Retargeting and remarketing are two different ways of advertising to potential buyers after they’ve visited your website, but they both accomplish the same goal: increasing your chances of making a sale. Remarketing involves placing small cookies on the computers of people who visit your site, which allows you to target them with ads on other websites, or to serve them ads on your site based on their previous activity there. Now let's dive deep into each of the topics-
What is retargeting?
Retargeting advertising allows you to show ads to people who have visited your website. This is a powerful form of online advertising because it's able to reach people who have shown interest in what you're selling, even if they haven't converted yet. Retargeting enables businesses to bring previous visitors back into their sales funnel by serving them relevant ads across multiple channels and devices.
This guide will take you through everything you need to know about retargeting, from understanding how it works, its value for businesses, and how retargeting can be integrated with other marketing strategies. Two types of retargeting that exist today are contextual advertising and display advertising. Both methods allow brands to show display ads based on past site activity or specific product pages that were viewed by potential customers. Advertisers target users based on demographic data (age, gender, location), behavior (time spent on page or site), or intent (buying cycle).
What is remarketing?
Remarketing, in some ways, can be seen as an improved version of retargeting. Like retargeting, remarketing uses cookies to help place ads in front of people who have previously visited your site. But where retargeting only allows you to reach people who've visited specific web pages (like a category page or product page), remarketing goes beyond that and lets you reach people based on how they interacted with those web pages (for example, if they added something to their cart but didn't check out).
That said, keep in mind that not all remarketing tools are created equal. While many allow you to create highly segmented audiences, others rely heavily on broad targeting tactics like keyword matching and simple demographics. As a result, it's important to evaluate each tool based on what it offers rather than simply assuming that remarketing is going to work just because another company offers it. Ask yourself: does it allow me to target customers more specifically?
Advantages of each
Retargeting and remarketing are both effective forms of digital marketing, but each has its strengths. Retargeting—the ability to show ads to people who have visited a website—is typically more personalized than remarketing. That's because retargeted ads will only appear to those who have already expressed an interest in your product or service.
With remarketing, on the other hand, you're serving ads to everyone on a website—even those who haven't interacted with you yet. While remarketing can be less targeted, it tends to reach a bigger audience. The larger audience size can boost brand awareness if done well; after all, even if users don't convert immediately they might remember you when they're ready to buy something. You also get some additional information about visitors that isn't available from retargeting: how much time they spent on your site and whether they clicked through from another web page.
Disadvantages of each
As powerful as retargeting and remarketing are, they're not right for every company. The biggest drawback of both tactics is the high cost. Because these tactics generate revenue when you get people to visit your site, they can be very expensive if you don't have many visitors in the first place. If you don't have a significant number of site visitors, it doesn't make sense to spend money to target or remarket to customers who haven't been exposed to (or acted on) your advertising yet.
Both retargeting and remarketing work best with large customer bases that regularly return to websites—and can therefore be targeted again with relevant messages that remind them about their purchase decision. Another consideration is how easily Google AdWords' products adapt to your goals.
For example, remarketing lists allow you to tailor lists based on actions already taken by users such as visiting specific pages. However, since these ads are all-intrusive, some marketers find that low brand engagement rates can turn away customers before ever turning into an actual sale. Some e-commerce merchants report 1% or fewer conversion rates on traditional remarketing campaigns. Overall, no matter which option you choose for your campaign, it's important to understand its drawbacks so that you can make informed decisions regarding what will work best for your company.
How much does it cost?
Retargeting costs a fraction of what remarketing does. You can set up retargeting through Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, and that’s it! It’s free. With remarketing, you have to pay for ads through Google or Facebook and also pay for use of an ad network like Criteo. So, if you're just starting out or not very big yet, stick with retargeting instead of spending thousands on PPC ads.
If you are bigger but haven't tried retargeting, give it a shot; people see about 500 times more ads than they did in 2000, so paying for ads likely isn't worth as much as it once was. On top of that, many sites block pop-ups now so even if someone sees your ad in their search results or social feed, they won't click on it because they don't want to be annoyed by an extra window popping up while they're browsing. As we said earlier, people who've already interacted with you online (been there once before) are more likely to buy from you since they've had a positive experience with your brand -- and since then those users' data will follow them across most browsers automatically.
When should you use them?
Retargeting and remarketing are great ways to take care of two very specific situations in one fell swoop. Retargeting, which we mentioned earlier, is good when you have an existing user base that you want to come back and use or buy from you again. Remarketing falls into a similar category—it’s used to bring people who haven’t interacted with your brand before backing into the fold by showing them ads related to products they’ve recently searched for or viewed online. If you can nail both retargeting and remarketing down, then it will be easier than ever to grow an existing audience. Some companies use these platforms exclusively!
Tips for using each
In both cases, you’re targeting existing customers who’ve already had some kind of interaction with your brand. However, each tactic has different goals and plays into different strategies. For example, remarketing focuses on sales and generating revenue by showing ads to people who’ve visited certain pages or products on your site. Using retargeting can also be a good way to boost post-purchase marketing efforts by showing ads to someone based on past purchases (for example, if they bought pants that were also available in red). The trick here is not just gathering cookie data but figuring out which conversions you want to target and how—and then refining it over time.
Retargeting requires more work upfront, but it can be worth it if you have highly valuable customers. It all depends on your strategy. The idea is to choose one or two tactics and implement them effectively so they work together as part of an overall digital strategy. Then, test new tactics once they’re fully baked (and there are tools like Optimizely that make A/B testing easy). Eventually, you’ll figure out what works best for your company. If nothing else, knowing what your competitors are doing will help. If a competitor is using one tactic well and driving results, then it's probably worthwhile to try that too.
At any rate, whether you're using remarketing or retargeting—or both—make sure you're getting full value from each campaign by measuring performance regularly. Track cost per sale (CPS) when applicable and consider ROI for other campaigns too. Try different combinations of variables until you find something effective! Once again we come back to the importance of measurement...just keep at it until you're satisfied with the results.
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