Getting traffic to a website is the first part of the equation when establishing an online presence. The endgame is to get those visitors to take action – buy, subscribe, contact. However, most initial traffic does not result in an immediate action. The majority of visitors leave a website without achieving a desired goal. This is where we can make use of remarketing within a digital marketing strategy.
Digital marketing’s most potent methodologies include remarketing, as it focuses financial resources entirely on an audience that has baseline familiarity with a brand. By employing structured and segmented campaigns, organisations can systematically bring warm leads back to their platform, converting lost traffic into measurable engagement.
Low Initial Conversion Rates
If you look at standard digital traffic behaviour, you can see the utility of remarketing. In virtually every industry, the overwhelming majority of first-time website visitors do not complete a conversion.
That doesn’t always mean a loss of interest. In the online world, users might leave a website due to external distractions, the wish to compare other options or simply because they need more time before making a decision.
But without a way to bring these people back, the money spent to get them to the platform is usually wasted because people don’t tend to remember to come back on their own. This is where remarketing comes in to fill this gap by creating a continuous communication channel with these specific users.
The Technical Mechanism Of Remarketing
The idea is to connect with previous visitors across various spaces in the digital realm. But the technology is based on automated tracking tools – like software pixels or cookies. The operational process has a certain sequence:
- Initial Visit: A visitor arrives at a website and navigates around different pages or sections.
- Anonymous Tagging: The site uses an embedded tracking code that assigns an anonymous identifier to the user’s browser sessions.
- The Exit: The user leaves the platform without completing a conversion and resumes browsing elsewhere on the broader internet.
- Ad Triggering: The integrated advertising networks recognise the anonymous identifier and deliver targeted ads from the original website onto other digital spaces.
- Re-engagement: The user engages with the targeted ad and goes back to the original platform to complete the desired action.
Three Critical Segmenting Strategies
Sending a generic message to all former visitors weakens a campaign’s impact. Successful remarketing is all about segmentation of the audience showing specific messages based on the exact action a user took in their visit.
Strategy 1: Abandoned Action Retrieval
This approach is targeted at users who have travelled deep into the conversion funnel such as initiating a checkout process or completing a multi-step form but did not complete it.
The Approach: Keep messaging focused squarely on the unfinished task. Messaging that highlights incomplete progress or offers a small incentive, can motivate the user to complete the process.
Strategy 2: Category-Specific Re-engagement
If a user is spending a lot of time on a certain tier of service or category of product, they’re signalling an area of interest.
The Approach: Align the following ads directly to the category the user viewed. It also prevents generic messaging by providing specific details or specific benefits related to that particular service.
Strategy 3: Overall Brand Awareness
Some visitors will look at the homepage or informational articles and then leave. They are familiar with the brand, but haven’t picked a solution yet.
The Approach: Don’t be aggressive in your sales pitch. Instead, showcase educational content, brand values or organisational achievements to build credibility and remain top of mind.
Campaign Optimisation Frameworks
To maintain the brand’s reputation and ensure the campaign performs at its best, you need to manage certain parameters.
Set Frequency Limits
This parameter limits the number of times a specific user will see a specific advertisement in a specific period of time. Limiting visibility prevents overexposure, which can cause user fatigue and negative brand association.
Apply Exclusion Rules
Once the user has completed the desired conversion, they should be immediately removed from the original remarketing audience. Not keeping your audience lists up-to-date is wasting ad spend and giving users a repetitive, unnecessary experience.
Rotate Creative Assets
Updating the images and written copy of the ads avoids banner blindness, a phenomenon in which users completely ignore repetitive digital placements.
