It’s hard work getting a visitor to your website. Whether they come via organic search, in response to an email campaign or by a paid advertisement, it takes some real strategy and effort to get them there. But those are just the first steps. Most people need to be exposed to a product or service multiple times before they become a customer. Even signing up for something free usually requires putting it in front of prospects several times.
That’s where Google Adwords remarketing comes in. It’s the advertising strategy that ensures your efforts to get visitors never go to waste, by continually retargeting these visitors with a paid Adwords campaign. Perhaps you’ve only dipped your toe in the water of Google Adwords and have only casually perused your site’s Google Analytics data. Not to fear, here are some general principles you can use to get started with a good remarketing campaign.
Start Your Audience List
Think of your remarketing audience as another marketing “list”—the same as your email list. Only in this case, it’s IP addresses you’re collecting instead of email addresses. If you go to the Administration dashboard of Google Analytics, the middle column will offer you “Audience Definitions.” Click there and you’ll see the options for setting up your Audience List.
Your Audience List can be structured to include almost any type of website visitor. Your basic list will be the simple “All Website Visitors.” But you can also drill down and create lists for people who have been to specific parts of your site or taken specific actions.
The most common one for e-commerce websites is to create a list for people who have gotten to the shopping cart stage and then abandoned the site before making a purchase. Creating an ad specific to these people is ideal for getting low-hanging fruit among potential customers.
Depending on your business, you might also choose to set up Audience Lists for people who have visited certain landing pages or performed an action, like watching a video. You already know a little something about these people based on their website actions and the content of your ad can be tailored to them.
Before you finish with your Audience Lists, be sure you’ve checked the duration. The default is 30 days—a visitor’s cookies will be stored for this long. Every business has a different sales cycle, but there’s a good chance you’ll want to hold on that visitor’s IP address for longer. Make sure you extend the duration time frame.
Set Up Your Adwords Campaign
An Audience List in Google Analytics is automatically stored in Google Adwords, so once the list has grown in size, you can go to Adwords to get started. Follow the normal protocols for setting up your campaign. You will reach a point where Adwords asks that you choose your audience. Here is where you select the List that you want to target.
You are not limited to your own Audience Lists. Adwords will offer you an option to target “Similar Audiences.” By all means go for that—Google’s algorithms will find other prospects out there in cyberspace whose IP activity is similar to those on your list.
Finally, when you’re asked what specific marketing goals you want to achieve, choose “maximize conversions.” There are some campaigns where it might be better to simply “maximize clicks.” Your remarketing campaign is not one of them. These are prospects that have already been to your website and gotten a basic familiarity with you. Now you’re trying to close.
Start With A Low Budget
Any Google Adwords campaign involves a certain amount of trial and error. Find out which keywords work best, which landing pages are most productive and what ad copy generates the most bang for your buck. If you start with a low budget you can watch and observe and then tweak the campaign. Once everything is in a place where you’re generating solid performance, you can increase the budget. Don’t let your website visitors simply disappear. It’s hard enough to get them there the first time. Let Google’s technological tools make it easier to bring them back the second and third time.
Ready to try Retargeting for Google Adwords? Call us at 443-475-0787 to find out how we can help.
