How to Use Retargeting without Scaring off Consumers

By Rares Bansecu

Retargeting is a technique that more and more marketers worldwide have started to use. Amazon and other e-commerce sites are using retargeting to successfully increase their online sales. However, how we use this technique is very important. With the increasing number of sites using retargeting, the number of consumer complaints have also increased. More and more users complain that they are being “watched” by banners, even after they have purchased a product from a website. This is understandably annoying for them.

To avoid such situations and to not attract the antipathy of internet users, you should keep a few things in mind when organizing a retargeting campaign.

Choose a proper retargeting strategy for your company
There are several ways you can retarget consumers:

• Search retargeting: when you are using search retargeting, you’re going after individuals on search engines who have searched keywords or phrases relevant to your business.
• Site retargeting: this is how you can show ads to users that already visited your site.
• Email retargeting: as you probably guessed, it allows you to retarget people based on actions they have taken on your emails.
• Facebook retargeting: it allows you to display banners in Facebook to users that already visited your site.

Choose the most suitable form of retargeting for your company and your consumers.  Test and see what retargeting campaign has brought you the best results and focus on it.

Set the right number of impression caps
If you’re a marketer who likes figures, probably you already know that impression caps matter. If you’ve done your research, you know how many times, on average, you must interact with a customer to make a sale. When you develop a retargeting campaign strategy, you should know and use this information.

Impression caps allow brands to stop targeting customers once they’ve been exposed to a specific ad a pre-specified number of times. Why waste money targeting consumers who have already been exposed multiple times and have still chosen not to buy? Instead, spend your remaining budget to target other potential customers. It’s a win-win situation for both companies and customers.

Offer your customers an opt-out feature
If a consumer has searched recently to buy a refrigerator and begins to see your ad on several websites that he accesses, he will know that he is being retargeted. The goal of retargeting is to have better communication with consumers and provide them with the products they need at the right time. However, when your ad appears 100 times a day to a consumer to remind him that it is interested in a refrigerator, it is highly unlikely he will buy from you due to his annoyance.

Be sure to provide an opt-out feature for when your targets no longer want to see your ad.  After all, if the consumer is not interested, why should you insist?

Use creative banners
It has been known for some time that static banners, which include only one image, no longer have a massive impact. To attract customers, marketers are now creating animated banners.

It is best to test several banners and see which brings you the best results. After a certain period, we also highly recommend you change the designs.

Have a user-friendly website
Even if this seems unrelated to retargeting, it is very important to have a user-friendly website. If you create a user-friendly site that will allow visitors to find the information they need quickly, this will facilitate the buying process and you will not waste more money to bring them back to the site through a retargeting campaign.

If your site has an e-commerce element, you must ensure that the products can easily be found on the site and the shopping cart is highly accessible. Make it easy to run searches for specific products, explain all fees up front, make your shopping cart clear and easy to find, and keep the checkout process as simple as possible. By taking proactive steps, the need for excessive online retargeting will decrease and sales will increase; this is an ideal situation for you.

If your retargeting campaign does not work, keep the above tips in mind and tweak your campaign. Try to avoid scaring off consumers and spending money unnecessarily.

Rares Banescu is the CEO and founder of Retargeting.biz, a company which provides a marketing automation software for online businesses that reduces bounce rate and cart abandonment rate and increases conversions. We have more than 100 satisfied customers in Romania and around the world.