In brief: discover 9 facts about remarketing in three minutes

Some users quit the site without buying anything. But it’s not an issue as you can and should return them. That’s what remarketing is used for. Read briefly about the most important things: how it works, its types, for whom it will fit, and what is the difference between remarketing and retargeting.

1. What is remarketing

Remarketing is an advertising mechanism that allows you to display online ads to those users who have already been on the site but have not completed the target action. The goal of remarketing is to remind a potential customer about the offer, return him to the site and transform him into a buyer.

A basic example: a person went into an online store and was looking for a cool T-shirt for five minutes. But then she decided that it was too expensive so didn’t buy it. However, when she visits another site, a user sees a banner with the same T-shirt and an offer to buy it at a discount.

How does the system “recognize” a user in order to show him a specific advertisement? When visiting the site, a person receives a special tag in the browser’s cookie.

IMPORTANT: After the entry into force of the GDPR, this can only be done with the consent of the user, therefore we recommend that you configure a special extension for receiving it for free.

2. Remarketing advantages

1. Increase of the conversion. You are contacting a “warmer” audience that is already familiar with your product. In addition, you can make a more relevant offer that increases the probability of a purchase.
2. Brand reminder. Some users may forget that they put the product in the basket. Or do not remember the name of your online store.
3. Increase of the ROMI — return on marketing investment. Most often, remarketing conversion costs are lower than in the case of paid ads.

Conversion growth depending on the number of ad views. Source of the image

Want to find out whether remarketing is right for you? Run a few campaigns and see their cost recovery and if they drive calls/requests. You can do so, for example, by using end-to-end analytics or call tracking. It is especially convenient when these tools are combined into one as in the case with Ringostat.

End-to-end analytics automatically pulls data from Facebook/Instagram, Google Ads advertising accounts. You can also manually import the costs of organic, banner ads, etc. This allows you to get the evaluation of the cost recovery of ads placed on almost any system.

3. Remarketing is suitable for…

In fact, it fits everyone. But especially to small and medium-sized businesses that do not have a significant budget for contextual advertising. As well as companies from highly competitive niches that can’t rely on paid ads.

Remarketing is not suitable only for companies that are prohibited to promote by advertising systems, for example, this applies to manufacturers of tobacco products.

Examples of products that are considered as dangerous by Google so can’t be promoted via paid ads. You can find the full list here.

4. Types of remarketing

1. Remarketing on the Google Display Network (GDN) shows ads on partner sites.
2. Remarketing for search network ads — appears in search results.
3. Dynamic remarketing — demonstrates on partner sites exactly the products that the visitor looked at the site.
4. Video remarketing — Youtube commercials.

 Most often, remarketing is represented by display ads in the form of banners, less often — text ads.

5. What is the difference between remarketing and retargeting

Retargeting ads are a form of online targeting advertising. They are shown to people who have already visited your site, for example, a lead or customer. Neil Patel, New York Times bestselling author, sees retargeting as a part of remarketing and calls the second one as an “umbrella term” for marketing.

6. How to launch remarketing

In general, the algorithm looks like that:

• setting up tracking of site visitors — a code that will track visits is set on all pages of the site;
• audience creation is carried out using remarketing lists, they specify criteria for selecting visitors that will see ads;
• setting up a remarketing campaign — here you create ads, indicate where they will be displayed, etc.
• you can also exclude a non-target audience, for example, everyone who spent less than a minute on the site.

7. The most popular audiences for remarketing

Most often, ads display is launched for users who:

• visited certain pages of the site or looked at products in the catalog;
• almost reached the payment page, but didn’t complete the purchase;
• searched for something on the site via the search bar;
• made a certain conversion, for example, you can use remarketing to offer a phone case for a person who bought a phone.

Example of the remarketing for a person who was searching for the flight tickets. Source of the image

8. How long will it take to show the remarketing ad for a user 

You can set this up on your own, depending on the goals of the campaign. The maximum time you can select on Google is 540 days.

For promotional products or those involving a spontaneous purchase are used shorter remarketing lists. And for people who are searching, for example, for an apartment list can be up to 180 or more days. For seasonal goods or services, you can make a list and 360 days to activate it only in the most intense period.

The duration of a person’s participation in the campaign may be extended. For example, you included everyone who viewed the “Contacts” page to the list and set the deadline for up to 3 days. If someone from this list returns to the “Contacts” page again during this time, the term of his participation in the campaign will last for the same 3 days. After the list expires, users are automatically deleted from it.

9. What should you do if a user from the remarketing list has already made a purchase?

Pretty annoying situation: the product has already been purchased, but its owner continues to see ads. To avoid this, you must exclude people who have already made a purchase from the list. Or create another list for such an audience and use it for repeat sales. But in this case, consider the specifics of the product. If a person bought an apartment or visited your event, the probability of a repeated purchase is not high, so there is no point in “catching up” former customers with ads.

If orders are made offline, the data also have to be driven to the analytics system. Otherwise, you will not be able to consider everyone who made the purchase. If the most frequent offline conversion in your case is a call, then you need call tracking. Text us in the chat so we will describe to you all the advantages of the service.