What is Remarketing and How Does it Work?

How many times have you gone to a website, looked at their products, and left without buying anything? And, more importantly, how long before you started seeing ads for that website all over the place? In your Facebook or Instagram feed, on your favorite mobile game or simply on another website? That’s the magic of remarketing and in this post, we’ll explain what remarketing is, how it works, and talk about its benefits for you as a business owner. 

What is Remarketing?

Put simply, remarketing is a marketing practice that allows you to interact with people who have previously visited your website by showing them ads across the internet. 

The ads are shown strategically, on websites that they usually visit most and are usually about the product or other offer they viewed. These ads keep your brand top of mind and often result in visitors coming back and making a purchase. 

You might be thinking that remarketing feels a lot like stalking. However, here’s one thing to consider: about 96% of website visitors aren’t ready to make a purchase on their first visit. And if you haven’t captured their email information so you can nurture the relationship, that’s a lot of missed opportunities. 

By strategically showing them ads about your product, you have multiple opportunities to convince them to buy your product and convert them from visitors into customers.  

How Remarketing Works

If you use the Internet regularly, you’ve probably come across a box asking you to accept cookies. Cookies are little bits of code from your remarketing provider that are stored in your visitor’s browser. 

The code tracks what pages on your site a visitor viewed, which links they clicked, and similar actions but without storing any sensitive personal information. Once a visitor leaves your site, the cookie tells your remarketing partner that you’ve visited a new site. 

The remarketing partner then starts serving multiple ads about the products or other offers your visitor viewed on your site. 

Different Types of Remarketing

There are several types of remarketing that you can use in your business to re-engage website visitors and turn them into customers.

Standard Remarketing 

This is the most common form of remarketing and it includes displaying ads to people who have visited your site in the past. These ads will appear throughout the Google display network or on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter, depending on where you set up your remarketing campaign.

Dynamic Remarketing

Another type of remarketing is dynamic remarketing. By using this method, you’ll display ads tailored to your website visitors based on what pages they visited. It includes ad messages that are created specifically for visitors viewing the ads with a single goal of getting them to return to your website and finish their purchase or sign up. This type of remarketing works well for eCommerce businesses to reduce their cart abandonment rate. 

Email Remarketing

Email remarketing refers to showing ads to people who are subscribed to your email list and have opened your emails. This type of remarketing can be very effective since people who are on your site have already shown an interest in your brand and your offers. 

Search List Ads Remarketing

You can also display your ads for remarketing purposes on search engines like Google and Bing. You can target people who have visited your site and are searching for specific terms online. 

Search Retargeting

Search retargeting sounds similar to the type of remarketing mentioned above but the two terms are different. With search retargeting, you’re targeting people who are searching for certain terms and have looked at products or offers that are similar to yours. The main difference is that you’ll target those who meet the criteria above but they haven’t visited your website yet.

This type of marketing is beneficial if you want to target people interested in your competitors and broaden your market reach. 

Video Remarketing

Lastly, video remarketing refers to showing ads to people on YouTube. This allows you to target people who have visited your channel or your videos. They can be retargeted while browsing other sites in the Google display network.

Benefits of Remarketing

Now that we’ve covered what remarketing is and how it works, let’s go over the top three benefits of remarketing. 

Highly targeted marketing messages

Remarketing allows you to serve highly targeted marketing messages that are relevant to your website visitors. By combining the visitor’s actions with, say, an amount of time that has passed since that particular action, you can target users with different interests at different points in their customer journey and improve their customer experience. 

Brand Awareness

Remarketing can be a great way to increase your brand awareness. Consider for a moment how many websites you visit on a daily basis and compare that number with the number of websites you actually remember. Remarketing ensures your brand stays top of mind with your website visitors. 

Higher Conversion

As mentioned earlier, remarketing leads to an increase in conversions. This is possible because your ads are shown to users who have already had an interaction with your brand and at a time when they are most likely to convert. 

5 Quick Tips for Successful Remarketing Campaigns

Don’t display your ads too often

Personalization is key

Separate buyers from non-buyers

Test different platforms and ad types

Schedule campaigns accordingly

By now you should have a solid idea of how useful remarketing is and how you could implement it in your business. If you want to ensure your remarketing campaigns are successful, keep the following tips in mind: 

1. Don’t display your ads too often — limiting the frequency with which your ads are shown is a good way to ensure your users aren’t overwhelmed. 
2. Personalization is key — create different remarketing lists to ensure that your remarketing messages are relevant and personalized. The key to remember here is that not all your website visitors will be interested in the same thing and that’s precisely where different lists (or segments) come in handy.
3. Separate buyers from non-buyers — once a visitor converts, be sure to add them to a special list. This allows you to nurture the relationship further and send them special offers and discounts that prompt them to return and make another purchase. This is how you cultivate a list of repeat, loyal buyers.
4. Test different platforms and ad types — between Google display network, and social media ads, the world is your oyster. The only way to make sure your remarketing campaigns are effective (and to improve them over time) is to experiment with platforms, ad sizes, and different types of remarketing. 
5. Keep your audience in mind — schedule your marketing campaigns based on your audience activity. If you’re targeting millennials, schedule your campaigns for mid-afternoon. If you’re targeting older generations, consider scheduling your campaigns for mornings. 

Add Remarketing to Your Marketing Strategy

Now you know what remarketing is and how it can benefit your business. The main takeaway you should walk away is that remarketing can have a huge positive impact on your profits — if you do it correctly.

With the tips in this article, you’ll be well on your way towards planning, creating, and executing a smart remarketing strategy.

Like our blog? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Over 4000 marketers love it. Receive information on best marketing practices, exclusive offers, and ways to boost efficiency, quality, and productivity.