Wouldn’t it be great if you could capture the people who are searching for not just your products and services, but for relevant products and services as well? Wouldn’t it broaden your base of potential customers if you could reel in visitors looking for similar information from other sites—or even your competitors' sites?
Of course it would! Search retargeting makes it possible. This advanced marketing strategy allows you to target buyers who are performing relevant searches, even when they’re using keywords that aren’t on your list.
These searchers haven’t necessarily even been to your site, but based on their searches, they're likely looking for a product or service that you offer. Retargeting technologies keep track of the people who visit your site and display your ads to them as they visit other sites online. Clever, right?
Here’s how to do it: Simply place a piece of code in your site’s footer to create a log of all visitors via browser cookies. Once this list of people is created, a retargeting service will display your retargeted ads to them while they are visiting other sites.
Retargeting allows online businesses to stay on the radar of potential customers. When you retarget, you’re reaching the prospects who got away. This generally leads to an increase in click-throughs and conversions, not only because you’re getting repeated exposure to a whole new market, but also because this market is so highly targeted. These prospects know what they want and are closer to making purchasing decisions than prospects in other stages of the sales cycle.
Retargeting Best Practices
Here are a few things to remember when retargeting:
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Segment your visitors by their interests, not just by those who converted. This ensures more accurate, relevant ads will be displayed to your visitors.
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Use clear, effective calls to action, promotional offers and other incentives to lure in your retargeted visitors.
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Time your ads wisely. Ads for items that people might need right away should be shown immediately, while ads for “window shoppers” can wait.
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Use your relevant keywords in all ads.
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Make sure that your landing pages deliver on the ad’s promised offer or call to action.
In other words, the same common sense rules apply to your retargeted ads that apply to your ad campaigns in general.
Retargeting is like remarketing your brand to a whole new segment of potential buyers, without the hassle and expense of traditional ad marketing. Using a retargeting service and a few strategically placed pieces of code, you can direct your ads to the people who didn’t catch them the first time, as well as those who might have never seen them but might be interested. If you’re curious about how many people you could be converting into paying customers, retargeting is a great way to find out.
