How many times do you need to engage a potential customer before you can convince them to buy from you? And can you boost your conversion rate using remarketing? Hi, my name is Francisco, and I am the owner of Planet Marketing, a Digital Marketing agency. My company specializes in Facebook Ads, Google Ads and Remarketing. Over the years, I have helped quite a number of businesses in various sectors find their footing in an increasingly challenging environment. You are here because you are looking to increase sales for your business using remarketing. Today, I am going to share with you 7 remarketing platforms that you can use to achieve your goals. This article is divided into the following sections;
- What is remarketing?
- Why is remarketing important.
- Best remarketing platforms to quickly increase sales.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing is also referred to as retargeting. It’s marketing that’s based on a person’s behavior across the internet.
How does remarketing work?
Diagram showing how remarketing works
Remarketing is a useful tool in the digital marketer’s magic kit. But how does it work? The following points outline the remarketing journey;
- As a business, you sign up to advertise on one of the platforms that offers remarketing. Popular examples are Google and Facebook.
- Code is installed on your eCommerce site.
- Visitor activity on the site is tracked.
- People are then shown relevant ads as they go about their business across the internet. This happens away from your website.
- These ads will feature the products that people were interested in on your site.
An example of remarketing
The remarketing journey begins with a potential customer landing on your website. They may have gotten there from Google, via Social Media, or by some other means. Let’s assume here that your company specializes in designer shoes.
The person that lands on your site browses through your catalog. They pay particular attention to one of your products. They could even add a pair to their shopping cart. That’s great, right? Unfortunately, like so many others, this individual who is clearly interested in what you have on offer leaves without taking the final step to make a purchase.
With remarketing, you get a second and third, and so forth, chance to make a sale. Visitor activity on your site is tracked. The next time that they visit one of the remarketing platforms that we are talking about here, they are shown your ads. These ads will feature the products that they were interested in on your site. So, that’s a great way of convincing someone to buy from you.
Why is Remarketing Important?
Remarketing is an important part of the digital marketing sphere. I should know; it’s one of the areas on which I specialize. But why is retargeting important?
Did you know that the eCommerce conversion rate stands at around 2% on average? That’s a rather dismal figure. It’s not easy to get people to land on your site in the first place.
Perhaps you have been doing a lot of SEO. Perhaps you have been doing social media marketing. Or maybe you have been advertising on Facebook, Google and elsewhere.
After all that time, money and effort, it can be galling, therefore, that as many as 98% of the people who land on your site leave without buying anything.
That is where remarketing comes into the fray. It’s a good way of ensuring that you get a second bite of the cherry. By using remarketing, you can boost your conversion rate to about 9%. That’s a lot! It can mean life and death for most businesses.
Remarketing audiences give your ads a greater success rate
Remarketing can significantly boost your conversion rate
Let’s say you are advertising on Facebook or on Google. What’s the best way of creating a target audience? Well, instead of cracking your head trying to decide on who to target, you can simply use a retargeting audience to reach the right people.
These people have already been to your website. They have already shown an interest in what you have to offer. So, it’s a lot easier for you to convince them to become your customers. That’s better than trying to convince somebody completely new to buy from you.
Remarketing helps reduce cart abandonment
Cart abandonment is a major concern in eCommerce. We have already noted that the conversion rate across the industry stands at an average of 2%. Of the 98% who leave without buying, quite a lot do so after adding products to their carts.
You can reduce cart abandonment using remarketing
With remarketing, you can reduce abandoned carts by as much as 6.5%. That’s a lot of people to whom you will have a second chance to make your pitch.
You can use remarketing for cross selling
What happens after people have bought something from your eCommerce store? Well, you can either let them go on their way, or you can do some cross selling to get them to buy other products from you.
Cross selling is also made possible using retargeting. After someone has completed a purchase, you can give them recommendations on what other products would work great with what they have just bought.
As an example, someone may have bought a particular brand of phone from your store. You can then send them suggestions to buy a case or screen guard for that phone. These are products that go well with their purchase.
So, remarketing is useful in tracking sales and delivering relevant marketing materials to people based on their purchases.
Best eCommerce Remarketing Platforms
Now that we have a clear understanding of what remarketing is, it’s time for us to take a look at some of the best remarketing platforms that eCommerce businesses can use to immediately boost sales;
1. Facebook
Facebook is one of the best Remarketing platforms for eCommerce
In 2020, Facebook generated 31.43 billion dollars in advertising revenue from the United States alone. It’s clear, therefore, that the platform is a major force to be reckoned with.
The good news about Facebook is that the platform offers remarketing to advertisers. That only makes sense if you take a moment to think about it.
Facebook has a monthly active user base of over 2.7 billion people. Chances are high, therefore, that the majority of people who land on your site will have Facebook accounts.
Remarketing via Facebook allows you to turn people who would otherwise have forgotten about you into customers. But how does it work?
How Facebook Remarketing works
- You install a pixel on your site. A pixel is a piece of code that Facebook uses to track visitor activity on a website.
- The next time that a person who has been to your site visits their Facebook profile, they are shown your ads in their feeds.
- These ads will feature the products that they were interested in on your site.
Custom Audiences
This is something to which I have already alluded. Doing remarketing via Facebook allows you to create Custom Audiences. You can choose to have your ads targeted only to people who have previously visited your site. Custom audiences work in sync with the pixel that’s on your website.
So, you will have a better chance of converting an individual at the end of the day. Why? Well, because your ads will be shown to people who are already interested in your business. If a person was interested in a particular type of product that you are selling, they are shown ads featuring that product.
Dynamic audiences
Dynamic Facebook audiences are another aspect that makes Facebook one of the best remarketing platforms to increase sales for eCommerce. Check out my article on how to create Facebook Ads for Shopify stores. In that article, I give a good example of what I am talking about here.
With dynamic audiences, your ads will change depending on an individual’s interest on your site. A person that was interested in a t-shirt is shown an ad featuring that interest. Another who was interested in a golf cap is show an ad featuring that product. That’s particularly useful as far as convincing people to buy is concerned.
2. Google
Google is another good remarketing platform for eCommerce
Google is probably the best known remarketing platform that eCommerce businesses can use to quickly increase sales. In fact, Google’s reputation with remarketing borders on the infamy.
Most internet users will be familiar with those ads from Google that seemingly follow people around the web.
That’s remarketing at play. If you advertise your business via Google, then remarketing should be part of your strategy for achieving growth.
Why do remarketing via Google?
Google has an oversized footprint as far as digital marketing is concerned. The platform is used by millions of people around the world for search. And Google has a network , the Display Network, that’s composed of millions of publishers.
These are people who have signed up for Google AdSense. So, Google’s reach is pretty much phenomenal. As already noted, it’s the place to be for those that are looking to seriously get into remarketing.
The fact that Google has over 2 million websites and apps on which your ads can be displayed makes it even better than Facebook as far as retargeting is concerned.
How to do remarketing via Google
Google offers the following ways of doing retargeting;
- Standard remarketing: If you go down this route, visitors to your site will be shown your ads as they browse across the internet.
- Dynamic remarketing: This is a bit more specific than standard remarketing. If you go down this path, people will be shown your ads bearing the products in which they were interested in on your site. This feature is similar to Facebook’s dynamic ads.
- Video remarketing: Targets people who have watched your videos. This could be on your site or on YouTube.
- Customer list remarketing: This is based on your customer list that you upload to Google. The moment a person on your list signs into Google, they are shown relevant ads from your business.
3. Mailchimp’s retargeting emails
Mailchimp is one of the best remarketing platforms
I have previously written an article on the 5 best email marketing automation tools for eCommerce businesses. Mailchimp was one of the tools mentioned in that article. What you may not be aware of is that Mailchimp is one of the major platforms as far as remarketing is concerned. The platform allows you to effectively send out retargeting emails to your customers.
How does it work?
- First, you will have to sign up for Mailchimp.
- Next, you will need to connect your store to Mailchimp.
- From there, you will have to set retargeting rules.
- The next step involves designing your emails.
What can you do with Mailchimp Retargeting?
Mailchimp retargeting works in the following ways;
- You can send out retargeting emails to people who have abandoned carts on your site.
- Emails can also be sent out to visitors to subscribers to your site. Use these emails to promote your products and you will be able to achieve real growth.
- With Mailchimp, you can also send out emails thanking people for their purchases.
4. Retargeter
Retargeter is another great remarketing platform to increase sales for eCommerce
Retargeter is another of the best eCommerce remarketing platforms to quickly increase sales for your business. The great thing about this particular platform is that it recognizes the fact that no two businesses are ever the same. There should, therefore, not be a one size fits all solution as far as retargeting is concerned.
Products
- Site retargeting
- CRM retargeting
- Search retargeting
- Contextual targeting
- Audience targeting
- Look-alike modeling
How does it work?
As is the case with all remarketing, you need to install a piece of code on your site. This keeps track of what people are doing on the site. These people are then shown your ads as they move across the web. This gives you another chance to convince them to buy from you.
5. AdRoll
Adroll is another good eCommerce remarketing platforms
AdRoll is another of the platforms that eCommerce businesses can use for remarketing. With this platform, you get a raft of tools that are designed to handle issues surrounding cart and site abandonment.
The power of AdRoll lies in the fact that it’s a cross channel tool, meaning you will have that many more chances to convince people to come back to your site for a purchase. AdRoll covers the following platforms;
- Websites
- Social media
6. Perfect Audience
Perfect Audience is also great for retargeting
If you are in the hunt for the widest reach in terms of retargeting for your business, then Perfect Audience is probably one of the platforms that you should consider signing up with. The platform handles the following types of remarketing;
- Web
- Mobile
Features
Perfect Audience offers the following features;
- Dynamic retargeting: This allows you to bring retargeting to the level of a particular product. People are shown your ads featuring exactly those products they were interested in on your site.
- Integration with Shopify: That brings it in reach for the majority of eCommerce businesses in the United States and elsewhere.
- Cross device retargeting: You can reach out to people who you have lost on your site even on their mobile devices. That’s definitely a unique feature.
- Twitter: You can also retarget people on Twitter.
7. Cretio remarketing
Cretio is another great platform for remarketing
Cretio is unique in that it focuses on dynamic retargeting. That’s something that I have already talked about in relation to Facebook remarketing. Dynamic retargeting not only targets visitors to your site.
It goes further to show people ads relating to the products that they were interested in on your website. Thus the chances of converting are dramatically increased.
How does it work?
Criteo Dynamic Retargeting works in the following ways;
- Code is placed on your site to keep track of visitor activity.
- Ads are shown across thousands of sites.
- Offers are delivered to the right people at the right time and bearing the right products. This helps bring people back to your site.
Summary
Those are some of the best eCommerce remarketing platforms to help increase sales for your business. In this article, I showed you how remarketing can be useful in boosting eCommerce sales. With retargeting, you get more chances to convince people to buy from you. That helps you improve on the eCommerce conversion rate, which hovers around a dismal 2%.
Of the major remarketing platforms that are out there, Google and Facebook are probably the best known. That’s not really surprising, considering that these companies are some of the biggest players in the Digital marketing world.
So, if you advertise on Google or Facebook, remarketing is something that you should do. How it works with all remarketing is that a piece of code is placed on your site. This keeps track of what people are doing. They are then shown relevant ads from your business as away from your site.
If you need help getting started with remarketing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me today! Retargeting is one of my areas of specialization. It’s something that I do almost on a daily basis. I have clients in various industries whose businesses I have helped grow through remarketing. So, contact me today so I can start working on getting the best results for your business.
