13 Bright Ideas for Running Smarter Retargeting Campaigns
13 Bright Ideas for Running Smarter Retargeting Campaigns in 2024
The average online conversion rate in 2024 is only 3.1%. That means nearly 97% of visitors to your website leave without converting into a lead or customer. But don‘t despair—with the power of retargeting, you can remain top-of-mind and bring back many of those "lost" prospects to maximize your marketing ROI.
Retargeting allows you to show targeted ads to people who have previously interacted with your brand online. By intelligently segmenting your audience and delivering personalized messaging, you can effectively guide more leads through the customer journey and grow your business.
As we move further into the new decade, retargeting is evolving rapidly. Marketers need to stay ahead of changing consumer behaviors, privacy regulations, advertising platforms, and technology. To help spark some creative ideas, here are 13 strategies to take your retargeting to the next level in 2024 and beyond.
Pixel-Based Retargeting Ideas
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Promote your top-performing content.
Rather than just retargeting people with ads for your products or services, drive them to your best blog posts, videos, case studies, or other content. This can help you attract more inbound links, generate brand awareness, and move people through the funnel. Analyze which content has the highest engagement and conversion rates, then use retargeting to get more eyes on those assets. -
Customize campaigns based on specific pages visited.
Segment your retargeting audience based on their browsing behavior. For an ecommerce site, you could group together visitors to each product category page and show them tailored ads for those types of products. With AI tools, you can even retarget people with the exact products they viewed dynamically inserted into the ad creative. For B2B, group visitors by the service or industry pages they view. -
Nurture leads through the full funnel.
Develop unique retargeting campaigns for each stage of the buyer‘s journey. If someone visits a top-of-funnel educational blog post, retarget them with a relevant middle-of-funnel ebook. If they view your product/pricing page but don‘t convert, hit them with a demo or free trial offer. You can even retarget leads who opened a lead nurturing email to maximize touches. -
Capitalize on key sales events.
Craft timely retargeting campaigns around major holidays, seasonal events, and your own company‘s product launches or promotions. For example, an apparel brand could retarget shoppers in early spring with their new swimwear line. B2B firms can promote a huge annual sale or new product release to re-engage past leads. -
Exclude low-engagement visitors.
Don‘t waste ad impressions on people unlikely to convert. Consider excluding visitors who bounced within seconds. In Google Analytics, you can create audience segments based on time on site or pages per session, then import those into your retargeting platform. Suppressing low-engagement users helps you focus your budget on audiences with higher intent. -
Retarget email openers.
Upload a list of contacts who opened a specific email and retarget them with ads related to that email content. This is a great way to stay top-of-mind and drive action from engaged subscribers. For example, if someone opens your email promoting a new whitepaper, hit them with retargeting ads encouraging them to download it.
List-Based Retargeting Ideas
7. Suppress existing customers.
For lead generation campaigns, be sure to exclude your customer list from retargeting. You don‘t want to annoy current customers with irrelevant ads or waste money reaching people who already converted. Upload a suppression list to improve the accuracy of your retargeting and avoid potential complaints.
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Get personal with rep photos.
If a lead has been in contact with a specific sales rep but hasn‘t moved forward, run retargeting ads featuring that rep‘s photo, name and a message like "I‘m here to answer any other questions!" Personalization can be a powerful motivator, as people feel more of a 1:1 connection. Just be sure to get the rep‘s approval and use their LinkedIn headshot so it looks professional. -
Leverage price sensitivity for lost deals.
When a lead chooses a competitor or decides not to buy due to price, wait a few weeks then retarget them with limited-time discount offer ads. Start with a modest discount, then increase it over time if they still don‘t bite. This incremental approach saves you from offering a massive discount right away while still incentivizing price-sensitive leads to reconsider. -
Reward VIP customers.
Identify your highest-value customers based on lifetime spend, purchase frequency, or evangelism. Then upload that list to Facebook or another platform and show them exclusive "insider" discount ads. A 10% off coupon, early access to a new product line, or other special perk can help turn great customers into lifelong brand advocates. -
Cross-sell and upsell.
Use retargeting to introduce satisfied customers to additional products or services. For example, a marketing automation platform could retarget customers who use its email tool with ads for its social media management add-on. Or an automaker could promote its luxury model to customers who previously bought an entry-level sedan. With the right offer and targeting, you can grow average revenue per user. -
Reach email non-openers.
Retargeting isn‘t just for email openers—you can also upload a list of contacts who didn‘t open a specific email and target them on Facebook, LinkedIn or elsewhere. Since these people likely missed your email, retargeting allows you to get the message in front of them on other channels they engage with frequently. -
Target your LinkedIn connections.
For B2B brands, your reps‘ LinkedIn networks are a valuable audience. Download your team‘s connections (including email addresses) and upload them to create a Custom Audience for retargeting. Show them relevant ads to introduce your company and drive them to your best content, since they‘re likely to be receptive based on their connection with your team.
Advanced Retargeting Techniques & Tips
Beyond the audience targeting strategies above, marketers can combine other techniques to get more sophisticated with retargeting:
- Blend in other targeting parameters like contextual keywords, online behaviors, and firmographic attributes to refine your audience and reach them at the optimal moment
- A/B test your ad creative, copy, offers and landing pages to home in on the best-performing combinations that drive clicks and conversions
- Set frequency caps so you‘re not bombarding people with the same ad over and over, which can lead to fatigue and annoyance
- Use attribution models and lift analysis to measure the true impact of retargeting on conversion rates and return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Apply artificial intelligence and machine learning for dynamic ad creative, automated optimization, and predictive segmentation
To get the most from your retargeting campaigns, it‘s crucial to measure the right metrics and continuously optimize. Key indicators to track include click-through rate, conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and ROAS. Comparing these to industry benchmarks and your other channels will reveal the relative value of retargeting.
Tools like Google Analytics and Multi-Channel Funnels can show you the role retargeting plays in moving people through the funnel. Calculate the incremental conversion lift and return on investment to make the case for retargeting.
You can also improve performance over time by managing bids and budgets, testing new ad formats, and refreshing creative. Consider outsourcing to an agency that specializes in programmatic/retargeting if you don‘t have the bandwidth in-house.
As we look ahead, the future of retargeting will be shaped by privacy changes like Apple‘s ITP, the death of the third-party cookie, and government regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Advertisers will need to adapt to a world with less data for identification, frequency capping and attribution.
Contextual and behavioral signals will become more important than cookies and device IDs for effective targeting. Marketers must prioritize first-party data and offer more transparency around data usage. Potential alternatives are already emerging, like Google‘s Privacy Sandbox.
Meanwhile, AI and machine learning will continue to advance, enabling more dynamic and predictive retargeting at scale. We may see new ad formats and inventory sources arise, while targeting becomes more dependent on aggregated and anonymized data.
Ultimately, brands need to strike the right balance between personalization and privacy to earn their audience‘s trust. As long as you treat customer data with respect and deliver genuinely relevant advertising, retargeting will continue to be a powerful acquisition and retention strategy for many years to come.
