A companion remarketing campaign should be set up alongside any PPC campaign.
Users who are seeing your ads for the first time and those who have seen them before, or those who have already visited your site through another channel, are all too often targeted with the same ads and bids.
A more granular approach, however, will yield better results by segmenting an effort into net new users and a remarketing audience.
Remarketing efforts like RLSA can help you improve the performance of your PPC campaigns and increase conversion rates.
However, to avoid common pitfalls, keep these six considerations in mind as you go.
1. Look for a Scale
Make no assumptions about the size of the retargetable audience.
Use data from other channels to estimate the number of monthly repeat visitors, both overall and by business unit or product, in order to forecast re-marketable traffic for your paid search campaigns.
Scale is crucial in any marketing campaign.
In some cases, you may discover that the remarketing volume is insignificant.
If the audience size is small within the typical 30-day window, consider going 60 or even 90 days out.
While 1,000 users have traditionally been the minimum list size in Google Ads, depending on your typical click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate (CVR), you may require a larger number.
If you typically see a 5% CTR and a 2% CVR, for example, 1,000 impressions will only result in 0.5 conversions.
For this situation, a million impressions are required to generate 10 conversions, a level where things are still not very impactful but can become interesting.
2. Cross-sell and upsell instead of just selling
A common assumption is that someone who did not transact may require additional encouragement in the form of more frequent and/or compelling messaging. That could be the case.
However, in many cases, they gathered all of the information and determined that they did not require what they thought they did.
Many users in the discovery phase are not only looking for potential solutions but also double-checking that the problem they’re trying to solve is the right one.
Test both a sell and a cross-sell or upsell message when setting up remarketing.
Give users more reasons to remember you, especially if your site sells supplements or complements that are commonly used.
The selling message entails saying the same thing users have already heard, but in a different way: with a stronger call to action and/or a limited-time offer.
A cross-sell would promote related products, whereas an upsell could persuade users to consider a more expensive option. They may not opt for the higher-end option, but the latter can serve to emphasize the value of the first option that was considered.
3. Consider Excluding
Doesn’t it seem self-evident? Users who have recently purchased your product or service are unlikely to do so again. On the other hand, we’ve all seen companies retarget us with products we’ve recently purchased.
Converts from the previous seven to fourteen days can generally be safely excluded from all B2C campaigns, with the exception of those with cross-sell goals.
Consider how long your service will be consumed for the best experience. The time it takes to transact again varies by product category.
Seasonality, target location, and target ROI will all influence the desired frequency for targeting repeat users.
Someone booking a summer vacation, for example, may not buy from you again for several months. It could be argued that a person’s planning and consideration will start earlier.
However, buying media too early can result in a lot of additional costs, lowering your target ROI.
As a result, if you want to entice previous converts to buy more of the same from you, it’s usually best to wait a while before retargeting them.
Cross-selling, on the other hand, can be done right after a transaction is completed, but it must be managed carefully so that it does not continue for too long.
Establish a cut-off point, especially when the use of a product renders add-ons obsolete.
Upselling a traveler on a car rental or a room upgrade, for example, makes little sense once the vacation has begun. A month or so after purchasing a cell phone plan, a convert is unlikely to want to upgrade to a more comprehensive plan.
4. Go Long
Think Long-Term Remarketing is commonly thought of as a short-term strategy for cart abandoners or recent site visitors.
It is possible, however, to remarket to users who haven’t visited the site in over a year.
Loyalty nurturing is frequently overlooked in the rush to acquire new customers.
As you do so, keep in mind consumption patterns and seasonality.
When is the next time someone will start planning a spring break getaway with you if they booked one with you? What is the software renewal cycle that you offer?
5. Synergies with other channels
By default, remarketing on search will remarket to all users who have visited your site.
In other words, you’ll target people who came to your site through other channels, such as display ads, social media interactions, email blasts, and so on, in addition to organic search and direct visits.
Take into account the messages that people have seen and build on them.
Create remarketing campaigns by channel or sets of channels if you’re feeling particularly advanced (and your scale allows it).
6. No additional funds are required
Many CMOs will be pleased with this. You won’t need an extra budget for remarketing at first.
Keep in mind that this is all about identifying people who have already been captured by your current campaigns. Isolating those who search frequently and providing them with new experiences is all that is required.
These are, however, the same users you’ve been focusing on.
Of course, you’d want to go out of your way to find these users and send bid modifiers to them.
However, unless your remarketing audiences are large and/or you expect a significant increase in CTR, the budget should not need to be increased.
An extra budget for remarketing is nice, but it isn’t necessary for the short term. It’s definitely not a good idea to set up some preliminary tests.
Takeaway
With cookie deprecation looming, there’s been an increased focus on first-party data, and remarketing efforts fit in nicely with this new direction.
Supporting first-party data initiatives with remarketing solutions is a good fit.
Structure your remarketing efforts to win twice, whether you’re using emails to build an audience or forms to capture user details on the landing page at the start of the conversion journey. Efforts to capture first-party data should be coordinated with efforts to improve conversion.
Learn more from PPC and read How To Make Paid Search For B2B Marketing Effective.
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