Ultimate Guide to Remarketing in Digital Marketing

In early business scenarios when customers visited an offline store and did not buy the product, the sales executive would call the customer saying that they had shown interest in buying the product and if they have made up their mind to go ahead with the product!

In this scenario, the sales executive is actually following up with the customer in terms of his decision and also in the process, the sales executive is persuading the customer to go for the product, that’s what remarketing does in today’s scenario through Digital Marketing!

So What is Remarketing ?

Remarketing is a tactic of Digital Marketing to follow up with the users who have visited their website or mobile application, by showing ads on different publishing websites when they visit them.

The ads can be shown on websites, mobile apps, youtube, new sites, blogs etc in order to encourage users to come back and make a purchase or enquire about the business.

Remarketing tactic will always have high conversion rates, as users who have visited your business are more likely to convert as they are familiar with your product/business or service.

So How does Remarketing Works?

In order to start with Remarketing, it is important to define, whom to follow and with which product to follow. If the website is receiving traffic in millions, it is difficult to identify who is viewing which product, so in order to tackle this issue, we use a remarketing code (some call it as pixel) on your website.

The first step is to add the remarketing code on your website, this remarketing code is shared by the advertising platform you are using (Eg: Google Ads, Facebook Ads etc), once you add the code on the website, now any visitor who visits your website, a cookie will be dropped on his browser (this happens at the backend), once the cookie is dropped on the browser, the user is now part of your remarketing list (which defines which product to remarket, to whom). Now once the user leaves the website and moves on to any website, your ads will follow him. Have a look at the below flow which will help you to understand the working fundamentals of remarketing.

What is Remarketing & How Does It Work?
(Source: Google)

Different Types of Remarketing

Different types of remarketing options available in Digital Marketing are as below!

  1. Search Remarketing
  2. Display Remarketing
  3. Dynamic Remarketing
  4. Video Remarketing
  5. Customer List Remarketing
  6. App Users Remarketing
  7. Engaged Users Remarketing

Let’s understand each one of them:

1. Search Remarketing or Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA)

Search remarketing ads are also called as RLSA, which is remarketing lists for Search Ads. In this type, you can remarket your search ads to users who have visited your website and still searching for your product. For Eg: If someone has come to your website after searching for “Resorts in Goa” (assuming that you are a resort property in goa), and is still searching for a resort property in goa, in that case you can remarket the user with a different offer in the text ad. This will help you to increase conversion and also reduce the time from click to conversion.

2. Display Remarketing

Display remarketing format is used largely by advertisers to increase brand recall and conversion, as it’s grabs users attention with a visual and it can communicate with different content pieces while the user is browsing. In this format of remarketing, if a user visits a website, you can remarket users with the same product the user visited but didn’t not transact/enquire on your website. In the entire process you follow users trying to encourage them to come back to your website.

3. Dynamic Remarketing

Dynamic remarketing is a type of remarketing usually used by e-commerce websites, eticketing websites, travel websites etc. It is basically used by websites who use feed for marketing. When users visit a website like e-commerce, they usually view 3 to 4 products or may be more than that, also the inventory is high on e-commerce websites, so how do you push products to users and encourage them to buy the product?, dynamic remarketing helps to remarket hughe inventory products by showcasing the same product, similar products, different brand products, different pricing products etc. Dynamic remarketing is part of display remarketing format

4. Video Remarketing  

Video remarketing format is usually used by advertisers to remarket videos on YouTube. Let’s say I am a YouTube blogger and I specialise in Travel. I would like my audience to view whenever my new video is uploaded, so using video remarketing, I can target users who are have viewed videos of channel or who have viewed specific videos of my channels or who have interacted with my channel. This will help me to increase the reach of my new video, plus it will increase shareability quotient of my video. Videos are a great way to increase brand recall and connect with users, as we know, video is a storytelling format which works beautifully, if created and marketed effectively.

5. Customer List Remarketing

Customer list remarketing is an interesting feature which platforms like Google Ads & Facebook Ads offer. In this format of remarketing, you can remarketing users whose email database you have. For Eg: You have an email database of 10,000 users and you only want to remarket them, so through customer list you can remarket them. In Google ads, you can directly upload the database and you can remarket users in gmail ads and on youtube. But in Google ads, only gmail ids are allowed, if you are using yahoo or any other service provider email ids, then you won’t be able to remarket them. Similarly, through Facebook, you can upload email ids and phone nos and remarket users who are having account with those email ids and phone nos. Customer list remarketing type is very effective as you are precisely targeting to the users who have shown interest in your product or service.

6. App Users Remarketing

App users remarketing is a type of remarketing through which you can remarket users who have used your app or who have interacted with your app or who have made in app purchases. This is an effective type of remarketing if the business is focusing on user acquisition on mobile app or app user engagement. The format of ads which are used are display ads for remarketing. You can do app users remarketing through Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads or any other third party platform of Digital Marketing.

7. Engaged Users Remarketing

Engaged users remarketing is a type of remarketing, wherein you remarket users who have engaged with your content. This type of remarketing is usually used in social media. For Eg: I want to remake users who have liked my page or I want to remarket users who have interacted with my posts or I want to remarket users who have clicked on lead generation forms but haven’t filled it. The primary objective of social media is engagement, so how do you keep users engaged with the new content which you are created. Engaged users remarketing is the best way to reconnect and re-engage with the users of your brand.

Advantages of Remarketing in Digital Marketing

Remarketing tactic has many advantages as below

Brand Recall

Remarketing helps you to increase brand recall, when users move out of your website, how do you follow and still communicate with the users who have shown interest in your products or services! Remarketing helps you to be visible to the audience whenever they are browsing on the web, which helps you to increase brand recall. It also aligns with the thought of brand hammering, encouraging users to consider your brand.

High Conversions

Remarketing helps you to increase conversions, as we have understood that remarketing ads act as a follow up communication with the users, remarketing influences their decision of buying, thus helping increase conversion for your brand. You can use different communication strategies or different offers while remarketing in order to increase conversions.

Cross Selling of Products

As you have users in your lists, you know what they have bought from your site, in such scenarios, you can remarket users by selling other products from your store by running different coupon codes/offers specifically targeted to them

Personalise Communication

One of the biggest advantages of remarketing is that you can personalise your communication to individual users in the entire journey of remarketing. For Eg: If a user has watched episode 12 of a reality show Big Boss on Voot (In India),  Voot as an advertisers can remarket users through DCO personalise remarketing, with episode 13 preview, also in a similar scenario, VOOT can remarket content to users basis the engagement of users with different contestant content of the show.

Sequential Messaging

Through remarketing you can also show sequential messages to a particular user in the entire journey of remarketing. Sequential messaging is widely used in Dynamic Creative Optimization remarketing technique, YouTube also has started sequential messaging for video ads, which is an effective way to engage users.

Conclusion

Remarketing if done well is an effective way to increase brand recall and sales. A successful remarketing campaign will depend on the communication which you are using in the remarketing journey. Use a mix of different types of remarketing formats, to achieve maximum out of your remarketing campaigns!