Your Retargeting Ads are Useless…Unless They Have a Purpose

Running a retargeting campaign makes all the sense in the world – after all, why wouldn’t you go after potential customers who’ve visited your website and left without converting? They’re low-hanging fruit, so the idea is to stay in front of them by serving up display ads as they surf the web, and they’ll eventually come back, right? Kind of. You can run retargeted ads all day long, but if you have no purpose behind them, the ads become a part of the Internet scenery. Giving your marketing a purpose is all about moving the conversation forward. Here’s how.

Marketing with a purpose is thinking strategically about advancing the conversation that your potential customer has already started on your website. If you show them a retargeted display ad with general information about your company and your logo, you’re essentially showing them a glass billboard full of information they already know. If you continue to show them the same ad for an item they looked at on your website for weeks or months, it becomes stale and irrelevant. These ad campaigns have no purpose, and they’re useless.

The key is to always be thinking about the next step, whether you’re retargeting a potential or returning customer. What about an ad that takes people to an exclusive online deal? Or maybe your ad drives people to an interesting blog post to help explain more about the company or product they’ve shown interest in? Maybe they bought something and there’s a complementary product that they should buy as well? These are all examples of ways you can further the conversation between your business and your customers in every stage of the buying process – and all this happens while they’re not on your website!

Deciding on the conversation needs to be 100% set before you get to creating the ads. A good agency will walk you through this process, but if you’re going it alone, be sure you think of all the angles. Write it out, draw a diagram – whatever helps. Just remember to take into account what your customer wants to see – not simply what you want to tell them. This isn’t the path of least resistance, but telling the customer what they already know in a banner ad is a waste of your time and money.

These types of retargeting campaigns can be complicated, so working with an agency like 2060 Digital who adopts this concept and strategy can help you see a dramatic return on investment. Remember – real results happen when you have a purpose. And your purpose for retargeting should always be to move the conversation forward!