Even if you have the best website in the world, lots of people who visit your site for the first time will leave before taking action. This is disappointing in itself but if you’re paying for those clicks through Google or Facebook Ads, it’s even more galling. 

There are lots of reasons why people don’t buy or enquire about your product or service on their first visit. It may be because they’re not interested in what you offer. But often it’ll be for another reason: they want to check out your competitors, they got distracted, they’re doing some more research, or maybe they’re not quite ready to buy but will be in the future. 

So how can you get them to come back to you? One word: remarketing.  

Here’s why remarketing makes sense for almost any business. 

Lower Cost

Remarketing ads can offer exceptional value for money. Google and Facebook often see ads shown to a ‘warm’ audience like previous website visitors as more relevant and better quality. This means the amount you pay per click is lower. The cost per click for remarketing ads shown on the Google Display Network is generally way below the cost per click to a new or ‘cold’ audience on the Search Network. 

Higher Conversion Rates

People who are remarketed to are an incredible three times more likely to click on an ad than other audiences. Conversions (sign-ups, enquiries, sales) actually increase over time for remarketing campaigns. This goes against the perceived wisdom which suggests people become ‘blind’ to an ad after seeing it a number of times. In fact, research shows that while click-through rates fall over time, those people who do click on your ad are twice as likely to convert, even though they’ve seen your ad a few times already.

Remarketing Ads Need Not Be Annoying

Remarketing ads have got a reputation for being creepy and annoying. But that’s just when they’re done poorly. These days advertisers have a huge amount of control over where their ads are shown, and to whom. The ability to build up audiences of people who have looked at specific pages, or carried out specific actions on your website enables you to target people at a very granular level. You might decide to show a previous website visitor a special offer to entice them back to buy. Or you could create tailored offers featuring different products depending on what someone was previously looking at. Crucially, you’re then adding genuine value, and not just following someone around the web with a generic message.

The Ability To Personalise The Message

There are a seemingly never-ending stream of remarketing options being introduced by the digital advertising platforms. Advertisers can use Google and Facebook’s latest features together to retarget users with relevant content and offers. And last year Google started recommending remarketing lists for search ads for more and more accounts. These mean that advertisers can now personalise the messages being served to people as they search on Google. 

Google Case Studies and our own experience suggest these can work really well: click-through and conversion rates tend to be substantially higher. And, of course, when you’re getting more sales for the same cost, your ROI will go up too.

Better Brand Awareness

Remarketing gives people a gentle reminder to return to your site. It also has a powerful side effect: every time someone sees your branding and messaging, they’re getting to know and trust your brand, making it more likely they will do business with you in the future. Even better, because you’ll only pay when someone clicks on the ad, remarketing can be an incredibly cost-effective way to build a brand.

With Google and Facebook constantly upping their game and LinkedIn Matched Audiences now in full operation, the options for remarketing are getting better every day. Put simply, if you’re not using remarketing, you’re leaving money on the table. 

Feel like you’re missing out? Call us on 01732 449970 today to see how we can help you use better remarketing techniques in your digital advertising campaigns.

rebecca@ib3.uk

1. To reach your target audience

With 63% of the UK population using social networking and over two thirds who do, do so at least once a day, whoever your customers are there is a social network to reach and connect with them.

Facebook is by far the most popular social media network. As of September 2016 Facebook reported that 1.79 billion people use the site monthly and it’s continuing to grow, with 500,000 new users added daily – that’s 6 new users added every second. Facebook is also popular with businesses with around 50 million active business pages.

Twitter has 313 million monthly active users and there are 500 million tweets sent every day – that’s around 6,000 tweets every second. Twitter is also popular with businesses with 65.8% of U.S. companies with over 100 employees using Twitter for marketing purposes.

Instagram has 500 million monthly active users and 80% of those are now outside the U.S. Instagram appeals to a younger demographic with 55% of online adults aged 18 to 29 using the platform and 90% of its users under the age of 35. It also has a higher percentage of female users with 31 percent of women regularly using the platform compared to 24 percent of men.

LinkedIn is the most business orientated social media platform with 450 million members. There are also over 3 million businesses who have set up a company page on the platform.

Pinterest now has over 150 million monthly active users and although still more popular among the female population, over 40% of new signups are now men.

2. To gain valuable insights

By having a presence on the social media platforms that your customers use, it will not only allow you to interact and build relationships with them but also gain valuable insights into their lives. By simply listening on social media, you can discover what your customers are talking about, who they are interacting with and even how they feel about your brand, allowing you to make better business and marketing decisions.

Oh, and it’s not just your customers you can learn about, by ‘stalking’ your competitors on social media you can easily find out what they are doing or things such as promotions or offers they are running.

3. To increase traffic to your website and improve search rankings

Another big advantage of using social media for your business is its ability to drive traffic to your company website. If you publish a great blog post one of the best ways to let people know is to share it via your social media channels. By sharing this way and hopefully encouraging engagement from your followers, you are improving its SEO value too. So, if you’re kind enough to share this blog post via your own social media channels it will increase its chances of being ranked higher in Google’s search engine results.

4. Because customers now expect customer service via social media

In the same way customers expected businesses to build websites and respond to emails, they now expect to be able to connect with a brand via social media. A report from Conversocial found that 54% of customers actually prefer customer service via social media and SMS. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have recently rolled out updates that make it easier than ever for customers to connect with you and for your business to quickly and easily respond. Many of these customer interactions will take place on social media in full view of the public, so it’s important you as a business are able to respond quickly and effectively to any questions positive or negative.

5. To take advantage of the highly targeted and affordable advertising opportunities

Running paid promotions and advertising via social media platforms is a relatively inexpensive way to promote your business. It is possible on all the major platforms to use effective targeting to reach your audience. For instance, on Facebook you’re able to narrow down your ad reach by location, age, gender, demographics, interests and behaviours as well as connections. Also on LinkedIn you can add things such as job title and company. In real time, you can then track and measure the performance of your ads allowing you to easily see which are performing better and which are less effective.

There are many reasons why your business needs social media so if you need help getting started or developing a more strategic approach please contact us at ib3.