We are obviously big supporters of retargeting. Past posts have laid out the numbers. We’ve also laid out the basic tech, and explained how regular monitoring can deliver ROI. Our company’s experience and our clients’ results have certainly convinced us. But if you’re reading this, you probably still aren’t “there” yet.
To make campaigns that appeal to the masses, professors say, you must take yourself out of the equation. The first lesson in Marketing 101 to take “me” out of the mix. The problem is that it’s virtually impossible, and many people’s first reaction to remarketing is “that would bug me”. We’ve found that when you get the chance to talk to a business owner and understand what they view as their “ideal customer”, it’s pretty easy to explain how retargeting is quite the opposite. What follows is just a simple illustration to explain how good retargeting converts shoppers to buyers.
W-2’s are in the mail, the holidays have ended, and cars on their last leg are surrendering to winter, so let’s start with “TJ” who needs a pizza, an accountant, and probably a car. We all know what TJ is about to do. Over 90% of people pop on Google[1] and kind of know what is coming. The holy grail of SEO is to get that first listing for TJ, as a third of all traffic generated comes from that slot[2].
TJ also likely knows that beyond the “big ten” organic listings, he’s going to get ads, suggested links and be exposed to all manner of marketing when he does each search. It’s an unspoken agreement we all have with Google. Most of us have similar, but legally documented, relationships with social media platforms. We all know how much marketing noise is out there.
When one of our clients has run the gauntlet and earned a visit from TJ, more than 95% of the time he isn’t going to buy, fill out a form, or basically do whatever the business wants him to do[3]. Retargeting is simply a trendy and technical term to do what successful businesses have always done; value their time and visit, try to politely re-engage them, and follow up at pertinent times. Let’s start with the pizza.
Retargeting for Simple Transactions
Like many of our clients with local bricks and mortar operations, local pizza delivery businesses know their competition. Like most people, TJ gets the same pizza most of the time, has a few apps to choose from, but will pop on Google occasionally when the usual doesn’t sound good. When our clients earn one of these visits from TJ, and he ends up with cheap Dominoes, we go to work.
It’s all obviously led by the businesses’ needs at this point. You already know that TJ lives close and likes pizza. Now, what do want to say to him? Are Tuesdays and Wednesdays dead, advertise only then. Worried that your price point is too high, push out a steep coupon to test one weekend to all the people who have visited the website and never ordered.
TJ is going to be exposed to advertising while he’s deciding if it’s going to be H&R Block or Alice the CPA, and the chevy dealer or CarMax. Retargeting allows you to offer simple messages, when you want, to people that have already told you they are interested. And we all know that the undertaking necessary for taxes and car dealers will require more pizza.
Retargeting for Professional Service Providers
If you are Alice the CPA, retargeting necessarily takes a different form. Like many of our clients, Alice is competing against national companies with incredible online marketing budgets. Like doctors, lawyers, realtors and other service-based professionals, she is also always concerned about credibility with web marketing, let alone something that sounds as provocative as retargeting.
A “win” for her is when someone fills out a form on her website, or her phone rings. TJ visited, but did neither. Retargeting is simply the best way to reach out to TJ as he makes his decision leading up to April 15th. Again, business needs guide the marketing efforts, and TJ is certainly going to be retargeted by TurboTax, HR Block and any other national tax preparation firms he may have visited.
Alice may decide that she needs to retarget with a message that focuses on the fact that she’s a local business and simply ask visitors like TJ if they had chosen a tax preparer yet. We could either try to drive them back to her website or design a series of landing pages to test different messages. Does a landing page with credentials and testimonials get TJ to fill out the web form to request a phone call? Do past visitors respond better with a cost proposition like discounts for personal filings or filings done in February? Does a direct link to an appointment book for a sit-down get TJ to get off the dime and engage?
Retargeting represents the lowest hanging fruit from a marketing perspective. It also represents a prequalified group of prospective clients to try different messages out with. The main website for medical, legal, financial, and similar service providers are usually carefully crafted representation of their credibility. Changing that is always a struggle. Retargeting is a great way to build long term success by trying out different marketing messages off site. You can then grow the “mothership” based on direct feedback.
Retargeting During Extended Sales Processes
While Alice’s window for business is short, the many car dealers that TJ is about to encounter are some of the most aggressive marketers. The truth is that most big-ticket sales end up producing many visits to many competitors, for many months. Using cars as an example, TJ will spend about 4 hours online shopping for his car, longer if he ends up having to go with a used vehicle after his financing searches[4].
Selling Furniture, Cars, Engagement Rings, and other big-ticket luxury items has always been heavy on either in your face marketing or straight image (think Gucci). Retargeting frankly makes it both easy and affordable. The used car dealer can stay on TJ’s screen incessantly. The luxury local jeweler’s website he visited can do a much smaller ad spend. Deliver one image spot every month, or an information-based spot on the four C’s, to see if TJ’s girlfriend has convinced him “It’s Time”.
All marketing can be annoying, and the web can be a little creepy. The older our clients, the more hesitant they are to embrace retargeting. For those who hesitate, we first remind them everyone knows that the web is filled with ads designed, to varying degrees of specificity, just for them.
When a client asks us to help them generate more transactions, they usually look to new traffic. We always remind them that a thoughtful reapproach to the 95% of the people who visited and didn’t “buy” is always step one. Retargeting them in a thoughtful way produces sales and a plethora of useful information about your website and prospects. In the end retargeting can tell us who that “ideal customer” is, and how best to convert them, before you make a much larger investment in raw traffic.
[1] Search Engine Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats
[2] Value Of #1 Position On Google – Positional Analysis Study [2023] – Poll the People
[3] The Average Website Conversion Rate by Industry (Updated 2023) – Invesp (invespcro.com)
[4] Time spent shopping for cars online in U.S. 2021 | Statista
