Did you know that customers subjected to retargeting are 70% more likely to complete a conversion compared to non-retargeted visitors.
CTRs for retargeted ads are also significantly higher than regular display (sometimes 10x higher). Those are some impressive stats.
So the question goes: are you retargeting your visitors properly? And I don’t mean, have you got it turned on. I’m saying are you segmenting correctly? Is your frequency cap game on point?
Yes, no, maybe? Say no more! Read on for some great tips on how to most effectively retarget your customers now.
Audience segmentation or grouping your visitors based on behaviour is incredibly important for targeting purposes. User behaviour on each of the pages on your site are indicative of the different levels your visitor is at in the buyer journey, and of how of how ready they are to convert.
With this information in tow, you can then create more optimal ad experiences by highlighting the products or services these specific groups previously viewed and directing them back to pages they visited.
For example: Let’s say a visitor viewed both your pricing page and your case studies page, but then wandered off without taking any next steps. While it’s safe to assume they had some interest, you may want to segment them and serve up an ad for your consultation page to catch their interest and re-engage them.
When you clicked away, but you're being retargeted with the same ad 50 times a day...
Don’t you hate it when you’ve recently been on a site and then afterwards, no matter where you go on the interwebs, that website follows you around in the form of retargeted ads a million times a day?
Everywhere you turn, at least ten times in an hour, there’s that same exact ad heckling you to buy that one thing you looked at days ago.
Even if a buyer had been interested in the original offer, overexposure can turn a potential convert completely off.
Leverage frequency caps to limit the number of times an ad will be shown to a single visitor so potential buyers don’t tire of your reminder.
Retargeter recommends showing 17-20 ads per month, while ClearPier’s Ad Ops team suggests capping frequency at 3-6 ads/day, particularly if it’s a branded campaign. Terry Kalambalikis, Demand Optimization Manager at ClearPier, reminds us however that this really depends on the type of offer and the needs of the client as well. Different from display, video frequency cap may be set at 1 ad/day, but the smaller cap is also simply the result of fewer avails. Any higher of a frequency cap would affect your pacing.
What might be worst that retargeting without frequency capping? Retargeting the same ad, with an irrelevant message, to a user that has already made a purchase. Your customers are furrowing their eyebrows and asking, “Why are you still trying to sell me this, I’ve already purchased it!”
Your customers RN 'cause, bad retargeting...
Don’t annoy your client base. You want to keep them coming.
To avoid this, use a burn pixel.
Burn pixels is a short line of code that runs on the post-conversion page, usually the ‘thank you page’, will remove users that have already completed a transaction. You can push these users into a different bucket of converted buyers now and serve new ads with more relevant messaging.
The burn code saves you money by helping you reallocate spend. With your audience properly tagged now as an existing customer, rather than a prospective buyer, you can retarget with a new set of ads to upsell, cross-sell or offer new promotions. Previous customers are much more likely to be repeat buyers if you run your retargeting campaigns properly.
So make them feel the burn…pixel!
The duration of your campaign dictates precisely how long your visitor will be retargeted based on their original cookie data. Their retargeting duration can be anything from a day, a week, to a month or longer.
Frequency caps function to limit the number of impressions your visitor will be served throughout your campaign duration. This duration dictates the lifespan of your visitor’s cookie data and at the end of your campaign duration, that cookie is destroyed.
In other words, at the end of your campaign duration, visitors will no longer see your retargeted ads.
Typically longer campaigns run between 30 and 90 days. But beware: even if you have a frequency cap and have set your campaign duration alongside a burn pixel, you NEED to refresh your creatives. Which leads me to my next point…
Why you ask? People get bored.
YAWN!
This is the biggest risk that can turn off potential buyers that have already indicated that they’re interested in your product or services.
But stale ads are a real problem. What may have appealed to your audience a month ago, may not work a month later.
In fact, Facebook has a subtle way of encouraging advertisers to refresh their ads by slowing down the pacing of an older ad. So, if you want your ads seen and more traffic pushed through, refresh your ads.
In addition to refreshing your ads, you should also be A/B testing your creatives to determine which ad is the best performing and eliminate those that don’t.
Testing your creatives will help to uncover which variable of your creative works best. Sometimes all it takes to boost clicks is a button colour change. At others, it’s the image that makes people convert.
If you’re not sure where to start you’re A/B testing, check out our article on A/B Testing 101.
No go forth and start retargeting your audience with confidence!