Have you ever wondered if there was a way you could target your online advertising towards potential customers who have visited your website but have not been converted to a sale yet?
This is a relatively new concept called “re-marketing” (sometimes called re-targeting) which can be used to do just that. This can save you money by paying less for key search terms, and instead start tracking your potential customer’s movement through your website in order to then re-market to the same customers with advertisements in the future, even if they aren’t looking at any related products. This re-engagement of customers can lead to better conversion rates and therefore more sales.
The conversion rate for a website is the percentage of traffic that visit your site that actually convert to a sale. For most websites, this rate is usually between 2-10 percent. This means that up to 98% of your traffic leaves without purchasing anything. Re-marketing advertisements towards these people has been shown to improve this rate. A study by comScore shows that re-marketed adverts can lead to a 1,046% increase in branded searches and a 726% rise in site visits after four weeks of re-marketed advert exposure.
Although re-marketing is good for B2C markets, this form of online advertising actually suits B2B markets better. B2B markets are low on impulse repeat purchasing and they usually have a greater amount of thought and deliberation put into each purchase. This prolonged buying experience in B2B markets creates more of an opportunity for advertisements to be re-targeted towards the buyer in order to keep your business front of mind.
Re-marketing can help push potential customers through the sales funnel, create more leads and turn them into customers. It can do this by creating awareness of your product in the early phases and convert this awareness into interest. Remarketing in these early phases of the sales funnel can also give customers the perception that your business is larger than it is, due to the increased awareness of your product.
This genius way of targeting customers who are already interested is made possible by a tool called a “cookie.” Cookies are collected by users when they visit certain websites, which can then be tracked in order to show advertisements based off your internet history. For example, if you were looking at Customer Relationship Management software online but decided against buying it, advertisements would now pop up all through your internet browsing for the same and similar software. Another way that re-marketing can be achieved is through the use of lists. This would require you to create a list of people who have, for example, signed up to get your emails, and pass it on to a social media site, who match those users emails with their accounts, and show them your ads while they are browsing social media.
A massive advantage of this re-marketing is that it can be used as soon as a potential buyer has left your website. This means that you can instantly re-target your ads to them and regain their interest. You can also send these re-targeted ads towards people who visited only a specific page or showed a specific behaviour, which gives you the best chance at increasing your click through rates for online advertising. It is possible however that you can bombard your target customers with too many ads and they see you as pushy. It is also possible to reach the wrong target audience by setting up cookies on the wrong web pages. For example, if you set up a cookie on the payment confirmation page, you would then be targeting people who have already bought your product. This is not only annoying for the consumer, but a waste of money and time for you. A careful plan has to be undertaken to gain maximum efficiency from re-marketing and to ensure you do not cross this line into being seen as obtrusive.
Overall, re-targeting can be a valuable tool to your business. Like all marketing activities, it should be monitored in order to track its performance, but if done effectively it can greatly increase the amount of traffic to your website. If this is combined with a decent inbound marketing program it can increase your websites effectiveness, enhance your website as a lead generating tool, shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales overall.
Talk to the marketing consultants at Fit 4 Market to find out more. Fit 4 Market can provide advanced lead generation strategies, integrated marketing solutions, and are an experienced inbound marketing agency. What is inbound marketing?