Retargeting and remarketing may be similar terms, but their approach is very different. Moreover, both are essential for a business’s success.
Read on to learn the vital differences between retargeting vs remarketing and why you need to incorporate both into your workflow!
Retargeting
The goal of retargeting is to entice potential customers to finish a purchase they abandoned. People can abandon purchases for any number of reasons, to pressing personal matters, the need to do more research on the value versus the price of the product or service, or they’re simply browsing.
Retargeting reminds customers of their purchase and convinces them to complete it. This is done through Internet ads that appear on user’s browsers even when they leave your website, or even through applications like Spotify.
When users visit your website, they’re agreeing to have cookies placed within their browser. These cookies enable you to track the user throughout their Internet use, showing them personalized ads that coincide with their behavior.
Remarketing
Similar to retargeting, remarketing is all about convincing users to complete their purchases. You can think of remarketing as an umbrella term for retargeting. However, the term remarketing tends to indicate the use of emails instead of ads.
These emails typically provide a discount, free offer or item, deadline, or other incentives and calls to action that convince users to complete their purchase. Remarketing can also refer to:
Facebook Pixel: This is code added to your website that allows Facebook to track your traffic. Through Custom Audiences, you can access this data with highly personalized targeting.
Google Display Remarketing: This uses Google Analytics to monitor your website visitors.
Benefits of Retargeting and Remarketing
Regularly retargeting and remarketing are beneficial because you’re more likely to make a sale. Communication is far easier with customers who are already familiar with your brand, products, or services. You also have more control over reaching and interacting with your target audience because you already have data on them.
In contrast, while reaching new customers is essential, only focusing on new customers means you’re ignoring nurturing the relationship with current ones.
Remarketing can convince current customers to make more purchases that are relevant to their initial one by guiding them through sales funnels. It reminds old customers that your brand exists. Their familiarity with your brand makes it easier to sell newer products and services to them.
Effective Remarketing
Remarketing and retargeting may seem creepy, but if done correctly you’ll be adding value to your customers’ experiences while increasing your sales.
1. Personalization
Remarketing enables you to have a more personal relationship with customers because you already know about their purchasing behavior. Customers can be reminded to restock in products they’ve bought previously, or be presented with items that are relevant to their interests.
Personalized and casual copywriting is also very effective for remarketing. For instance, phrases such as “we’ve missed you” help establish old relationships in a colloquial manner.
2. Discounts and Promotions
Remarketing can’t just exist with good copy. You need to be able to offer discounts or promotional offers in order to convince customers that your brand is worth their time and money.
Discounts and promotions also help address reasons they may have abandoned their shopping cart. For instance, maybe they weren’t happy with the price, the shipping cost, or the quantity they receive.
3. Relevant Content
Remarketing gives you the ability to offer valuable content depending on where a person is in the sales funnel. The four stages of content are:
Attract: infographics, landing pages, ads
Convert: social media, blog posts, case studies, webinars
Close: ratings and reviews, e-mails, questionnaires
Delight: special offers, contests and giveaways, surveys, social media
By providing relevant content, you’re far less likely to be wasting your customer’s time. With this in mind, it’s important to analyze your data so you’re sending messages at the right time.
4. Appropriate Communication
You don’t want to overwhelm customers with ads and e-mails - this can have the opposite effect of driving away current customers out of irritation. You need to have a proper strategy in place that details exactly how many times they see your ads and e-mails.
You also want to be sure that the kind of ads they’re seeing are actually effective in drawing their attention and convincing them to act. Users are used to seeing dozens of ads a day and their inboxes are full of remarketing emails.
Through A/B testing, you can discover the most effective ads that work for your audience.
5. Clear Objectives
Every communication you have with your audience needs to have a clear objective. Even if your ad is effective at drawing your audience’s attention, an ineffective call to action will dissuade them.
For instance, if you have copy that helps a user learn more about your product or service but then have a call to action that says “buy now,” users won’t be compelled to click. A call to action like “learn more” would be more appropriate because that’s the current mindset they’re in.
Retargeting vs Remarketing: Integral Parts of Brand Experience
Whether you’re retargeting users through ads or remarketing through compelling e-mails and content, both retargeting and remarketing are unnecessary for your business. The difference between retargeting vs remarketing is the approach. However, their goal is the same: to reach out to current customers and bring them to action.
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