Retargeting - the boomerang that pays dividends

You may have read over on Big Blue Digital about a concept called Retargeting with this bold claim

It returns over 300% ROI!

You can read that article here. 

So have you dipped your toe in the water yet?Have you seen those ads that seem to follow you around the web sites that you visit?

How do you feel about that?

To recap, retargeting works likes this...
You visit a website, either via a Google search, from an email that you might have received, a social media post or some other method. You land on a page, maybe you visit a few of them, and you leave.

Then that night you are browsing — lets say the Sydney Morning Herald — and voila! You see an ad for the very site that you visited that day. Now you may think, that’s odd, I was just there today, or you may think , how did they do that?

If you are a business owner, you should have that little brain of yours ticking over and thinking, what a great tool, how could I make that happen for me?!

Yesterday, I was browsing the ADMA website as one of our team is looking to secure a digital marketing scholarship from them, I browsed a few pages and then left.

That afternoon, I was on one of my favourite news websites and what did I see - an ad from the ADMA talking about the scholarship page that I had visited. Clever huh!

Now I know why I saw that ad.

I had visited that page and reviewed the scholarship detail

I did not fill in the form

I left

3 hours later, I see an ad for ADMA on the SMH. Why?

When I visited the site a cookie was left on my computer that tied me to that page

The ADMA website has a pixel embedded in it for either the Google Display Network, or AdRoll or some other retargeting company that tracks my IP address

They would have set up the pixel to track me either visiting that page OR the thank you page for signing up

Assuming they are tracking people who visit the signup page and NOT the thank you page, I then go into the bucket of people who will see the ad and be prompted to think again about the offer

Now why do this?

Why seem to follow people around the internet???

Well, often we just need a little nudge.

Often we don’t commit everything to memory straight away to make a decision about an item. We might need to be reminded, even subliminally about a product.

I want you think about the following:

It is State of Origin time (I know bear with me and yes surprise surprise the Blues lost - AGAIN!)

So for the last 3 weeks, whenever I am on Channel Nine ( which is not long ) I have been bombarded by ads to watch State of Origin.

Why?

TV advertisers have been doing this a long time, they know that repeating ads in this way on high rotation will commit this to your memory and, if you are in that target demographic, you will watch.

The same works for radio - ads leading up to a key event will be on high rotation to commit that idea/product/event to your memory.

This is the premise of retargeting. BUT, instead of just hitting us up with anything ( ie I would prefer NOT to see ads for State of Origin) I am being served up ads for things that I have actually shown an interest in, even if fleetingly.

This helps commit this item/product/event to memory - even subliminally - so I am in a better position to make a buying decision.

So if you haven’t thought about retargeting - my suggestion is that it is time you should.

Does Channel Nine worry about pestering people when State of Origin is on?

They sure as hell don’t!

So why should you baulk at showing people ads for things that they have actually shown an interest in?

Successful small businesses and marketers are already doing this..

Why not pop over to my Retargetting for Beginners blog now and learn more about how you can do this too.

It is easier than you think.