What Is Retargeting & Why Are Retargeting Ads Effective?
Marketers often feel too repetitive in their content or ads and therefore feel they need to say something new every time a customer interacts with their brand. In reality, though, the opposite is true.
According to the marketing rule of seven, consumers need to hear a message—or see an ad—seven times before they finally convert and make a purchase. Of course, they don’t need to hear the exact same message each of those seven times, but each touchpoint should work together to build a consistent and strong idea of a brand or product in the consumer’s mind.
That’s why retargeting ads can be such a powerful, sales-driving tool for luxury brands. They are displayed to prospects and leads who have interacted with your brand, products, or content before, to show them a tailored ad that will push them a step further down the conversion funnel.
Below, we explain exactly what retargeting is in a more granular sense, how it works, why it’s effective, and how to set up retargeting ads.
What Is Retargeting?
As we touched on above, retargeting is a type of advertising that targets users who have specifically interacted with your website, social media page, or content before. Although they may have shown interest by clicking on one of your ads before, they won’t have actually converted… yet.
The beauty of a retargeting ad lies in the fact that the advertiser knows that the potential customer is already somewhat familiar with the brand or product. All they need is a little nudge to get them over the line and convert.
So, the retargeting ad doesn’t need to try to explain the entire brand or product, it might just need to highlight the benefits or showcase the specific product that the potential customer interacted with to keep it top of mind.
How Does Retargeting Work?
Let’s imagine that a user searched for a product on Google and came across your website. They browsed a few category and product pages, and maybe even added an item to their cart, but for whatever reason, they closed the tab and didn’t convert.
A day later, the user scrolls through Instagram and comes across an eye-catching ad for that same product they had added to their cart.
They decide to click on the ad to take another look. Because they’ve already seen the product and thought about buying it, they’re now far more comfortable making the purchase. They buy the item and you’ve made a sale, all thanks to your retargeted ad.
Why Are Retargeting Ads Effective?
There are various benefits to retargeting ads, including increased sales, higher return on ad spend (ROAS), more brand awareness, and the ability to hypertarget customers at different stages of the conversion process.
INCREASED SALES
Because of the nature of retargeted ads—where consumers are familiar with your brand or product—they’re more likely to make a purchase.
HIGHER ROAS
With more sales generated per ad, the ROAS is generally higher for retargeting ad campaigns compared to top-of-the-funnel brand awareness campaigns.
INCREASED FREQUENCY
Retargeting ads help to keep your brand or products top of mind among your audience. More brand recognition also contributes to driving sales in the long term.
HYPERTARGETING
With retargeting campaigns, you can tailor your ad messaging specifically to wherever your target user is along their customer journey. For instance, your ad could be slightly altered according to whether they just clicked on an ad, viewed several products, or added something to their cart. You could even target those who have checked out a product before with additional products purchased by similar customers. Again, this leads to even more sales.
How to Set Up Retargeting Ads
At Block & Tam, we create bespoke retargeting ads for our clients, as it’s a nuanced approach that has to be tailored to each brand’s needs. You can reach out to the team to find out how we can help you. Or, if you’re looking to set up retargeting ads yourself, here are a few key considerations to get started.
CONSIDER YOUR PLATFORM
Retargeting ads can be carried out on various platforms, the most common of which include:
Google Ads: features powerful retargeting tools that enable you to reach customers who have interacted with your website.
Meta Paid Ads: If you have the Meta website tracking pixel installed, you can target users who have interacted with your website or pages with ads on Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
LinkedIn Ads: With the LinkedIn Insight Tag installed, you can retarget LinkedIn users with tailored messaging depending on how they interacted with your previous ads, website, or company page.
X (formerly Twitter) Ads: X carries the functionality to retarget users who have previously engaged with your website or tweets.
CONSIDER YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
When selecting who should see your retargeting ads, you want to pick those who are the most likely to convert. For instance, those who had an item added to their cart are more likely to convert after seeing a retargeted ad for the same item, than another user who may have just accidentally clicked on your homepage and immediately navigated away.
CONSIDER MATCHING YOUR AD TO THE LANDING PAGE
Retargeting ads are designed to guide customers down a streamlined conversion funnel. That means that whichever landing page your ad guides them to should be very closely aligned with the ad you showed them.
When a user clicks on your ad, don’t send them to the homepage and expect them to make their own way to find the product you advertised. Take them straight to the product page that was advertised to them.
CONSIDER OPTIMIZING YOUR BIDDING
The bidding that you place on your ads should be relative to your sales cycle. For shorter sales cycles, brands can afford to have shorter retargeting campaigns.
But for longer sales cycles where users may take a little longer before making the final decision to purchase—which is more common in the luxury market—you may need a higher budget to facilitate a longer campaign.
Get Started on Your Retargeting Campaign
With the right strategy in place, retargeting campaigns can effectively drive sales for your brand. Reach out to the PPC experts at Block & Tam today to get the most out of your retargeting ads.
