What is Remarketing?

Have you ever been browsing the internet for a product or service, given up and then opened your Facebook account only to see adverts from the very sites you just visited? That is remarketing in action. Now, ask yourself this: how many people visit your site without buying anything? For most businesses, the number of visitors who don’t convert is significantly larger than those who do. Remarketing is a strategy that helps connect with these non-buyers and, when implemented intelligently, can be a powerful tool to improve conversions. But what exactly is remarketing and how can it benefit your business?

What is Remarketing?

According to the New Zealand marketing company Adhesion: “Google remarketing is an ideal tactic, especially where the sales process is long, considered, and competitive. Executed in the right way, it can be a powerful tool to improve sales conversions and raise your brand profile.” Remarketing involves adding cookies to your website, which collect information about visitors and the pages they view. This data is then used to create more targeted Google Ads campaigns. When someone searches for a product or service, your tailored ad shows up, reminding them of your brand. Let’s say you run an ecommerce site selling shoes. A visitor comes to your site and looks at a particular style of shoe but doesn’t make a purchase. Remarketing allows you to track this visitor’s behaviour and add them to a remarketing list in Google Ads. You can create multiple lists for different product categories, but for now, you focus on those interested in shoes. When this person later searches for related terms on Google, your ad appears in their search results—perhaps even with a discount offer to entice them to buy.

Managing Google Remarketing Ads

Google remarketing is handled within Google Ads, and it’s an extension of the usual pay-per-click advertising. To get started, you simply generate a tag and insert it into your webpage’s HTML, similar to other tracking codes. If you have an upgraded Google Ads account, you can even skip this step and start building your remarketing lists immediately. The next step is to collect data and categorise visitors. Once you have enough people fitting a specific category, you can develop tailored ad campaigns to re-engage them. Like normal Google Ads, remarketing ads can be text-based or a combination of text and images, and they appear when your past visitors search for related content online. Several tools within Google Ads help manage your remarketing lists, including options to control how long visitor data is retained and set caps on impressions to match your budget. The main challenge is that you need to collect around 100 cookies for each category before you can activate your remarketing campaign.

Why Remarketing Works

Remarketing is an incredibly powerful tool when used effectively. It allows you to target the right products and users and bring them back to your site, increasing the likelihood of conversions. But it’s not just for product promotion—it can also be used to raise brand awareness and generate interest in services. The key to success with remarketing lies in having a well-thought-out strategy to entice those potential customers back to your website, whether through discounts, new offers, or simply reminding them of your brand. If you’re interested in exploring how remarketing can improve your website’s conversions, get in touch with us. Call 01604 654545 or email hello@thelasthurdle.co.uk. We’re here to help you get the most out of your marketing efforts!