Visibility

When you think of pay-per-click advertising, you’re probably picturing something to do with keywords, ads on Google, and paying every time someone clicks on your ad. That is all true. However, PPC is continually evolving. There have been recent developments that could change your methodology, preferred tactics, and PPC management focus. One of the most interesting, and complex advancements has been the development of interest-based advertising, which removes keywords from the PPC equation.

Interest-based advertising has a couple different names but within Google it’s called Remarketing. There are a handful of companies that provide this service but for the sake of this article, I’ll focus on Google AdWords since this is the easiest entry point for most advertisers. In this article I will describe the thinking behind this PPC methodology and tactics to successfully implement your own remarketing campaign.

Methodology Behind Remarketing

The objective of remarketing is to target users who have visited your website and get them to come back and make a purchase or an additional purchase. I’ll break down remarketing in a step-by-step process:

1.    Let’s say a gentleman named Bob owns a website that sells shoes. We’ll call it Bob’s Shoes.
2.    A visitor comes to Bob’s site, looks around, but doesn’t buy anything.
3.    Later, when this user is visiting another website, they will see Bob’s advertisement that says, “Come back to Bob’s Shoes and we’ll give you 10% off your next purchase!”
4.    Hopefully, that user sees the ad, remembers they visited Bob’s website and decides to take advantage of this great offer.
In a very large nutshell, that’s the idea behind remarketing. So, how do you find these users who visited your website and show ads to them again when they are visiting other websites? All you need to do is add a snippet of tracking code to your website (the code is provided by Google), when a user visits your website that code drops a third party tracking cookie onto their computer. Also, within the Google AdWords interface you just need to set the proper campaigns and advertisements.

Also, you may be wondering, where exactly are my ads appearing? Your ads will appear on websites that are opted into the Google Display Network. These are websites that display text and images ads distributed by Google. You’ve seen the block of ads on a website that read, “Ads provided Google.” That is where your remarketing ads would appear.

This falls under PPC advertising because you are still paying for every click on your ad. However, you are not targeting users who are typing queries into a search engine; you are targeting users who have already expressed an interest in your product/service by visiting your site (hence the name, interest-based advertising).

Tactics for a Successful Remarketing Campaign

The target audience for a remarketing campaign is different from your usual PPC crowd. The average PPC audience member is looking for a product/service, but they’ve probably never heard of your company. They don’t even know that they’re looking for you. So, you need to get in front of this user when they are searching and convince them that you have what they want. For a remarketing audience, they already know who you are because they’ve been to your website – but now, you have to convince them to come back and take action (or take an additional action).

With remarketing, you can segment your audience and serve highly specific, targeted ads to individual users. To just provide an introduction on how you can slice-and-dice your remarketing audience, I’ll give you a few scenarios that involve the Bob’s Shoes remarketing campaign:

•    Bob can target users who have previously made a purchase by including a snippet of tracking code on his order confirmation page. He can target these users again within the Google Display Network (where remarketing ads appear) with ads that read, “Now that you have the running shoes of your dreams, come back to Bob’s Shoes and buy all of the running accessories you need. 10% for return customers!”
•    Bob can target users who didn’t make a purchase. He can do this by telling Google to show his ads to people who have visited his website, but exclude anyone who has already purchased. To these people, Bob can deliver an ad that says, “We miss you! We really want you to come back to Bob’s Shoes. We’ll even give you 20% off your first purchase!”
•    Bob can target users who visit specific pages and products on his website. For users who visit the hiking boots section of his site, Bob can deliver an ad that says, “Still need hiking boots? Remember, Bob’s Shoes has the biggest selection of hiking boots at the best prices.”
•    In another example of targeting users who visit a specific product, Bob can target users who look at Air Jordan shoes with an image ad that displays a picture of that specific product and messaging that says, “We have the best deals on Air Jordan shoes. Come back to Bob’s Shoes and we’ll give you 10% off your order. We want you back!”
•    Let’s say that Bob also sells health supplements on his website. He can target users who have previously purchased some of his supplements with ads that say, “Are you running low on supplements? Re-order now from Bob’s Shoes and get 20% off!”

These are basic scenarios, but you get the idea. Successful response driven marketing is all about the moment of relevance. For your audience, that moment of relevance could happen while they’re on your website or even after they’ve visited your website. As you can see in the examples above, the ads that are being delivered to these audience segments are tightly targeted and highly relevant to a previously-stated interest (your product!).

Now, you should think about your website. What kinds of segmentation can you create and what messaging will you deliver to these audiences? How can you target users who have visited specific pages on your site? How can you target users who have made a purchase? How can you target those users who haven’t made a purchase?
  

 There are a few tactics that you can employ to give your remarketing campaign a boost and achieve success quicker. Here is a short list of ideas:

•    Use image ads: Users who have been to your site may recognize and respond to your logo, color scheme, products faster with images. As mentioned in one of the examples above, if a user visits a product on your website, you can later serve them an advertisement that displays that specific product.
•    Segment your audience: The examples above describe why segmentation is so important and effective. With remarketing you can get really specific in regards to which ads are shown to which users. Take full advantage of this opportunity.
•    Provide enticing offers: You want these target audiences to feel special. They may already feel special because they are being singled out with ads that say, “Come back! We love you!” and if you throw out a sale or a unique offer, they will feel that much more special and this will help you build brand loyalty.

Unfortunately, I don’t have enough room in this article to walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up a remarketing campaign in Google AdWords. However, the process isn’t too difficult. It involves creating specific audiences and campaigns within Google AdWords, and placing tracking code snippets on your website. There are plenty of helpful documents provided by Google on this topic.

Traditional PPC where the user enters a query into the search engine to find you is still where the lion’s share of your attention should belong. However, now you can have a backup plan for users who don’t make purchase or users who are likely to purchase again. So, that initial click from the search engine actually gains a little bit more value. Now, get out there and get your audience to come back to your website!