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You’ve just checked out a T-shirt from an online shop. You like it, it’s really cool, but you decide to hold off a while to see if you find another better one.
The next day you visit your online news provider to stay up to date and there it is: the T-shirt. What a coincidence! It’s shocking that the ad they’re showing you is for that very same T-shirt, isn’t it?
Then you visit a blog and there it is again. You also see it on Facebook and YouTube.
Are they all colluding to get you to buy the T-shirt?
No, they’re not.
What you are seeing is a remarketing strategy that we can safely say at this point is one pretty powerful way to increase sales.
Are you already thinking about all the money you can make? If so, get ready because in today’s post we are going to explain…
What exactly remarketing is and how it works
Which platforms you can use it on
10 strategies that will make your conversion rate put a smile on your face
Let’s go get those sales!
What is e-commerce remarketing?
Let’s start off with the definition.
Remarketing is a publicity strategy that shows your ad to users who have already visited your shop or one of its pages.
As we saw in the previous example, the ad “follows” you wherever you go because it knows that you have visited a certain website.
The following is a more detailed explanation:
An outline of how remarketing works
It all starts when you first visit an e-commerce shop. Let’s use Amazon as an example.
Here’s what happens:
Amazon creates cookies on your computer (indeed, that typical pop-up you accept without thinking).
Those cookies record what you do on the website (which pages you visit or if you add something to the list).
Depending on your interaction, you will be tagged in a different way (we will read more about this later).
Targeted ads will start following you everywhere.
And the most important thing – you’ll probably end up buying the product after having seen it so many times. 😀
Important information before continuing
If you’re not familiar with PPC advertising, you should learn a bit about it before you continue reading.
Advantages of implementing this strategy
Now that you know what we’re talking about, we can ask THE question: does remarketing work for an online shop?
The answer is this:
1. More recurring sales
It’s really useful for selling those products that people have to buy periodically, such as contact solution, shaving gel, pet food, etc. After users buy some, you can calculate how long the product will last and when you think they’re about to run out, you send them one of these adverts with the product.
2. Cross selling
You show them products related to the one they’ve already bought.
3. Enhancing your brand image
Users get the feeling that “you’re always there”. You’ll be stuck in their memories for longer.
4. Increasing your campaigns’ CTR
Don’t forget that we’re aiming at people who already know us, so the number of clicks (related to the number of impressions) will increase.
5. Increasing the ROI
There are lots of metrics and KPIs in an e-commerce, but one of the important ones is ROI – what you get out of your investment. Remarketing is one of the strategies that usually generates a relatively high ROI since the power of segmentation is quite high.
Did we raise a few doubts? Maybe we lost you at some point?
Don’t worry – everything will make more sense after you read the examples of remarketing coming up next.
Where to use remarketing? The game plan
Before anything else, here you have a list of platforms where you can make your ads appear.
1. Remarketing with Google AdWords
Your ads will be shown on websites, blogs, YouTube videos, and third-party mobile apps that the user may visit after visiting your site.
Join Google Analytics with Google AdWords.
In Analytics, click “Admin” in the bottom left, then under the “Properties” panel click on “Audience Definitions” and then “Audiences”.
Set up the list.
Now go to Google AdWords.
When creating the campaign, go to “Audiences” and select the list you created before.
And voila, now you can get started!
2. Remarketing on Facebook
Ads will be shown on the users’ timelines.
Go to “Pixel” in the Ads administrator on Facebook and get the code.
Paste the code between the tags <head> and </head> on your website (if this is completely new for you, it will be better if you ask someone more familiar with html) or use a plugin (although the first option is always better so you don’t overload your website with plugins).
And that’s it – you’re ready to send your ads.
You already know that Instagram belongs to Facebook, so there’s nothing else you have to do to create a campaign on Instagram. 😉
Different e-commerce remarketing strategies
Let’s get into the part that really interests us: practical techniques with which remarketing will boost your sales and your average checkout price.
1. Choose the right time
It’s the week of Black Friday and you’re offering your customers some great deals. You’ve been reminding them through a variety of ads.
However, on the big day, change your ads and show them even more powerful ones to get the most out of Black Friday sales.
2. Reduce cart abandonment
This is one of the most common uses of remarketing for e-commerce. Users leave their shopping carts and you send them ads to remind them how great the product is. Be careful with offering discounts, there are some users who already know the trick. 😉
Need more ideas to get those carts back? Click here.
Extra trick
Thanks to Google’s Merchant Center you will be able to add useful information to generate urgency:
The number of units that are left
The price before and after the discount
A countdown
And more!
Think about all the time and money that you had to invest to get that client to your website – we have to make them buy, no matter what.
3. Target the buyers
We’ve mentioned it before. We normally think of users that haven’t bought from us when we talk about remarketing… but why don’t we try to make those who have already made a purchase do it again?
Offer complemetary or related products.
Offer discounts to returning clients.
Provide the opportunity to join your loyalty program and once they have done it, offer them a discount.
Send reminders about the products that they have to repurchase on a regular basis (such as those that we mentioned before – contacts solutions, batteries, and so on).
There are thousands of options. It’s always important to get new clients, but it is sometimes more profitable to encourage those who are already clients to buy again.
4. Aim for those who have visited the Shipping and Returns Policy page
A person who visits this page is seriously considering buying from your website and they just need that last push. Try showing an ad offering free shipping or reinforcing the quality guarantee that you offer. 😉
5. Find people similar to your buyers
If you have a profile of the users who have made purchases, why don’t you use it to locate similar people?
A Google Analytics behavior report can help you identify exactly that. That’s what I call segmented marketing. ;-P
6. Dynamic product card remarketing
Who do you think is closer to making a purchase: a person who has only visited the home page or one who has checked out a product card?
It’s pretty basic logic.
If you’re working with a limited budget, direct your marketing efforts at this audience. But don’t forget the incredible importance of optimizing your product cards to drive conversion beforehand.
7. Zero in on users who have used discounts
There are some users that are just addicted to discounts and only make purchases based on the price.
Does your profit margin allow you to do a price battle with certain products?
Filter your database and find your customers that only make purchases with coupons and launch a campaign just for them.
Suggestion: Remember the options that Google’s Merchant Center offers and use them with this segment.
8. Take aim at those who have removed products from their cart
Before we talked to you about remarketing for abandoned carts. But what about people who made a purchase, but removed a product before completing it?
In that case, direct your campaign at said purchasers with a discount for the product they removed and talk up its benefits so they just can’t resist.
Extra trick: This is a great time to play with cross-selling. Don’t forget that they have already bought a product. 😉
9. Do remarketing with Google’s AdWords RLSA
With AdWords you bid to make your ad show up when users search for certain keywords. With RLSA, your ad will be shown to users who have visited your website and who are searching on Google.
Trick: Always adapt the ad to the user’s search intent.
10. Use push notifications
Nothing beats an image to make sure you understand what we are talking about.
Once you click “allow”, those little messages will start appearing in the upper right-hand corner of your computer screen.
So what’s the big advantage of sending this type of notification?
The user doesn’t have to subscribe (but be careful, it’s still important to get them to subscribe later draw them even closer and take advantage of your email marketing strategy).
It’s free (tools like One Signal offer free plans).
As you can see, there are many ways to recover a sale or to stay in touch with a user.
E-commerce remarketing is very powerful
But don’t forget that there are many more techniques. If you are just starting out, we recommend using an Inbound Marketing strategy (your budget will also thank you).
For that, be sure to check out these posts:
Inbound Marketing
Conversion Funnel
Web Positioning for E-commerce
Content Marketing
The key is to set clear objectives and then to choose the strategies that line up with them.
If you want to increase your sales and don’t mind making an extra effort in terms of investment, then start doing remarketing with your e-commerce now.