Facebook Retargeting – Techniques for Recovering Your Visitors

Karolina Facchin — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 15:43:55 +0000

Are you looking to level up your marketing? Facebook boasts an active user base of 1.49 billion daily users and people of all ages use the platform. According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of all US adults use Facebook, making it an extremely powerful way to reach your customers regardless of their demographics.

No matter how users are visiting your site, Facebook is an effective tool with unrivaled reach. Facebook retargeting will allow you to leverage the full power of this network.

Now that you know why you should be using it, you’re probably wondering how you should be using it. We suggest having both a first touch and a retargeting strategy for Facebook. While the basics of each strategy will be similar, Facebook first touch targeting is really a discussion for another blog.

What is Facebook Retargeting?

Facebook retargeting is a strategy to get your ads in front of people who visited your site but didn’t make a purchase or turn into a lead. You don’t get to show your ads everywhere these people go, but you do get to show up all over Facebook, Instagram, and other sites that belong to the Facebook Audience Network. You get to stay top of mind by showing up in your audience’s favorite spots and win back sales that may have otherwise been lost!

Why Use Retargeting on this platform?

Unlike regular Facebook Ads, retargeting focuses on the audience that has already been to your website. This audience has already expressed an interest in your products or services, but something stopped them from completing their purchase the first time around. Whether they got distracted, didn’t feel like getting out their credit card, or just needed an extra nudge, retargeting helps you get back in front of these people.

The theory behind retargeting makes sense, but you don’t want to just take our word for it, do you? Research supports putting marketing dollars towards retargeting ads. Did you know that 26% of site visitors will go back to a site through retargeting? Not only that, but according to Close.io, “Retargeting ads are 76% more likely to get clicks than regular display ads.” These numbers are pretty compelling reasons to give retargeting a try.

How to Setup Facebook Retargeting

Hopefully, by this point we can agree that Facebook Retargeting is the way to go. But how does one set it up? It can be done one of two ways, either with an email list or by using the Facebook Remarketing Pixel.

Implementing both strategies will allow you to use retargeting for those who are not yet customers as well as those who have given you their email through a newsletter signup, form fill, or other means.

Using the Facebook Pixel

Working with the Facebook Pixel is an intuitive process. First, sign into your Facebook account and navigate to the Ads Manager account you’d like to use. Click on the hamburger menu next to the words “Business Manager” in the top left.

Follow the list to the top right, and under the heading labeled “Settings,” select “Business Settings.”

You’ll see quite a few options down the left side of the screen. Find “Data Sources” and click the drop-down menu and select “Pixels.” Click on the blue “+Add” button to create a new pixel (unless one has already been created).

Give your pixel a name and type your URL into the field, then click the blue create button. From here, you’ll need to install the pixel code on your website (if it hasn’t been already).

The pixel can be found under “Pixels” in the “Measure & Report” section of Ads Manager, which can be accessed by clicking on the hamburger menu on the top left. Click on the name of your pixel. Click “Set up” on the right and choose the method that you’ll be using (installation through Google Tag Manager or manual installation).

We’ve been optimizing and auditing Facebook Ads campaigns for years, and have looked at 100’s of accounts.

If you want to improve your Facebook Ads, we can provide you with your own (immediately applicable) action plan. Who could say no to a better ROAS in the next 30 days?

Request a proposal

Retargeting with Email Lists

Another method of retargeting is to use your customer email lists. You should have permission to use their email addresses or other information for digital marketing purposes before using them in this manner. You’ll need to have your list in .csv or .txt format.

You’ll again visit the audiences section in Ads Manager. Click the button labeled “Create Audience” and choose “Customer List.” You’ll be prompted to upload your file. You’ll have to wait about 30 minutes for your audience to be ready.

How to Use Facebook Retargeting Ads for transforming visitors into Converters

Retargeting on Facebook is all about the campaigns setup. You’ll gain exposure to your selected audience, but have you chosen the right one? Do your ads speak to the people you’re targeting? Have you picked an offer that resonates with your audience? These are some of the many things to consider when building a successful campaign.

Create Segmented Audiences

When you add your Pixel to your website, you have the power to reach anyone who has visited your site and whose data has been collected. That doesn’t mean you have to market to them as one single audience. Rather, you should set up several audiences.

There are a variety of possibilities for this. You could segment audiences based on demographics like age or gender. Another way to do it would be to create audiences based on the number of days since the initial page view. Lastly, you could divide the lists based on the page visited or how far down the marketing funnel they are.

The idea here is to create and test audiences so that you can move forward with the successful ones while pausing anything that doesn’t do well. It also gives you the ability to test different pages and offers based on the audience, which will allow you to personalize the ads better.

Create a Time-Based Ad Sequence

The more touch points you have with a potential customer, the better off you are. We suggest you develop a regular ad sequence much like a drip email campaign. For example, you could create audiences for one day after a website visit, one week, two weeks, and a month so that customers will become more familiar with you.

Salesforce has found that it takes 6 to 8 touches to produce a sales lead. That means time-based audiences will help you appear more often to those interested in you so you can win the sale. Think about it as a funnel, not a single interaction.

Concerned about ad fatigue or blindness? Showing up all around Facebook and its partner sites can feel like overkill, but don’t worry, most studies say the majority of your audience won’t think about you that way. In fact, all the studies point to the increased visibility being a positive, not a negative.

Retarget People Who Like Your Page

No one says you have to limit yourself to just website visitors. You already have people who have expressed interest in you in the form of page likes. Brand loyalty is worth capitalizing on. Facebook gives you crucial data about your fans, and you can use this to customize your ads to their unique demographics.

Use Lookalike Audiences

Lookalike audiences are not your actual website visitors, but ones that have demographics similar to those who have been to your site. You can choose how closely they match your original visitors. Using these audiences will assist you in finding a new audience to market to.

Stack Your Audiences

Get creative and stack your audiences. Layer lookalikes with your retargeting to broaden your reach. Add interests or behaviors to a remarketing list to zero in on a specific persona. Tailor your offers and your copy to this audience. Get their attention with something personalized and competitive for your market.

Don’t Forget About Converters

Don’t keep pounding converters over the head with a product they’ve already purchased. Exclude converters from your main list. Don’t write them off though. Use your converters list in a different way. Target ads for other, complementary products or refills (if they might need them).

Don’t Operate on Gut Feelings

While it may seem like a great idea to follow your gut feeling, analyzing data will get you much further. Facebook provides click, conversion, and interaction data that will give you the ability to learn and adjust campaigns to maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS) and revenue. Data analysis may seem intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll reap the rewards of an analytical approach.

These tips are just a few of the many ways you can make your Facebook retargeting more effective. If you want extra-customized tips, you can always request a proposal. Remember, it’s about testing and trying new things so you shouldn’t be afraid to go out on a limb and experiment with new ways to do things. We promise it won’t turn out like Kool-Aid hair dying in the ‘90s.

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The post Facebook Retargeting – Techniques for Recovering Your Visitors appeared first on Search Scientists.

Foundations of Retargeting: The Bottom of Funnel List

Michael Erickson — Wed, 22 Jun 2016 23:06:35 +0000

What happens to most of the people that visit your website? They leave, of course. Your credentials don’t matter. Your product or service quality are irrelevant. It’s a rule of human nature on the internet that most people will not be ready to buy when they view your site. Call it the “Law of the Non-Converting Majority”. For most websites, their conversion rates for purchases hover in the low single digit range. Start thinking of retargeting as your way to boost conversion rates. It’s your chance to followup.

If 100 people visit your site and you convert one person (1% conversion rate)
Start thinking of retargeting as your way of bringing back the 99% to grab additional conversions
Why bother with the 99%? Well, for starters, they already did the hard work to find your site. They already clicked on an ad, or viewed a blog post, and found your site. Let’s capitalize on the opportunity.

Welcome to our Foundations of Retargeting Series. In our first of several posts, we’ll be analyzing BOFU, or “Bottom of Funnel” Retargeting. Video Summary:

Improve conversions from your most engaged users with BOFU retargeting (Bottom of funnel retargeting)
Great marketing is all about the right offer at the right time to the right user. Don’t forget these marketing fundamentals in the busy world of online marketing on AdWords, Facebook Ads, and beyond.
Most people have 1 list when setting up their retargeting campaigns. If you’re getting mediocre results, you can level up you campaigns with a 3-audience technique.
Most people have trouble with this because it’s difficult to have a consistent funnel definition across businesses.
Make funnels easier. People are either top of funnel (cold traffic), mid funnel (leads but not commercially minded), and bottom of funnel (ready to buy).
For a long time, the only way to properly engage with each audience is to use marketing automation on your site with email. You should still do that, but can do a lot of fun things with retargeting.
With BOFU remarketing, we’re targeting people who are the most ready to buy.
You want to make it an absolute no-brainer to buy at this stage. The most popular ways to do this are with a coupon, free offer, or high-friction service offer (audit or proposal).
Build your spreadsheet:
- Stage of Sales Funnel (Bottom of Funnel, BOFU)
- User Behavior Rules: “What actions did a user perform so I know they are in the buying stage?”
- What is my ad, offer, and landing page going to look like?
- What’s the goal of this step?
Retarget like a champ

Slidedeck:

The Retargeting Series: Foundational 3-Audience Retargeting from Search Scientists

Most people who visit your website leave and don't convert, but if you utilize retargeting you can get them to come back.

Get your own action plan on how you can improve your retargeting and other campaign types to boost conversions.