What is Remarketing?

Chapter 2

Types of Remarketing Campaigns

Using targeted ads or emails, remarketing campaigns offer marketers the unique opportunity to reach out to visitors who have left their webpages without buying.

These remarketing messages can increase the likelihood that your visitors return to your post-click landing page and perform an action. This form of marketing helps you drive sales activity on your webpages, promote awareness for your brand among engaged audiences, and ultimately increase your ROI.

Remarketing campaigns can be categorized into five main types:

  1. Standard Remarketing
  2. Dynamic Remarketing
  3. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads
  4. Video Remarketing
  5. Email Remarketing

Standard Remarketing

This type of remarketing involves showing display ads to past visitors (visitors who landed on your webpage and then exited) as they navigate their way through different websites that use the Google Display Network apps and social media websites such as Facebook. Standard remarketing also targets visitors who use search engines such as Google to search for terms that are related to the products or services that you offer.

For example, after searching Google for a heat map tool, we saw this remarketing display ad from Hotjar on Facebook:

The ad urges you to sign-up for a free trial with the help of a short video and ad copy.

Dynamic Remarketing

Dynamic remarketing involves serving visitors ads that are tailored specifically for them depending on how they have browsed a webpage. This type of remarketing includes ad messages that are created specifically for the visitor who’s viewing the ad, increasing their chances of coming back to your webpage for the retrieval of those abandoned items.

For example, ecommerce website dynamic remarketing ads can include the exact shopping item(s) that a visitor placed in their abandoned shopping cart, making them more likely to click the ad when they see that item again.

If a visitor spent some time on the pricing page and then exited your website, your dynamic remarketing ad should center around pricing, maybe remind them of a free trial offer or a discount.

You can also show remarketing ads to visitors who have browsed through your blog or other informational material and persuade them to download a guide or a join a webinar that relates to the information they’re interested in.

This is what Marketo does with their dynamic remarketing ad:

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs)

Remarketing lists for search ads is offered by Google AdWords that allows you to customize your search ad campaigns for visitors who have been on your webpage in the past. The search network lets you tailor your bids and ads to the visitors that have been on your website when they’re searching Google and other partner search sites.

You can use this type of remarketing ads for visitors who leave your website and then go on Google search to find similar solutions. There are two basic strategies to follow when it comes to RLSAs:

  1. Set specific bids for your existing keywords for visitors on your remarketing lists. For example, you can increase your bid by 30% for users who have been on your website in the last 30 days. You can target visitors with specific ads who have either performed an action on your website (like visiting the pricing page or looking at the FAQ section) or put an item in their shopping cart.
  2. Bid on keywords that you don’t normally bid on just for visitors who have been on your website, or have bought something from you in the past. For example, you can bid on more broad keywords just for the people who have previously visited your site, in order to cast a wider net to get them back to your brand.

To demonstrate, one of the best examples you’ll find is Tirendo, a European online tire retailer. The company used remarketing lists for search ads and saw a 161% conversion rate increase, leading to a 22% overall increase in sales.

Video Remarketing

Video remarketing involves showing those visitors remarketing ads that have recently seen your videos or to people who have been on your website.

You can display video remarketing ads on YouTube at the beginning or in-between videos your potential customers are viewing (where they’ll have the option to skip the ad). You can also display a remarketing ad on the right side margin where they find video suggestions.

For example, this is Grammarly’s video remarketing ad on YouTube shown at the beginning:

Email Remarketing

Email remarketing encapsulates two techniques:

  • Serving remarketing display ads across different websites to users who open an email from you.

AdRoll, a retargeting agency, uses a Facebook newsfeed remarketing display ad to reach out to users who opened an email by the brand and clicked on the link but didn’t complete the purchase. The ad not only reminds the visitor about the visit to the AdRoll website, but also gives them an insight into how AdRoll can do retargeting for them:

  • Reaching out to visitors who have left your website without completing a purchase with targeted follow-up emails that convince them to come back to your website.

Fab’s shopping cart reminder email is a perfect example of targeted personalized email remarketing, the email not only gives the visitor a written and visual reminder of the item they abandoned, but also provides a CTA for visitors who don’t want to go on the website and sift through other items to find what they wanted to buy:

And here is Chubbies email remarketing campaign. The email includes a CTA button that takes visitors directly to their shopping cart, letting them know that they have left a task incomplete:

Personalized remarketing emails can help businesses receive 10x more revenue than emails with generic content:

Regardless of the type of remarketing technique you use, it’s important to remember proper segmentation. That way you’re able to show visitors targeted, personalized email and ads which are more likely to convince them to revisit your brand and make a purchase.

The next chapter will discuss how you can gather data for your remarketing campaigns, what campaign goals you need to set, and how you should properly segment your remarketing audiences to increase the ROI of your campaigns.

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