Over the past few years, many companies have massively moved to the Internet. Today it is difficult to imagine that any organization does not have a website on the Internet or at least a page on Facebook. Some companies even have abandoned offline sales altogether and only carry them out through the network.
These global changes have made it necessary to somehow establish online sales and find some ways to reach more customers than ever. Numerous researchers have shown that the user makes a purchase on average after 4-6 site visits. And the solution was found: retargeting appeared.
Today, there is hardly a person who is not familiar with this concept, or at least has not heard of it. Retargeting is so popular now that some universities have introduced it into their curriculum. Moreover, major companies such as Google and Facebook have even created special Ads to help set it up.
What is so remarkable about retargeting and how to work with it – let’s try to figure it out in this article.
What is Retargeting
Has it ever happened to you that after viewing a website, you started being “harassed” by ads from the same site? If so, congratulations, you have encountered retargeting!
Retargeting is an advertising tool that can be used to return users who have already visited the site.
According to statistics, 95-99% of users leave the site without a purchase or request. There are a lot of visitors that companies spend a lot of money to involve, but they leave the site without buying and may never return. The point of retargeting is to bring these users back to the site.
Remarketing is also a common concept. In fact, retargeting and remarketing are the same technology. The only difference is that the concept of remarketing is used when referring to ads in Google Ads, which will be displayed in the Google display network, and retargeting – ads in social networks, such as Instagram or Facebook.
Retargeting helps companies to complete customer’s conversions. For example, a user visited a site but did not place an order.
What companies can do with retargeting:
- motivate the user to complete the purchase;
- recommend products based on user’s views;
- show new products or offers to engage in a new purchase cycle or encourage repeat purchases;
- show brand ads so that users remember the brand better.
Retargeting: how does it work
Every time a new user visits the company’s website, pixel adds an anonymous cookie to the user’s browser and it will be added to the company’s retargeting list. After that, using the Internet, the customer will constantly receive the necessary advertising for the company. This will happen until the company will not disable ads or the user will not clear cookies in the browser or switch to another browser or device.
Retargeting is aimed at a smaller audience, but everyone is a potential buyer.
The principle of retargeting is approximately the same on all sites. The only difference is where the ad will be displayed. If we set up retargeting on Instagram or Facebook, the ad will only appear on the pages of the corresponding social network: in the feed and ad blocks.
If we set up remarketing in Google, banners and ads will be displayed in search results and on Google sites.
Google Ads: Retargeting channel #1
Google Ads (or Google AdWords) is a contextual and personalized advertising system from Google.
The entire Google Advertising network is divided into two large groups:
- A search network that includes Google Search pages, other partner search sites, and Google services (Maps, Shopping, etc.).
- A contextual display network (CDN) consisting of partner sites and Google sites (Gmail, YouTube, etc.).
Ad campaigns are often active across the entire network, but you can set it up only to the search engine or only to the CDN.
Google Ads are displayed on the following sites:
- Google search results page;
- In search results and on YouTube video pages;
- Mobile advertising in the Google Play app store search and in the apps;
- Web interface of the Gmail mail service;
- On the pages of more than two million sites.
The main advantage of Google Ads is the huge number of customers who use this platform.
And it is not surprising, because Google occupies a leading position among search engines and other services.
The ad placement and the ad format will depend on the selected campaign type. You can use several formats in the AdWords account. Here are some of them:
- Text ads that consist only of words.
- Adaptive ads. They adapt to the advertising platform. The size, appearance, and format are changed automatically. You can add both text and images to these ads.
- Image ad. Images can be static or interactive.
- App ads. These ads are only served on devices that are compatible with the app itself.
- Video ad.
- Product listing ads. It consists of the product name, its image, price, store name, and other information.
- Ads with a phone number. Designed to increase the number of calls from potential buyers. These ads are only served on devices that have the ability to call.
Facebook Ads: most popular social network retargeting channel
Facebook is not just a social network for communication. This is the most powerful digital channel for promotion.
Ads Manager is an advertising platform on Facebook that provides access to a wide range of functionality and various tools.
Here is a sample list of things you can do with Facebook Ads:
- create advertising campaigns;
- set targeting options;
- select an audience for targeted ads;
- create various ad formats;
- analyze company results and statistics.
Facebook retargeting campaigns allow to effectively segment the audience and personalize ads.
Facebook has advanced retargeting settings — it allows to set up not only remarketing on users, but also to select users similar to them based on the data base that the company already has.
You can create ad campaigns in the Ads Manager and post them not only on Facebook, but also on other social networks linked to it. Instagram ads are also created through Ads Manager.
It is important to understand who and when you should show targeted ads on Facebook. There is no point in putting everyone together – everyone has different goals, intentions, and interests.
Which Service is Better
Facebook and Google are the undisputed giants of the digital world. Each of these companies has a resource that is visited by more than a billion users around the world every day. Targeted advertising tools offer access to this huge number of users. But which one is better?
In fact, there is no definite answer in this case. It all depends on your company and your budget.
After all, although Google and Facebook are engaged in essentially the same thing in terms of retargeting, there are still significant differences between them.
For example, if using Google ads, you get traffic from users who are purposefully looking for a certain product, then using Facebook Manager you can reach an audience that may only be interested in your services. Also, if you still do not know your customer well, then highly likely, Facebook ads will not give any results. And, of course, Facebook ads will cost you much less. And there are many such differences.
In practice, these services are approximately at the same level in terms of the number of companies using them. And they work best together. So, if your budget allows it, you can use retargeting on both sites. And you can be absolutely sure that if your product is good, the advertising will be as effective as possible and you will engage a lot of new customers.
We hope this article has helped you get a better notion of what retargeting and remarketing are and decide which platform is the best to use.
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