Remarketing: Setting the Record Straight

Oct 29, 2015 | 4  min
author Pyxl Development
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Remarketing – maybe one of the most contentious words in the marketing handbook (no, there isn’t an actual marketing handbook – that’s why you are reading this blog).

Lovingly referred to as “creepy marketing” by many Internet users, remarketing has gotten a bad rap. Why, you ask? Well, because if you haven’t noticed, (and I mean this caringly) there’s a lot of stupid marketing out there. When I say “stupid marketing,” what I mean is there are a lot of marketers who just focus on results, completely forgetting who they are dealing with – real life humans. Humans who have opinions, feelings and an ever-increasing feeling of people watching them online. The truth is, remarketing can actually be an amazing tool for REACHING your target audience, not lurking, tricking or beating them over the head. We’re here to set the record straight on this topic – here we go.

What is remarketing?

Remarketing isn’t about following people. At its core, it’s about meeting people where they are. The goal is not to tag them like an ape in the jungle, it’s to open up further opportunities with phenomenon like brand recall, avoiding situational interference and setting up second chances for visitors.

Why is it relevant?

We all have short attention spans when it comes to Internet browsing (it’s happening more on mobile) and often, we leave a page with every intention to revisit at a more appropriate time, stashing away that good intention somewhere near the back of our brain, rarely to be seen again. This phenomenon has birthed the opportunity for remarketing – real, pure and human.

Should you be doing it?

In order to answer this question, take the following questions into consideration:

  • Do you want to increase your chances at new leads?
  • Do you want another shot at turning bounced visitors into leads?
  • Do you want to increase brand recall?
  • Are you wanting to target high-quality audiences (those who have engaged previously)?
  • Do you want to increase the effectiveness of SEO and your content marketing?
  • Do you have the capacity to be creative and thoughtful when crafting ads?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, think through remarketing in a meaningful way before you adopt it, no more creeps.

Here are 6 tips to make sure your remarketing (and soul) is on the right track.

1. Define Your Goals 

As with so many things in life, coming up with goals really must be the first step. There’s no question about it – your remarketing goals will dictate every other step you take. What you must decide is: what are you trying to achieve?

Do you want to drive new leads? Blog visits? Purchases? Demos?

Depending on your business type, these goals will vary greatly. If you are a SaaS business, remarketing may look more like content promotion to drive lead conversions, but for an e-commerce site, you may want to try to drive actual product sales via remarketing. In summary, your remarketing should mirror your business, and that begins with defining what you’re trying to accomplish with your remarketing efforts.

2. Define Your Audience

The first step in the process is making sure you have a strategic approach to who is going to see your remarketing ads. In this stage, your internal team will need to come up with the over-arching strategy of your remarketing efforts. Do you want to target those who visited your blog? How about those who have viewed specific pages on your site, such as product pages, pricing pages or services pages? Use the goals you set to determine what content to use and who will ultimately see it. Be strategic here – there’s a fine line between reaching them and pounding them.

3. Define Duration

How long will your remarketing ads run? You must decide how long you’d like to follow audiences around, and this process will require you look into your own data to drill down what time frame is most effective. Note: this will most likely be different for each audience.

4. Don’t Over-Do It

Ad fatigue can be a real concern in some industries. There’s a balance, a fine line you must follow to properly meet consumers. Data shows that click through rate decreases with ad impressions – meaning the more users who see an ad over time, the less likely they’ll be to click. So, while you don’t want to pound them with messaging, the statistics also show that more ad impressions lead to higher conversion rates – so, even though click through rates decrease with impressions, those who do click are over twice as likely to convert. Again, moderation is key – finding the right balance is where remarketing value will be found.

5. Keep it Real

Click bait will get you nowhere. I understand a lot of the Internet is trying to suck every last click out of us, but there’s no reason to bait audiences in a remarketing scenario if conversions are what you’re going for. You must depict an accurate picture of the destination, or else your chance at brand loyalty, trust and ultimately a conversion is toast.

6. Quality Across the Board

Painting an accurate picture of the ad destination is step one, but the second and bigger step is actually delivering quality content.

Part one: If your ads are not clever, creative, personal and thoughtful, no one is going to click. There’s also a fine line between acknowledging you are following users around the Internet or not. Many people have a basic understanding of remarketing – so don’t pretend that your ad has just magically appeared in front of them, but also don’t insult them by waving ads in front of them like a trained cart horse with copy like, “I bet you want these shoes.” Again, balance is key (seeing a trend here?).

The second part is creating high quality content on the other side of the ad – reward users for clicking. Quality content is what drives consumers down the funnel, while remarketing is just the inward path to that conversion opportunity. Understanding the roles here will put an accurate sense of weight on each. There isn’t, nor will there ever be, a replacement for high quality content, and without it, your remarketing efforts will suffer. Simply put, without quality content don’t try remarketing – actually, don’t try any marketing until you’ve got a handle on your content.

So, if you walk away with one thing from this lesson in remarketing, it’s that remarketing is about balance. The words “fine line” and “balance” have never been so over-utilized than in this blog on remarketing. Take each step carefully, dial in on what works best for your target audience and you’ll find that remarketing isn’t actually creepy, it’s downright efficient, meaningful and effective.

If you think remarketing is confusing, perplexing, off-putting or even exciting, we would love to talk with you. Drop us a line today!

Updated: Apr 13, 2022

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