What Is Remarketing: How It Works and Why Your Business Needs It

Digital Marketing
What Is Remarketing: How It Works and Why Your Business Needs It
Article by Bisera Stankovska
Last Updated: December 30, 2023

Remarketing is a way to keep the customers you already have. To do this, businesses must ensure the website is user-friendly, the conversion rate is high, and sometimes even bring in-house marketers on board to convert more visitors into leads.

But is there a surefire way to make sure all these efforts don’t go to waste?

It’s time to learn what remarketing is, its different types, and how it can benefit your business.

What Is Remarketing: Definition and Introduction

Remarketing is a form of online advertising that allows businesses to show ads to people who have already visited their website or interacted with their brand.

It’s also known as retargeting, a form of online advertising that uses cookies or other tracking technologies to keep track of people who’ve already interacted with your site.

This data allows you to show ads when visitors are on other websites, which helps you get more sales from them.

By targeting these past visitors, businesses can more effectively advertise to people who are already interested in what they offer.

This allows you to reach past website visitors interested in your product or service but left without buying it.

Remarketing is a smart way for businesses to stay in touch with customers who have already visited their websites or logged in to their shopping carts.

It guides your customers back to your website by displaying relevant ads, product listings, or other relevant content that appeals to them.

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What Is B2B Remarketing?

Business to Business (or B2B) refers to companies that sell products or services to other companies.

This can be in the form of an internal company selling to the company it works for or a third party selling to another company.

B2B remarketing is a form of remarketing aimed at the B2B segment, which is an integral part of their customer base. B2B marketers have different goals than B2C marketers and therefore use various tools and tactics to achieve these goals.

They usually do not use advertising techniques such as email marketing, search retargeting or social media remarketing.

The main difference between B2C and B2B marketers is that the B2C segment focuses on the customer relationship management (CRM) strategy and relies on email marketing as a marketing channel.

The B2B segment does not have an established CRM strategy and uses direct mail as a marketing channel.

B2B remarketing allows advertisers to target B2B audience members. They can target by industry, region and more.

The main difference between B2C and B2B audiences is how they are targeted with ads.

How Does Remarketing Work?

Did you know that retargeting wins among other ad placement strategies? According to studies, it has a whopping 1,046% efficiency rate.

Remarketing targets ads to people who haven’t checked in with your website or app in a while, sort of like a little reminder to say, “Hey! Remember us?” Because users have shown interest in your product or service in the past, it’s no surprise that these ads are such a success.

This can be done by tracking what they’ve done on your site through data and marketing analytics and then showing the ad again.

Here’s how it works:

  • It works by placing a piece of code called a cookie on the computers of people who visit your website.
  • This cookie allows businesses to show these individuals ads for their products or services as they browse the web.
  • When someone sees an ad that’s part of a remarketing campaign, it’s known as an impression. But if that person clicks on the ad, it’s called a conversion. The goal is to get them back onto your site. The more time has elapsed between visits, the more likely it is for remarketing efforts to work.
  • In some cases, brands will use remarketing campaigns for those who have visited their site but did not make a purchase yet or had any interaction with the brand.
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Remarketing vs. Retargeting

Although remarketing and retargeting are often used interchangeably, there are some differences between the two:

Aspect  

Remarketing 

Retargeting 

Scope 

Includes a wide range of marketing efforts beyond online ads, such as email campaigns, personalized content, and other methods to reconnect with leads or customers. 

Primarily involves online ads displayed to users who have previously visited a website or engaged with specific content, using cookies to track their online behavior. 

Channels 

Utilizes multiple channels, including email, social media, content marketing, and more, to reconnect with leads or customers. 

Primarily relies on online advertising channels, such as display ads, social media ads, and search ads, to target users based on their online behavior. 

Objective 

Aims to build and maintain replationships with leads or customers, nurturing them through various marketing touchpoints. 

Focuses on bringing back users who have shown interest in a product or service by displaying targeted ads to re-engage them and encourage desired actions. 

Strategies 

Involves diverse strategies like personalized content creation, email drip campaigns, and other methods to provide value and maintain engagement. 

Relies on the use of cookies and data tracking to identify users who have left a website without converting, then targets them with relevant ads to drive them back to the site. 

Time Frame 

May involve longer-term engagement strategies to nurture leads over time and build brand loyalty. 

Typically employs shorter-term strategies, as the goal is to bring users back to a site or encourage a specific action in response to recent online behavior. 

Examples 

Sending personalized email campaigns, creating custom content, and using social media engagement to reconnect with leads or customers. 

Displaying targeted ads on social media platforms, search engines, or other websites to users who have recently visited a specific website or interacted with certain content.  

Benefits of Remarketing

Remarketing is helpful because it helps increase the visibility of your brand and products, while also increasing brand awareness and traffic—if a user sees an ad on their favorite website, they’ll associate that company with the product they were looking at.

It’s a very effective way to drive traffic back to your site because it happens in real-time and can be targeted at specific people.

In other words, you can have a user visit your website and leave without buying anything.

Then, when they return to your website later, you can show them an ad for a product they might be interested in!

It can help you drive higher conversion rates, improve customer engagement and increase sales.

There are many benefits of remarketing for businesses, including:

  • Remarketing can increase brand awareness and reach since you’re targeting people who have already shown an interest in your product or service. 70% of marketers consider brand awareness the top reason for retargeting.
  • It can be customized to target specific audiences, so you’re not wasting your time or money reaching people who are not interested in what you have to offer. After all, retargeting can lessen cart abandonment by 6.5%.
  • Remarketing allows you to stay on top of your mind with your target audience, so they think of you first when they’re ready to make a purchase.
  • It can help increase sales and ROI by bringing back people interested in your product or service but didn’t buy for one reason or another.
  • Remarketing allows you to target a specific audience with tailored ads, resulting in more efficient use of your marketing budget.
  • Remarketing ads can also show up alongside search results (Google), so if someone searches for local plumbers and you’re running remarketing ads, your ad might appear next to the search results with information about your business.

Depending on how often the person sees the ad, this advertising could mean more leads and higher conversion rates.

For some businesses that rely on repeat customers, like restaurants or dry cleaners, remarketing could even mean gaining loyal customers who come back because they’ve seen advertisements reminding them that these businesses exist!

Types of Remarketing

There are several different types of remarketing, each with its benefits. Here are the six main types:

  1. Display remarketing allows you to show ads to people as they browse other websites in the Google Display Network.
  2. Standard Remarketing allows businesses to show ads to people who have visited their website.
  3. Dynamic Remarketing takes things a step further by allowing businesses to show ads specifically tailored to each user.
  4. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads allow businesses to target users who have searched for keywords related to their product or service.
  5. Video Remarketing allows businesses to target users who have watched a video about their product or service.
  6. Email Remarketing targets customers who have given them an email address but have not bought anything yet.

8 Remarketing Tips for Small Businesses

  1. If you have a small budget, start with search remarketing.
  2. Define your audience as narrowly as possible. This will help you create more targeted campaigns and, therefore, be more likely to be successful. The more specific you can be, the better.
  3. Try to reach as many people as possible with your remarketing campaigns.
  4. Use negative keywords to avoid showing your ads to people who aren’t interested in what you’re selling.
  5. Create separate campaigns for each type of product or service you offer.
  6. Use different ad copies and images for each campaign.
  7. Test, test, test! Try different strategies and see what works best for your business.
  8. And last but not least, always keep an eye on your results so you can make necessary changes along the way.

When Should I Use Remarketing?

There are a few key times when every business should consider using remarketing as part of their digital marketing strategy.

First, if you have a new product or service that you want to promote, remarketing can be a great way to reach people who have already shown an interest in what you offer.

Second, if you have a sale or special event coming up, remarketing can help boost interest and attendance.

Third, if you’ve just launched a new website or made changes to your existing site, remarketing can help spread the word and drive traffic.

Finally, remarketing can be a great option if you’re simply looking to increase brand awareness or reach a larger audience. Digital marketing companies can help in all these instances.

What is Remarketing and How it Works: Key Takeaways

In many cases, remarketing may be enough to get a visitor to go through the entire checkout process.

That can be enough to help your bottom line, but it doesn’t always mean you’ll reach the sales goals the marketing team has set.

You’ll have to take other measures, such as email campaigns, to increase revenue. When done right, remarketing can be one of your arsenal's most effective promotional tools.

Remarketing FAQs

What is the role of remarketing?

The role of remarketing is to re-engage and nurture leads or customers through various marketing efforts, including personalized content, email campaigns, and targeted ads. It aims to maintain brand visibility, build relationships, and encourage desired actions from people that have already shown interest in a product or service.

How effective is remarketing?

Remarketing can be highly effective in engaging and converting leads as it targets individuals who have already shown interest in a product or service. Remarketing helps reinforce brand awareness and often leads to higher conversion rates compared to general marketing strategies. However, the effectiveness may vary based on the industry, audience, and the overall execution of the remarketing campaign.

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