Website retargeting didn’t exist when I began working online 21 years ago. Now, though, it’s become a cost-effective and efficient way to turn browsers into buyers. Though you need to set the right metrics for your website retargeting to be certain it’s working for you.
Gone are the days where there were so few websites on the internet that pretty much everyone who arrived at your website actually took action. There were so few websites online, at one point, that every email newsletter was alluring and any kind of multi-media was astounding.
Now, though, there are hundreds of thousands of websites online and thousands more go online everyday. This is why you, as a savvy and thoughtful marketer, need to make use of additional strategies to help your site be seen and be profitable.
The underlying fact to recognize is that, now, most people who visit your site for the first time don’t have any intention of buying anything. They first come out of curiousity and to find information. Most websites- no matter how good- have an average direct conversion of 4 percent or less. This means that for every 100 people who visit your site, only 4 will take any action- and that is a combined number for purchases and email subscriptions. So you need a lot of visitors, consistently, to generate meaningful results.
Retargeting is a marketing process where you can repeatedly market to website visitors- even if they visited your website just once- and even if they didn’t stay very long.
A retargeting campaign involves using code called a pixel. This pixel is installed on your site so that the platform you run the ads on – whether Google, Facebook, Twitter or something else – knows to deliver the ads to the people who have already visited your site. By delivering ads to people who have already gone to your site but did not convert, you can improve conversions significantly.
It’s important to set realistic goals for your retargeting campaign and we’ll focus on that next.
In order to that, you’ll first need to know how many people visit your site during a given period. You should know your conversion rate without retargeting. This will give you a baseline to determine what kind of results you’re getting from your retargeting campaigns.
These are the three metrics to focus on in website retargeting:
1. Impressions – How many times are people going to see your advertisement? How many times do you want your audience to see them? The more money you pay for your advertisement, the more people who will see it. However, it’s imperative to get your targeting right before you up the ante.
2. Clicks – This is an important goal to have, and the way you set this goal is to use math. If your site normally has a 4 percent conversion rate, it is likely that your advertisement will stick to about the same conversion rate. But since you’re remarketing to them, that will up your overall conversion rate; therefore, you need more clicks to make the math work.
3. Conversions – A very important goal to set in website retargeting is how many actual conversions you think you’re going to get. You can base that on your normal conversions directly on your site, as mentioned above. This is going to allow you to figure out your cost per conversion too. Remember to consider the profit you’ll make per purchase in your goal setting so you know how much you can spend on your ads.
The way this works is that a potential customer comes to your site, and then less than 4 percent buy. The rest either do nothing or they might leave something in their cart. Then later when they are surfing the web, they’ll see your ad, and it will capture their attention because they’re going to be more likely to recognize your branding. They will be more likely to click it than someone who has never heard of you.
When you have a strong relationship between impressions and clicks, and then clicks and conversions, you know your marketing is working.
Retargeting enables you to deliver specific ads to interested people who have visited your site. Website retargeting is a powerful marketing opportunity for any business.
Focus on generating return on investment by turning impressions into clicks and clicks into conversions.
What if you could generate an increase in email subscribers and client inquiries from some simple changes to your website? You could make more money from the website visitors you already have. This is the basis for conversion rate optimization– the idea that small changes can stack together and create better results from your existing online presence.
