Retargeting: Six Steps To Market To Visitors Who Have Left Your Website

Hi, Welcome! I’m Elizabeth Conley and I set up this site to help and support people who want to work from home as I know that setting up a business from home can be isolating and frustrating at times. If you’re just thinking about a change then check out this video by a good friend and coach Andrea Lindsay on, making a career change part 1.

Getting targeted visitors to your website is one of the first challenges for every online business. There’s no point of having great content, products and offers on your site if you are trading in a ghost town. However, once this problem is solved you have an even bigger challenge. The vast majority of your visitors only visit your website once and then go elsewhere. Whilst all online marketers try to capture their visitors’ details through an opt-in list or sale, the reality is that the vast majority of visitors disappear, and don’t return.

One effective solution is retargeting, which can complement other online marketing strategies. 

So what does retargeting entail? How does it work? And how can retargeting help to increase your traffic, drive conversions, and generate more revenue for your business?

What Is Retargeting?

Retargeting is the act of advertising to those people who have already heard of your brand. In online terms, this means showing advertisements to people who have already visited your website. Usually, the process works like this:

• People visit your website and a small tacking code makes a note of this
• They leave your site without completing the desired action
• Later when browsing the web, they see your retargeted banner advert. Recognising the tracking code, these websites are more likely to show ads for your website to these visitors
• Interest in your website or offer is recaptured
• Person revisits your site and makes the desired action

How Does Retargeting Work?

Most online advertising takes place through so-called ‘Ad Networks’. These are collections of websites that have signed up to display advertisements, receiving a small payment for each person that ‘clicks through’ to your site.

The results are impressive. According to CrowdScience, retargeting delivers click-through rates (CTRs) as high as 15%. By comparison, standard online ads rarely exceed a 1% CTR.

Retargeting is the internet’s new favourite buzzword for one simple reason – it works.

Even though there is no denying the statistics around retargeting, achieving those 15% click-through rates and increased conversions means doing a little more than just showing targeted ads to the right people.

In fact, as the awareness of retargeting increases, more and more people are sensitive to this kind of advertising. How you follow up with users who have visited your site needs careful consideration. There are six steps to consider when launching a campaign.

Six Steps To Running A Retargeting Campaign

1. Define your goals. This will depend on the conversion cycle in your business and at what stage you are following up with visitors. If you are tracking a customer who left your site in the final buying stage then your goal might be to complete the sale. However, if you are following a visitor who left your site very quickly then your goal might be to build greater brand awareness and credibility.
2. Make your advertising relevant. It is better to show your banner alongside relevant content. It’s a sensible idea to think about the duration of your retargeting, and the frequency your advertisements are displayed. People love to see familiar names, and your advert will almost always be considered relevant to people that have visited your website. But when you see the same brand name for the 20th time in a day, it’s not unusual to feel pestered! Why not be open and up front about retargeting? The best adverts aren’t the ones that pretend to be general purpose, they’re the ones that say “Hello. Us Again. Why not come back and have another look at what we do?”.
3. Identify your audience. There are likely to be multiple products or services on your site which appeal to different types of customers. Different content and websites will appeal to them. It is more effective to run multiple adverts for different customer groups.
4. Design relevant adverts. This depends on at what stage you are following a visitor. You need to tailor the message to their specific needs. If a visitor is at an early stage in the sales process then you will want your advertisements to be informative rather than offering deals or talking about prices.
5. Using the correct tag. Place site retargeting tags allow you to tailor the campaign differently, depending on the visitors’ experience on your site. Place conversion tags monitor the conversion rate and give greater insight into the campaign.
6. Analyse. It is necessary to keep track of how your campaign is working and make adjustments. Small changes can make a significant difference to the results.

Getting Started

Who is more likely to buy from your business: somebody who has never heard of you, or someone who has already shown that they are interested? Retargeting connects you with people who are qualified leads, not disinterested strangers.

The easiest way to start is with Google AdWords. AdWords allows you to show advertisements through Google’s own ad network, which makes up a significant portion of all adverts on the web. Google’s confusingly-named remarketing service is retargeting in its purest form – for more details, see here. Alternatively, there are many independent companies that offer online advertising. Some of these services include Google’s ad network alongside social media advertising on Facebook. A well-known one is AdRoll. For more details, visit www.adroll.com.

If you found this article helpful, please click the like button. Share your experiences of retargeting below. Is it marketing tool you would use in your business? Let me know you’re alive!