Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is one of the most potent tools in the marketer’s toolkit. Retargeting involves placing a tiny bit of code known as a pixel on your site. When you get a new visitor, the pixel puts a cookie in their browser. Then you can display ads to those visitors, even when they’re on other sites. Your retargeting platform does the heavy lifting. They will find participating ad networks while you focus on creating effective ads.On most sites, just 2 percent of first-time visitors convert.

Retargeting is so powerful because it allows you to focus your ad spend on the other 98 percent. These are individuals who have been exposed to your brand, but for whatever reason didn’t convert. If you have put any effort at all into content marketing, you should be retargeting.

Optimizing Your Retargeting Campaigns with Facebook and YouTube

The advice you’ll hear most often is ‘make sure you use upsells.’ Upselling through retargeting can boost conversion rates up to five percent. This doesn’t always mean selling an upsell at checkout. You could lead your recent conversions into a new funnel instead. Or, if you’re a SaaS company, you could use remarketing to educate your freemium users on your premium benefits.

The bottom line: sometimes it makes sense to go after the immediate upsell, but don’t miss out on the opportunity to educate your customers about a more profitable product. You can also segment your existing list by offer. This will allow you to target upsells to individuals most likely to bite.

Let’s look at three powerful retargeting techniques.

1. Leverage Traditional Marketing Methods

The “Mad Men” era of the 1960’s gifted us with a slew of effective marketing concepts. Gurus espoused the power of urgency and pain points. Today, the Internet is filled to the brim with copy both good and bad. Still, you can take the best of those marketing concepts and put them to work in your remarketing campaigns. Focus on these four points:

• Scarcity
• Urgency
• Social Proof
• Testimonials

If you have a physical product and stock is limited, let your customers know, and if you’ve enjoyed viral exposure across the Internet, brag about it. Don’t be shy. Let your prospects know why they should return and they will. Ads that feature smiling models are effective because they engage the user at a very primal level. This is basic marketing psychology, and it’s particularly effective here because your target is familiar with your site.

‘The idea of dividing a market up into homogeneous segments and targeting each with a distinct product and/or message, is now at the heart of marketing theory’
– Market Segmentation, Michael J Croft

2. Utilize Segmentation

If you aren’t using segmentation, you’re leaving money on the table. It isn’t enough to target people who’ve visited your site. Here are three metrics to track:

• Pages most visited
• Keywords they searched to find your site
• The device visitors use to peruse your site

Segmentation is crucial because it allows you to target by relationship. If a visitor is already on your mailing list, leading them back to your content might not be the most efficient use of your ad funds. If one page on your site receives more hits than the others, try to figure out why that is and what those visitors want. Then create a custom ad for that audience.

If your About Us page is receiving a high amount of traffic, target those visitors! Offer a one-on-one consultation with a prominent member of your organization or a free webinar with limited seating.

These segments represent a small chunk of your overall traffic, but they are more likely to convert. Engage them with targeted content and remember to keep your segments healthy by removing users who convert from your retargeting audience.

3. Go Multi-Channel

Don’t depend on just one channel. The Google Display Network is a good start, but you could also advertise on Facebook and Twitter. Advertising on social media allows you to catch consumers when they’re more likely to click, so make sure your ads are compelling. Newsfeed ads in particular can be stellar performers. Facebook guidelines to keep in mind:

• Only 20 percent of your ad can be text.
• You must use a retargeting platform that is pre-approved by Facebook—Adroll and Perfect Audience are good candidates.
• Your ads must be static.
• There is one ad size: 1200 by 628 pixels.

Don’t overlook the power of YouTube remarketing. With AdWords, you can create hyper-targeted campaigns focused on people who have interacted with your channel. The goal is to build your subscriptions. Once someone subscribes to your channel, YouTube will promote your content to them for free. The more they interact with your channel, the more your content will be recommended to them and the more they’ll trust you. Be sure to drop your URL in the video description.

Were these tips helpful to you? Let us know in the comments section below!