Years ago, marketers would often say it takes six to seven interactions before a lead will turn into a conversion. Fast forward to 2016, and now that projection is 11 to 13 interactions. Some sources even say 20! Essentially, the market has become so saturated that brands need to interact with audiences even more to remind their potential leads of why they should opt for one brand over the countless other brands they see every day. You know what they say… out of frame, out of mind!
As a result, remarketing has become the key to success for most businesses. In fact, most e-commerce businesses using digital marketing convert mainly through retargeting, with minimal new acquisition conversions. In addition, the face of retargeting in digital marketing has transformed as well. With so many retargeting tools out there, such as Steelhouse, Genius Monkey, AdRoll, and Google Remarketing, the success of a digital marketing campaign is often dependent upon these types additional tools.
These high-level retargeting tools also provide some insight into why retargeting is so successful. Let’s take a look…
Retargeting across platforms:
We’ve all seen it before – we click or type something once, and it seems that brand is following us around the internet. The ability to remarket across platforms increases the amount of interactions between a lead and a brand without simply repeating the same campaign. In other words, remarketing across several platforms keeps the advertising “fresh,” but still adds the needed interactions to stay in front of a lead.
For example, a lead could search a product name on Google, then be served an ad on Facebook with that product, and then proceed to see a display ad on a website that might even have minimal relation to the original product. From that point, they will continuously be served ads to achieve the needed interactions until they purchase or fall out of the retargeting pool. Either way, this ability to follow audiences across the internet is one of the main reasons why retargeting is so successful.
Dynamic Retargeting Capabilities:
It’s one thing to be able to retarget based on a lead viewing your website, but it is a whole other dimension to be able to retarget based on the exact product that was viewed or clicked, especially in e-commerce. You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, isn’t this the same as retargeting based on site visits?” The answer is NO. The difference is that this retargeting process is automated. Instead of creating an audience for one product, and then creating an ad unit specifically for that product keyword, dynamic ads will dynamically serve product ads based on that individual’s activity only, thus decreasing your workload, and increasing the likelihood that the lead will buy that product. In other words, what one sees will be different from what another sees.
Increases in Brand Loyalty:
Another reason why retargeting is so successful is the ability to build brand loyalty. Typically in digital marketing, those who have already shown interest by clicking on an ad, joining a mailing list, or previously purchasing are often the first to be retargeted when there is a sale or promotion going on. Sometimes promotions will even be exclusive to certain audiences, thus rewarding consumers for being a customer or lead. Exclusive promotions or gifts to clients often build brand loyalty, as they increase the perceived value of being loyal to that brand, and provide the impression that there is a reward for being a part of the community. These sort of retargeting strategies increase retention and overall brand loyalty.
As you can see, retargeting provides a tremendous opportunity for success.
