4 Common Remarketing Mistakes	Visited: 1625 5.0/5.0 (22 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Brian Easter April 26, 2011

The Rebirth of Remarketing

Remarketing (or retargeting as it’s sometimes called) has undergone a rebirth of sorts thanks to Google. Previous remarketing platforms lacked the flexibility, measurability, and reach that Google’s remarketing tools provide. Combine these factors with the ease and convenience of being able to manage your remarketing campaigns directly in AdWords, and it’s easy to see why remarketing is taking off again.

However, like most emerging initiatives, mistakes are sure to be made. Some of the most common have fairly easy fixes but do require advertisers to jump out of their traditional media buy mindset. It’s not just about impressions. It's not just average CPM. It’s about engagement and building your brand. Remarketing lets advertisers communicate at an almost one to one level if done correctly. At the very least, it allows them to engage potential customers in an authentic, valuable manner versus carpet-bombing them with irrelevant or untimely ads.

Ad Frequency Mistakes

One of the most common mistakes is not limiting ad frequency. Think about it from a web visitor’s perspective. She’s interested in your product or service, visits your site, but doesn’t convert on her first visit. Without a daily cap in ad frequency you potentially transform from a brand she’s interested in to a brand that’s bombarding her with ads everywhere she goes. The initial brand awareness shifts into annoyance, then aggravation, then hatred. Being stalked isn't cool regardless of how amazing your product or brand is.

When determining the appropriate ad frequency caps, consider the your brand, your sales cycle and the typical size of purchase.

For example, if you're a B2B firm that has a lengthy sales cycle you should set your ad frequency fairly low. If done correctly, you can strengthen your brand by having a steady branding campaign aimed at those most interested in your products or services over a period of time. The ads should be subdued and aimed at building the relationship. If you set your ad frequency caps too high, your brand could get overexposed during the sales cycle and ultimately lessen your chance of winning a new customer.

Conversely, if the sales cycle is short and the price point makes the decision more of an impulse purchase, then setting a high frequency with a limited cookie duration probably makes the most sense. If a web visitor reached your site by searching for “oolong tea” then you can make a few quick assumptions. He will purchase the product without a long sales cycle, and remarketing with specific and timely offers are likely to be most effective. In this case you should set your ad frequency high, but for a short duration. Remarketing to him at that frequency for several months isn’t likely to be cost effective.

Where to Place the Cookie

Improper cookie placement is a fundamental mistake often made when creating a remarketing campaign. Obviously, the homepage likely gets the most traffic and attracts the broadest audience, but to achieve a more focused campaign, you must segment your audience.

Here are a few locations to consider when placing cookies:

1) Ecommerce and Checkout Process Pages

If you’re want to target visitors who previously added something to the shopping cart, but failed to make a purchase, this location is ideal. Initiating a cookie when a visitor adds something to the shopping cart will compile audiences that are interested in purchasing, but need either further incentive or a reminder of their purchase intention.

It is also important to make sure that once a customer does make a purchase, the cookie is released or overridden by a confirmation page cookie so successful purchasers aren’t shown irrelevant ads.

2) Confirmation / Thank You Pages

When your remarketing goals are focused on previous converters, a confirmation page cookie can compile a list of your recent customers. You can then create campaigns for this audience that specifically encourage upselling or cross selling. Having a cookie on this page is also important to help distinguish between people who previously failed to convert and those who completed a purchase.

This type of campaign can be very effective in rewarding loyal customers and/or building a stronger relationship with your customers.

3) Product-Specific Pages

By tagging visitors based on what type of pages they visit, you can segment your audiences based on product interest. If you were an online tea retailer, having a different campaign for people that visited the “oolong tea” pages versus “organic tea” pages makes your remarketing campaigns much more efficient and meaningful to the potential customer.

For example, you can offer the “oolong tea” visitor special offers in your ads that are related to oolong tea, and take them to a specific oolong tea offer page. This small customization makes a big difference in customer engagement and usability, and ultimately in conversion.

Length of Cookie Life

Cookie life is a frequently overlooked aspect of remarketing. Many advertisers, by default, want to engage potential customers for as long and as often as possible. Not only is this dated thinking, but it’s often inefficient in terms of spend.

As with previous examples, short sales cycle or impulse purchases don’t require 540 day campaigns (which happens to be the maximum life of a Google remarketing cookie). In this situation, setting a higher ad frequency but a short cookie life is more in line with a potential customer’s interests and better matches the buying cycle.

In contrast, if you’re searching for a new digital marketing agency (and I’m using this example because I’m painfully familiar with the sales cycle), then the average purchase decision isn’t made for 3 months. Often times, on larger or more complex projects, the sales cycle can be 6-9 months. Hence, running a low frequency campaign over an extended time is much more effective.

Quality Ads

In CPM-based advertising, ad creative rules the day. The most effective way to double your effective ROI is to double your CTR. In CPC advertising, your goal should still be to increase targeted clicks, as the more targeted traffic you get, the more conversions you should achieve.

Different campaign goals call for different ad creative. A broad mix of subtle, brand-enhancing, ads are much more effective if you’re going to retarget someone over a period of time. In contrast, ads that offer an immediate, time sensitive discount are more effective for shorter sales cycles and impulse purchases.

Beyond creative, other important aspects are ad customization and ad variety. If you have a long sales cycle and plan to advertise to your potential customers over a period of weeks or months, having great ads and a decent variety of ads is key. Think about it from your customer’s perspective. Would you want to see the same tired ads for six months?  Does that build thought leadership?  Does that enhance and strengthen the brand in his eyes?  Remember, great ads engage users. They offer something of value. They are respectful to the audience. It’s not just a CPM game anymore. That mindset isn’t relevant in remarketing campaigns.

In Conclusion

Remarketing gives the website visitor and the brand a second chance to connect. By implementing a strategic, well-planned, well-executed remarketing campaign, you’re able to serve subtle, and not so subtle, reminders about your products or services. That said, if the campaign is ill conceived, goodwill can quickly turn negative, hurting client acquisition and brand efforts alike.