs start to go way up. Just look at this graph: 

It’s clear from this data that audiences quickly begin to experience ad fatigue from being shown the same ad over and over again. Putting yourself in the consumers’ shoes, this makes sense. While I might need to see an ad a few times for it to stick in my brain, pounding me over the head with the same ad over and over again, at some point, is going to start to annoy. So, what’s a business to do? There are two specific tactics you can use to prevent this from happening:  

Tactic #1: Create Multiple Ads with Different Messages

You should aim to create multiple ads with different messages. However, don’t just create different ads for the sake of them being different. Instead, strategically think all the various reasons why a prospect might not be ready to buy, both in general and from you specifically, and create your ads to address those different reasons. For example, maybe they’re just not convinced they want to spend all that money – why not help them envision how much better their life will be once they buy? Also, customers want to buy from people they trust - try speaking to how many people you’ve already successfully helped to further establish your credibility? Or, instead, highlight part of an online review or a successful case study. And if all else fails, you can always use the tried and true method of providing a discount or a limited time offer. 

Tactic #2: Turn Down the Frequency

Once you have your different ad messages created, be sure to turn down the frequency of your ads so that customers are only seeing each of them 1-3 times (usually per month). By doing this, you’ll first and foremost fight ad fatigue, but you will also dramatically reduce the required budget necessary for your campaign. In fact, it’s relatively easy to stay in front of an audience of 1,000 people for as little as $100-150 per month. Win-win. 

 IN CONCLUSION

Omnipresent. Omnichannel. Omni-relevant. These are the three keys to a highly effective remarketing strategy. And if you employ them correctly, it means that you’re:

• Showing up repeatedly in front of past prospects who showed enough interest to visit your website
• Showing up across the most prominent platforms which are being used by your prospects and customers today
• Varying your remarketing messages to both prevent ad fatigue and ensure you’re addressing all the different reasons why prospects haven’t already bought from you

Do this and you’ll be sure to not only improve the performance of your current marketing efforts, but also gain a huge leg up on your competition. 

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If you’re interested in learning more about how we implement this exact type of remarketing system for our clients, feel free to message me on LinkedIn or learn more at etzlerconsulting.com/omnitargeting.