What is retargeting?
Retargeting allows you to re-engage people who previously visited your site by following them around the internet with your ads as they surf the web. Retargeting is incredibly cost effective, very powerful, easy to implement, really effective and it needs to be a part of your overall pay-per-click strategy!
We’ve all Experienced Retargeting!
If you’ve spent anytime online you’ve experienced being retargeted. For example, if you visit Amazon and look at a new pair of shoes and then check your Facebook feed, you will likely see ads appears for that exact pair of shoes. The ad will also appear on other sites you visit such as news sites, weather sites, your favorite blog and so on.
How does retargeting work?
The mechanics of retargeting are very simple:
- When a user visits your website, your cookie often called a pixel or tag, is placed on your visitor’s web browser.
- Digital ad networks such as Google and Facebook are able to match your cookies to your ads and serve your ads to previous visitor of your website.
Is Retargeting Effective?
Absolutely, and retargeting provides a great return on investment for just about every business or vertical. Here are some stats on retargeting.
- Retargeting boosts ad response by up to 400%
- Retargeted customers are 4x times more likely to convert on a re-visit
- Web visitors who have been retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert
- Retargeting can increase conversion rates by as high as 147%
- Retargeting will greatly increases brand recognition and trust
Credit: Conversion Logix, Syndacast
How Do I Setup Retargeting?
As previously stated, ad networks are able to retarget previous visitors of your website with your ads by matching your ad cookies to previous visitor of your site. So the question is how do I get my cookie, and how do I place my cookie on the user’s browser?
Getting Your Retargeting Cookies Going: Retargeting for Google AdWords: In order to get your cookie on your visitors browser you need to add a code snippet to your website just before the closing body tag on every page of your website. Each time someone visits your website, this snippet will upload your retargeting cookie to their browser. With your cookie placed on your visitors browser you can now build your retargeting list and serve ads to those users. Google’s code snippet will look something like this.
[code lang="js"]<!-- Google Code for Remarketing Tag --> <!-------------------------------------------------- Remarketing tags may not be associated with personally identifiable information or placed on pages related to sensitive categories. See more information and instructions on how to setup the tag on: http://google.com/ads/remarketingsetup ---------------------------------------------------> <script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ var google_conversion_id = YourIDHere; var google_custom_params = window.google_tag_params; var google_remarketing_only = true; /* ]]> */ </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="//www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion.js"> </script> <noscript> <div style="display:inline;"> <img height="1" width="1" style="border-style:none;" alt="" src="//googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/viewthroughconversion/961104435/?value=0&guid=ON&script=0"/> </div> </noscript> [/code]
Please Note: Many WordPress templates have a spot in the admin area where you can place your remarketing code snippet once, and the template will take care of adding it to each page on your website which is really convenient. Facebook’s code snippet which they call a pixel looks something like this.
[code lang="js"]<!-- Facebook Pixel Code -->
<script>
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,'script','//connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
fbq('init', 'YourUniqueFacebook#here');
fbq('track', "PageView");</script>
<noscript><img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=YourUniqueFacebook#Here&ev=PageView&noscript=1" /></noscript>
<!-- End Facebook Pixel Code -->
[/code]As you can see Facebook’s code snippet is similar to Google’s and is placed just before the closing body tag on each page of your website. Again, many templates have a spot you can place this code snippet once and they will take care of adding the snippet to each page. Tip for adding remarketing code using Google Tag Manager: As you can see from the above examples you likely will need to add several code snippets to your website. You will also need to add other code snippets for services such as Google Analytics as well as other services. I recommend using Google Tag Manager (GTM) which will allow you to add just one GTM snippet and then add all your snippets to GTM without having to edit your website’s backend. GTM is free as in beer and will eliminate you having to add hundreds of lines of code manually to your website. You can learn more about Google Tag Manager [eafl id=2835 name=”About Google Tag Manager” text=”here”].
Go Forth and Start Retargeting Today!
Retargeting is without a doubt one the most powerful digital marketing methods you can implement. Retargeting will greatly increase your digital marketing campaign’s return on investment and help you squeeze the most value from every digital ad dollar you spend. Setting up and managing retargeting campaigns is technically within most people’s reach and since the ROI is strong, it’s most likely worth the investment.
WRITTEN BY
Rick Hogan, CEO & Co-Founder – Bleevit Interactive Rick possesses over 20 years of digital marketing experience and started Bleevit Interactive with the primary mission of helping local businesses succeed online. When he is not working he can often be found hiking Great Falls, Virginia with his Labradoodle Lily, or sailing the Chesapeake Bay. If you have any comments or suggestions on how we can improve this post or otherwise want to give us a shout, send an email to hello@bleevit.com.
