7 remarketing mistakes to avoid

Strong competition in e-commerce makes merchants seize every opportunity in their fight for every customer. Sometimes such rigid zeal seems strange and out of place. All Internet users occasionally experience a situation where, wherever they go after visiting an online store, they come across an advertising banner from the previously visited website. This is how remarketing works. This is a very effective channel for online promotion, but it is important to understand how to use it correctly. Today we are going to talk about the most common mistakes that merchants can make in remarketing.

brief definition

Remarketing is an Internet marketing tool that allows users to display an advertising message on different websites to users who have visited a certain website and left it without performing a previously established specific targeted action. This type of advertising “finds” users on other websites they visit.

A striking example of a remarketing tool is Google AdWords. It is one of the most popular PPC and media advertising services. Google AdWords allows you to create ads for remarketing campaigns and show ads to your past visitors as they browse the Display Network.

But even if you follow all the instructions and recommendations exactly, it is not as simple as it seems. There are some subtle aspects that will be analyzed later.

Error 1: Incorrect display limit setting

Sometimes advertisers forget to set a limit for views per user and this can negatively affect the campaign. For example, you visit a real estate website just for interest, and then within a month you see offers to buy elite real estate on many other websites. Such advertising will be annoying. “The more the merrier” doesn’t work for remarketing.

Mistake 2: Forgetting to remove converted users from the remarketing list

For example, you bought a new smartphone from a certain online store. Then after the purchase you will see the ads for the same smartphone on other websites. You have already made a purchase so, most likely, it will be better to offer you something more than the product you already have.

Mistake 3: Not tracking seasonal audiences

Don’t forget that AdWords allows you to maintain remarketing lists. For this, you need to set the “Membership Duration” correctly. You must decide how many days a visitor’s cookie will be kept on your list if this user does not visit your online store again. Please note that the membership duration is 30 days by default and its maximum duration is 540 days for the Display Network and 180 days for Google search. That gives you a great opportunity. You can use the same remarketing lists for different seasonal shopping periods, such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Black Friday, and more. There is a high probability that the same users will start shopping again in the same time period, and you can remind them about your online store.

Mistake 4: Using a remarketing list for all users

In a remarketing campaign, it is very important to correctly segment users. For customers who have made a purchase, it is better to display related products and implement a cross-selling strategy. For customers who have viewed multiple product pages, it is better to show the ad for a category that interests them, as opposed to those who only visit one product page. Flexible configuration of remarketing lists is possible in AdWords, so you can segment your visitors the way you need.

When you consider segmentation and are going to build lists, you should first check in Google Analytics if you have enough unique visitors to certain pages within a given period of time. You can start using one of your lists once you have gathered 100 visitors. If there are fewer users than the minimum criteria, you should target more. This creates some limitations in segmentation. For example, not all online stores have the ability to list abandoned cart visitors. But it is a special public. Some recommendations regarding what you should be aware of are listed below:

• If you have an email address or cell phone number of an abandoned cart user, you don’t need remarketing at all. Just use classic direct marketing to remind the user about the product in the cart.

• There is a high probability that a user who abandoned the cart in your store has already made a purchase in another store, so they did not complete the purchase. But this user may be interested in something else. So after a certain period of time (for example, in a month) it would be nice to offer this customer some other products in your online store, but not the ones he already tried to buy.

• Many online stores allow users to add products to the cart without registering. That is the correct approach. Since the email address or other contact details of such users are not available, remarketing can be very effective in this case. If you have enough unique visitors, you can create a special advertising message for this audience and try to attract them again.

Error 5: Show irrelevant proposal

These kinds of errors also take place in actual practice. It happens that advertisers forget to disable the display of ads, and users see ads that offer them products that they do not need: to buy a Christmas tree or decorations after the New Year holidays, they offer a discount for Black Friday when they do not is relevant etc

Error 6: Change conditions in active campaign

Sometimes merchants decide to increase prices in their stores. It is a common practice. But if there is an active remarketing campaign, it can be negatively affected, since users saw other prices when they visited the store and possibly planned to order. They will be disappointed, so it is better not to “change horses in the middle of the stream.”

Mistake 7: Intersection of remarketing lists

This error causes the same user to be on different remarketing lists and see multiple ads. This is not dangerous if the advertising messages are complementary to each other. Otherwise, this can damage the campaign.

In general, all errors can be divided into 2 types. There are technical errors and marketing errors. Technical issues can be complex, but they are more explicit in that in this case something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Marketing mistakes require constant study of user behavior and are more complicated, because users will never directly say what they don’t like and why they don’t make a purchase.