There's a reason some marketers consider retargeting (aka remarketing) to be the highest-value digital campaign, and it all starts with the audience you choose. Unlike many other types of digital marketing, which aim to reach new consumers and expand brand reach and visibility, retargeting concerns itself only with past website traffic and consumers who have demonstrated an interest in your products or services.
Retargeted ads, whether delivered through traditional computers or via a mobile retargeting strategy, attempt to reconnect with those prospects who have since moved away from your brand's properties without completing a conversion. The retargeted ads function as a means of trying to rescue and secure a potential conversion.
The trick to optimizing retargeting campaigns all hinges on the quality of their underlying strategy. Here's a guide to making the most of this digital opportunity.
Remarketing Through Display Ads
Display ads are highly effective because they can follow consumers around the Internet. The use of cookies and other trace identifiers allow you to track consumers after they leave your website. By advertising across a display network, you can invest in ads that will attract the attention of those consumers, remind them of their past interest and, ideally, cause them to reconsider your brand and its offerings. Because the consumer already has some familiarity with the brand, the ads can draw more initial attention and strengthen brand recognition and reputation.
One Target, Multiple Angles
The other great advantage of retargeting is that, once you're able to track consumers across a display network, you can make multiple attempts to draw their interest. For example, someone who has viewed a specific product might benefit from seeing an ad reminding them of that product. Alternatively, they may be drawn to an ad referring to a larger catalog of options. Or, the consumer might be motivated financially by the offer of free shipping or a limited-time discount.
Through a retargeting campaign, you can try all of these strategies to curry interest with the consumer. Even if the first two don't work, the third might hit on their top purchasing motivation.
Divide and Conquer
Every consumer has his own reasons for being interested in a company's products and services. Just as different types of retargeting ads can resonate with those consumers in different ways, it's wrong to take the same approach with every prospect. A better approach is to segment your larger retargeting audience and divide them into categories that enhance retargeting efforts.
Using online activity history, past engagements or other evidence suggestive of their interests, you can separate consumers into different categories of important distinction, notes ViralSweep. These can include past shoppers, first-time visitors, shopping cart abandonments and so on. By segmenting, you can create a different mobile retargeting strategy for each bucket and ensure you aren't wasting ad exposures on consumers who won't find them relevant.
As one of the most valuable strategies for digital marketing, retargeting is a critical part of any online marketing plan. Mobile can and should be a centerpiece of these efforts. When retargeting's potential is partnered with an informed approach to connecting with consumers, the returns can rank among the best of any other digital campaign.
