Getting that sale or landing that client for the first time is terrific, but it doesn’t always happen. Just because your first introduction didn’t seal the deal, however, doesn’t mean that you have just to give up and move on. In fact, you’re now in the perfect position to start a remarketing campaign or retargeting one.
Confused about the difference? Many use these terms interchangeably, so it’s natural to think they’re exactly the same, but they aren’t, and this guide will help you fully understand just what sets them apart:
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REMARKETING AND RETARGETING?
Remarketing works to retarget previous customers or newsletter subscribers, particularly through email. After all, selling to existing customers is a top sales strategy for small businesses. With remarketing, you can work on extending your relationship with your existing customer base.
Retargeting focuses more on those customers who visited your site or social media profile and then left.
These sound similar, don’t they? To help you get down to the nitty-gritty of what sets them apart, you need to understand how they differ in these three areas:
Which distribution channel they use
One of the significant differences in the remarketing vs. retargeting debate is their distribution channels. In general, remarketing can be done via your sales-boosting email marketing campaign since it focuses on newsletter subscribers or users with an existing account.
Retargeting, on the other hand, focuses on those who interacted with your brand but did not leave their name or number. With the help of cookies and companies like Google or Meta, you can find those users again and show them retargeting display ads to encourage them to return.
Image sourced from Meta
Types of engagement
The next big difference is how you engage with your potential customers.
With remarketing, you can:
- Send a special discount
- Remind customers about abandoned carts
- Provide value-adding emails
The ultimate goal of remarketing is to engage with previous or almost-there customers. It can also be used to help reactivate cold leads, though you will need to invest time in segmenting those cold leads and creating buyer personas fresh before remarketing.
Image sourced from VWO
With retargeting, which can be very effective when converting clicks into customers, your focus is on bringing in new customers. To do this, you send out a cookie to those who visit your site and then retarget them with a custom campaign of display advertisements to tempt them back to your brand.
This is done by using the built-in features on Google or Meta. By advertising to users who visited your brand once shortly after they leave without signing up or buying anything, you can increase your brand visibility and encourage them back. Once they’re on your page again, you can go for the soft (sign-up) or hard (purchase) sale.
Image sourced from Mega Digital
Level of personalization
Remarketing lets you offer a high level of personalization. For example, you can send out:
- Special promotion offers like birthday discounts
- New blog posts on topics they’re interested in
- Notifications that something’s gone on sale
- Custom proposals for high-value clients
- VIP access to content
You can do this because you are constantly in contact with these email subscribers, which means you can track more information and use it to develop long-term customer relationships.
Retargeting is less personal since you know very little about the customer except what they were looking at before they left your website. Still, it is more effective than cold advertising at regaining your audience.
BENEFITS OF REMARKETING AND RETARGETING
Both remarketing and retargeting are essential for any marketing and branding strategy. They are, however, different enough that they deserve their unique strategy. With that specialized approach, you can start enjoying all sorts of benefits.
Remarketing benefits
Remarketing is a great way to increase engagement rates and improve customer relationships with your existing customer base or newsletter audience.
Offering valuable content can deepen your relationship with your audience. This can be discounts, reminders, topic-relevant newsletters, or even highly customized campaigns.
For SaaS industries, for example, you can contact a big potential client by using this meeting invitation template to invite that client in for a highly personalized introduction. Once you have the client, you can start a remarketing campaign that continues to provide value and potentially upsell your client with new features.
With a personalized or even holistic approach toward remarketing, you can expect these key benefits:
- Enhances customer loyalty: By offering personalized discounts, recommendations, and value-adding content, you can boost your relationship with every customer and encourage repeat sales.
- Increases repeat sales: Offering special discounts, reminding customers of abandoned carts, and even notifying them of sales (extra points if you give your subscribers early access to your sale) can all help increase repeat sales.
- Improves customer lifetime value: A customer who reads your emails and regularly visits your site is cost-effective but highly valuable for your bottom line.
Retargeting benefits
Retargeting is a powerful tool to help direct your marketing budget to those who have already shown interest in your brand. It’s also very effective. Don’t worry about whispers of its negative impacts, as they’re typically overblown.
In a study conducted by WordStream, marketers found that remarketing and retargeting efforts had a higher CTR than generic ads. This means people still click on ads for products they’ve seen before over new, unknown products.
Image sourced from WordStream
The only concern you need to know is how long you retarget a single user. Try to add frequency caps to your online ad placements. This way you gently nudge them towards your brand, without creating an aggressive campaign.
Done with this balance in mind, you can enjoy many benefits as retargeting:
- Increases brand visibility: It takes more than one introduction for a user to remember your brand name and USP. A digital advertising campaign retargeting users who’ve met you once can help them remember your brand.
- Improves conversion rates: With a winning retargeting digital marketing campaign, you can get users back onto your site and hopefully finish their check-out or at least sign up for your newsletter.
- Lowers cost-per-acquisition: Retargeting is a more effective use of advertising budgets, as you don’t pay to advertise to customers who have zero interest in your brand; instead, you market to those who are already on their way to becoming loyal customers.
BEST PRACTISES FOR EFFECTIVE REMARKETING AND RETARGETING
Now that you know the difference between remarketing and retargeting, it’s time to get into the best practices that will help you boost your efforts with both.
Identify target audience for focused campaigns
The first step in both remarketing and retargeting is to understand your audience. You should be able to access basic demographic information for both on-site and off-site events. You can also learn more about your audience by reading marketing reports and seeing which content gets the most engagement.
Develop customized campaigns to engage specific segments
Once you’ve put together your target audience, it’s time to segment them. This means sorting them into specific buyer personas. You can use these personas to develop campaigns targeting that specific customer type to boost conversions.
Make sure your buyer personas are segmented by preferred communication channels, as this forms an essential part of planning your retargeting and remarketing strategies. Then, using tools, such as an omnichannel contact center, you can reach out to different demographics using whatever method is most likely to engage them, helping you boost conversions.
Utilize analytics and feedback for continuous improvement
It’s critical that you use the analytical tools to understand how effective your retargeting and remarketing efforts are. This can include understanding in depth how often your audience will accept retargeting ads before interest drops.
You can also use analytics to help you pick out which display ads to run with A/B testing, which type of newsletters or content drives the most traffic and sales, and so on. Tweak your approach constantly so you get more clicks and more sales.
Use data-driven insights to create personalized campaigns
Another way you can use that analytical information is to devise personalized campaigns. For everyday consumers, you’ll want to use automated systems that offer simple levels of personalization.
Large-value clients, however, need more. SaaS companies, for example, can remarket to potential clients by designing high-value proposals, which can be particularly useful if your business offers bespoke solutions. Seeing something highly custom to their brand, from a business they recognize, can be just the ticket to securing a new partnership.
Balance remarketing and retargeting to maximize sales
Image sourced from Smile.io
A great way to balance your retargeting and remarketing is to see them as a journey. You start with retargeting to get users to sign up for your brand, and then you use remarketing to further your relationship and increase sales.
After all, repeat customers, on average, only make up 5% of a business’s customers, yet they’re the ones that will generate 35% of all your sales. Remarketing works, and it’s where the money is.
CONCLUSION
You need retargeting to get that user back onto your site so you can continue your relationship, and you need remarketing to turn that relationship into repeat business. Both are powerful when used with their own campaigns. That’s why it’s so important not to lump them together but instead use best practices to grow your audience from within and without.
