23 Oct Retargeting- Get Onto It
Retargeting is a form of Display Advertising that uses online banner ads that are pushed across a wide number of online networks and websites. It is used as a vehicle to promote your brand, business and message to people as they navigate their way around the web.
It is a highly effective form of visual online advertising that is highly targeted and enables you to re-engage with people who are already familiar with your brand, product and services.
There are several forms of retargeting;
“Site retargeting” will start as soon as a user has visited your site and then leaves. The frequency that person is followed around the web can then be set based on the length of sales cycle you experience for your products and services. If you have a long sales cycle you might choose to set a 20 to 30 day window so your business brand and message stays top of mind as that consumer goes along their research, consideration and purchase journey.
Site Retargeting assumes that people are already familiar with your brand, and requires that person to have already been driven to your site via word of mouth or other forms of marketing.
“Search Retargeting” behaves slightly differently and doesn’t rely on people coming through to your site first but rather is triggered off of certain keyword searches that are performed within search engines or social media platforms.
Say over a 7 day period, you go to a search engine such as Google. You perform a few searches for holidays or accommodation within Australia or overseas. You then visit a few different sites, digging deeper into your research and to understand different itineraries and prices.
As you become more and more informed, your computer and mobile start to understand patterns of your browsing and all of a sudden you start seeing ads within the different sites and social media platforms you visit, of potential accommodation, flights and car rental options, all tailored around the destination you want to go. All of this is keyword and cookie based retargeting. You may (or may not) have heard of the brands and businesses your seeing, but they are relevant….and timely messages that will entice you to consider.
“Dynamic Retargeting” is a form of site retargeting but where the banner ads are personalised based on the content or products you’ve been viewing. If you do any online shopping or browsing, you would have noticed on any of the large e commerce platforms like Ebay or Gumtree and /or sites with large product inventories like www.carsales.com.au that once you’ve visited a number of different product listings, that those specific listings will then follow you around the web as you browse. You may be researching cars, or furniture for the home, these specific items will magically appear in a dynamic banner ad on a wide number of sites right in front of your eyes, with the aim of coaxing you into clicking through, returning to their site,….and making an enquiry or purchase.
Social Media Retargeting behaves the same as Site retargeting and is most commonly found in Facebook and Instagram. There are almost 17 millions users in Australia at the time of me writing this, so it’s difficult to argue against the weight of displaying banner ads within this portal has on someone going through their research and purchase phase.
Finally there is Email and CRM Retargeting. Anytime you subscribe to a newsletter on a product site by ticking that ‘yes I want to receive all of the latest specials, deals and promotions’ button, you are exposing yourself of being retargeted to..again…and again. You see E Newsletter programs have spyware incorporated into their program which monitors if and when you open the emails and what actions you take. This enables marketers (and marketing programs) to decipher if you are a hot shopper and like parting with your hard earned cash. Once you open it,…. they know it. and guess what. it’s not going to be the last time you hear from them or see them in your inbox. There are a couple of free browser based plug ins that you can install if you want to see who is tracking your emails. Here’s one for the Google chrome users.
As people have changed their shopping and browsing behaviour from offline to online, businesses have had to change their ways of advertising and retargeting is one of those highly targeted forms of online advertising that will see your business stay front of mind and in a position to penetrate the noise of 1000’s of marketing messages that surround us.
Ask yourself this….
What were the last 3 bits of advertising you remember seeing ….
You might come to the conclusion that you cant think of them, which is weird right…..if they’re all around us?
So now ask yourself, if you’re a small business, with limited marketing funds, how do you stand up and get noticed ?
Retargeting is one of those mediums well worth considering.