Remarketing (also called retargeting) is a core strategy in PPC, where you take a group of people determined by a previous action or behavior (audiences) and target their ads towards or away from that group of people. And there’s no shortage of statistics that show us why it’s such a core strategy.
Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is a key PPC strategy that involves using audiences—groups of people identified by previous actions or behaviors to target with ads.
Retargeting, when done correctly, can boost sales by 75% and ad engagement by 500%. In this post, I will cover 7 tips to help you with your remarketing campaigns.
1. Use first-party data when remarketing
Retargeting website visitors is a common practice that has been around for a while, but it mainly depends on third-party cookies, which are being phased out, as you are probably aware. As a result, leaving you with limited information about your website visitors.
A better approach would be to use customer lists or other lists created using first-party data instead. Any information you own that a user has given you permission to track or hold is referred to as first-party data. Contact information (email, phone number, etc.), on-page activity, and other information that you obtained with user consent can be included in this. Purchasing a contact list does not qualify as first-party data and is not appropriate for remarketing (this can actually result in an ad account suspension).
Almost all ad platforms (including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) let advertisers target lists of customer data that have been uploaded. First-party data is used in this type of remarketing to help marketers better tailor their message to prospects.
2. Use controlled lookalike audiences
When Similar Audiences first appeared, there was concern that they would be ineffective. Giving the algorithm "free reign" can seem unsettling to advertisers because they value control. However, using Lookalike and Similar Audiences consistently outperforms direct remarketing and absolutely destroys using no audiences at all.
You should be aware that Similar Audiences and Lookalike Audiences are only as good as the lists you use to seed them with.
Whereas Lookalikes need to be created in the Facebook Audience Manager, Similar Audiences are automatically generated on Google Ads.
For Facebook lookalike audiences, make sure your lookalike audience is no greater than %1 of the seed list, any higher and you risk advertising to people that don’t resemble your seed audience list, resulting in a higher cost per acquisition.
3. Use audience exclusions
Setting audience exclusions follows the same logic as negative keywords and placement exclusions: anyone in the excluded audience won't be able to see your ad. This comes handy when you want to exclude people that have taken certain actions recently such as placing an order.
You can also choose to exclude people within in-market audiences, lets say your running ads and you want them to show for people searching for residential properties, you can safely exclude anyone that’s searching for commercial properties, giving you a more precise targeted audience to serve ads to.
4. Targeting small audiences
If a target is too small, your budget will struggle to meet your needs because advertising algorithms require data to operate. No matter the platform, it won't be able to serve an audience of less than 1000 people.
It can take up to 48 hours to process a customer list used as a seed for a Lookalike or Similar Audience, and you'll receive a "too small to serve" message until it fully renders.
Not that you should create an audience to target in the future. You may just have to keep it on "targeting" while keeping an eye out for a while.
5. Ignoring observation mode
You can apply audiences to target and observe or just observe. This decision determines whether the audience you choose will actually have an impact on whether the budget is allocated to the audience or not.
If you opt out of target and observe, the audience must be big enough to serve, so when starting with a new audience, observe usually makes more sense. Additionally, the algorithm will disregard your observation audiences if you use Smart Bidding and only direct budget to those who appear to meet the Smart Bidding objective.
6. Marketing audience silos
Applying remarketing lists from one channel to another as a Lookalike/Similar Audience is one of the best ways to make the most of them. With the help of this cross-channel marketing strategy, you'll be able to locate your ideal clients on a variety of advertising mediums. Additionally, because audience guardrails are protecting your budget, you can feel good about testing budgets on new channels, which is one of the key components of a paid media strategy.
7. Campaign budgets
Remarketing budgets are frequently combined with other budgets by advertisers, who then expect great results quickly.
A campaign still needs a budget even if it is targeted at a smaller, more specific audience. Make sure you're allocating enough money each day for the new campaign to get going and succeed.
Remarketing should receive 15–20% of your paid campaign budgets as a general guideline (at least in the beginning). Due to the industry auction prices, some brands will end up allocating more to their remarketing campaigns.
Remarketing can yield great results when used with first-party data and creative campaigns. Here a recap of the 7 tips I covered above.
- Use first-party data when retargeting
- Use controlled lookalike campaigns
- Use audience exclusions
- Targeting small audiences
- Ignoring observation mode
- Marketing Audience silos
- Campaign budgets
