If you think that the journey of the buyers in the digital space is as linear as that in the traditional markets then let us tell you that you’ve not been looking at the bigger picture. Rarely have there been instances when a consumer lands in a website, browses the products listed on it, selects one of them, and places an order straight away, all during the first visit. Statistics say that for certain industries such as e-commerce, the rate of first-time conversion is only 2%.
Given this very understanding, constant research and development has brought in a new technique of digital marketing called retargeting. There are clients who might come to your website and take no action. They might sign up, browse through your products, and then leave. Integrating retargeting techniques in marketing campaign management solutions helps marketers to reactivate such potential clients through advertisements, and convert them eventually.
There are myriad ways to retarget potential clients. Two of the most common ways of retargeting are:
I) Pixel-based Retargeting
Following is the flow in which pixel-based retargeting works:
1. Put a pixel on the strategic areas of the website or the entire website.
2. As soon as someone lands on to the website, the pixel releases an unnamed browser cookie that keeps a track on the pages or the products that the customer views on the website.
3. No sooner the consumer leaves the website, the cookie informs the integrated ad networks to provide specific advertisements to the buyer, based on the products or pages viewed by him or her.
Here are some basic tips that if implemented will help marketers reap maximum benefits from pixel-based retargeting:
A. Avoid appearing disorganized by pushing consumers through retargeting after they have already purchased the product or have signed up. In order to do this, marketers should essentially set off a burn pixel on the conformation page.
B. Campaign management solutions assimilated with techniques of retargeting prove to be effective as instead of showing the products that the consumer has already purchased, ads of related products or services and discount codes are displayed to them to facilitate future purchases.
C. Having proper content management solutions at one’s disposal makes retargeting all the more effective. An advertisement shown to a prospective client who has never visited the site should be different from the one who has already visited the site a dozen times before.
D. Marketers should not forget to put a limit on the frequency and the length of retargeting ads. This is because over a period of time, if no action is taken then the ads degrade and their performance goes down.
II) List-based Retargeting
List-based retargeting, also known as e-mail retargeting, involves reaching out to the consumers who have been already converted or are the prospective ones.
Following is the flow in which list-based retargeting works:
1. Choose a display network site that can support a retargeting campaign and upload the list with the e-mail addresses.
2. Specific retargeting ads are sent to the consumers as per their e-mail addresses, after the site has recognized them on the networks.
Here are some basic tips that if implemented help marketers reap maximum benefits from list-based retargeting:
A. List-based retargeting gives more control to marketers since they are able to create customized lists based on consumer activities.
B. Email-based retargeting makes marketing very specific and customizable. Customers who have clicked on the product in the e-mail can be fed with more information, and the ones who haven’t opened it can be retargeted with display ads.
Prethi Vagadia
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