Have you ever wondered why most people who visit your page leave without making a purchase? Well, if you did wonder that, you wouldn't be the first one. This happens to every single online store, but that is not the issue. The issue is that you don't try to re-engage these users after a while!
Even the best landing pages don't convert every visitor, but the great ones engage every visitor so that you can later try and retarget them. Retargeting provides affiliates a powerful second chance at turning those missed opportunities into conversions.
So, here is what you need to know about it and how to best utilize it in your campaigns!
What Is Retargeting and Why Does It Matter?
Retargeting is targeting specific audiences that have already engaged with your content to at least some extent and are interested in what you offer, even if they didn't convert the first time.
These users already know what you offer, how that something can help them, and they would like to convert, but something is stopping them. Sometimes the thing that's preventing them from converting can be a small problem or just bad timing, but sometimes it has something to do with your offer, landing page, or something else.
To know what the problem with your audience is, you need to do some research into where in the funnel they opted out and how you can improve that. It's well worth doing this as some studies show that retargeted audiences convert up to 70% higher than new ones, making this a great way to increase ROI with minimal effort.
How Does It Work?
Usually, when you run your campaigns, you place pixels or cookies (a small piece of code) on your site. This piece of code helps you track your users. It can record who your user is, where they came from, what country, state, or city they are from, and what device they are using.
In some cases, there can be even more personal information like gender, age, and precise location. Though this is not always reliable, as most modern devices try to encrypt this data as much as possible.
With all of that data on a user, you can see how engaged they are in the products you are selling, and you can get their email or targeting information so you can place some new ads targeted directly at them. That's what retargeting is all about.
Effective Retargeting Strategies
Saying you should advertise to your audience again is easier said than done. If you want to do it properly, you need to follow a few strategies to get the best results!
Segment Your Audience Clearly
Retargeting is not about bombarding your visitors with the same ads again and again. If you want to do it properly, you need to make specific ads that target specific pain points that might have stopped them from converting the first time.
The only way you can reliably do this is by segmenting your audience based on their interaction with your landing page. Maybe you can segment them like this:
- Visitors who visited your homepage but haven't engaged further.
- Visitors who viewed a product page but didn't add it to the cart
- Visitors who added items to the cart but left before the checkout
The visitors who were the closest to checkout are the most valuable ones, as they are almost sold on the thing you are trying to sell, so they might need just a small push.
While the visitors of only the homepage show some interest, but not enough to dive into your offers. For them, you will need to try a bit harder.
Dynamic Product Ads
Dynamic ads are always useful as you can show users the things they want to see and give them that nudge they need to convert. One wya you can use is by showing them items that they already viewed but didn't convert on, or products that are in the same category.
You can mix this with individualized discounts that could offer them a better deal than the one they initially saw.
Some platforms, like Google Ads or Meta, offer dynamic retargeting from their ad managers, which makes this a lot easier and more effective, but you can achieve similar results on any platform if you have the right data.
Timing
You know what they say, timing is everything. When retargeting, you need to pay attention to the timeline. If you advertise again too soon, they might think you are too aggressive, but if you wait too long, the users might forget about the product in general.
The first few days are the most important. On average, you will have the most success if you retarget between 24 and 48 hours. You should try and follow up with deeper discounts after a week for visitors who haven’t converted on the first try.
You can schedule this so that you don't forget, and your visitors get a second chance to interact with your content after all!
Cross-Platform Targeting
Don’t limit your marketing efforts to one platform. If your data allows for it, try retargeting your audience on different platforms with unique creatives. You can try retargeting on multiple platforms at once.
It should work great as long as you don't overdo it and scare off your customers!
Optimize Creatives and Messaging
Depending on how broad your targeting is, ad fatigue might quickly become a problem. This is especially true for retargeting campaigns, as those have a smaller audience base from the start.
The best thing you can do for your ads is to regularly refresh them with new creatives, new angles, and better quality ads. Test different approaches like “Limited Stock” or “X satisfied customers”. These can maybe help convince someone to give it a try after all!
Budget Allocation and Bidding
Running high budgets on this kind of campaign usually isn't the best move. You will have a limited audience that will get ads served, and depending on your budget, you might overwhelm them within a day or two. This will be worse for performance.
Make sure you have enough unique creatives to advertise, and don't worry too much about budgets or bids. You will likely spend less on individual campaigns, but make more profit for sure!
Compliance
While targeting is effective, it's not always ethical or fully legal. The European Union is always trying to protect its users online with weird regulations and rules that the US and other countries don’t have.
Make sure you follow all EU regulations if you want to advertise, and keep in mind that retargeting isn’t a nice-to-have, but a must if you want to increase revenues. So make sure everything is compatible and running properly before commit to it!
Conclusion
Retargeting is essential for affiliate marketing and the way it runs nowadays. If you want to increase your ROI and learn more about your audience, you should try this.
Using dynamic ads, segmenting, cross platform targeting and other strategies will likely give you a lot of success if you do them properly. Try understanding what stopped your visitors from converting the first time and work on it.