What is remarketing?

The term ‘remarketing’ (which is also known as ‘retargeting’) is the technique of serving targeted adverts to individuals who have already visited – or taken action on – your website. Technically speaking, remarketing is the method of making use of a JavaScript tag (which is known as a pixel) to put a cookie in the user’s browser. The cookie then tells a remarketing platform to serve specific display ads, through an ad exchange, according to the pages or products the user has engaged with – or searched for – on your website or app.

Remarketing can be utilised in order to promote a particular product or offering, or to reach a certain conversion goal such as lead generation. In eCommerce, for example, remarketing adverts can be used to recover abandoned carts by displaying the product the user added to the cart but left the site without purchasing.

If you would like your digital marketing campaigns to give you good results, you have to have the capacity to offer visitors a second chance to convert into customers. This second chance is an opportunity that is also known as remarketing. Having a retargeting strategy in place equals being able to remind users that you are there for them.

What ad formats and sizes are used in remarketing?

Most remarketing ads are distributed in text and or image display formats. These are managed from within the Google AdWords platform. A growing number of adverts are becoming animated and include video formats. HTML5 and GIFs are usually used to achieve this effect.

How big display ads are is determined by the spaces allocated on websites which accept the remarketing adverts. There is a great number of standard sizes so it is recommended building display ads according to the most common four or five sizes.

How does remarketing work?

As we’ve mentioned previously, remarketing works by putting cookies on the device(s) of your website visitors when they agree to this by clicking ‘agree’ on a form or a similar device. Their cookie ID is included to your remarketing audience list. It is possible to have multiple lists with a range of different criteria.

There are several advertising controls. These include the:

• Period of time that a cookie ID remains on your remarketing list,
• Impression caps on how many daily ads that are shown to an individual, and
• Ability to block adverts on certain websites.

It is also possible to set criteria in order to control the targeting of your ads, for example according to age, gender, location and interests based on a person’s browsing behaviour.

Benefits of remarketing

There are a number of benefits to remarketing. Here are some of them.

Generate Increased Sales

Various companies have different metrics which they pay attention to dependant on what type of company or industry they are operating in. However, every organisation which intends to stay in business must pay attention to revenue.

Reach Attentive Prospects

These potential customers demonstrated an initial interest in your offering. Now, you are required to remind them or nudge them a bit so that they can take the next step. Retargeting benefits your business as, through it, you are reaching out to interested prospects as opposed to merely reaching members of your target audience who may perhaps be interested.

Increase Brand Awareness

Research continues to show that it may take seven impressions – that your brand makes on a customer – before they build up enough trust to take action. Retargeting can lessen the amount of time it takes for your prospects to construct enough brand awareness and decide to buy from you. Even if they do not convert straight away, you are putting the odds in your favour that your brand will be the first one they when they do decide to move forward. Brand awareness is huge for a company’s growth, and retargeting offers benefits in that area.

The Google remarketing feature has been recently revised. The search engine giant has added more features and controls for advertisers. The remarketing feature now permits more flexibility through using an upgraded Google Analytics code which allows for lists to be created and managed without the necessity to place specific code on the website.

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