Many small businesses and startups need advertising to reach potential customers while working within a budget that doesn't offer room for national TV spots or prominent billboards on the highways. When you need to amplify the value of your marketing budget, retargeting campaigns will drive more traffic to your business that actually follows through on a purchase.

Try these retargeting strategies to develop a successful marketing plan that will guarantee more customers with fewer resources.

PLEASE COME AGAIN!

At a physical storefront, you'll typically see the front entrance littered with business cards, flyers, menus, coupons, and other takeaways for customers to freely grab. If you think of advertising as just a way to get customers in the door, then this grab-bag of items may seem like a waste of money.

Repeat Customers and Traffic

Using a more comprehensive view of advertising, persistence, and repetition is key, and repeat customers and pre-existing traffic are amongst the best brand assets that any company can acquire.

When current customers take a to-go menu from your restaurant it raises the chances that they'll return. Similarly, when a potential client stops in without buying a product or taking advantage of a service, then that card or pamphlet has a better chance of falling into their sight at home when they are in the market for a business like you. Meaning, these advertising tokens are actually powerful tools in driving future sales.

You can accomplish the same appeal to previous visitors and customers in the digital world by employing retargeting elements into your marketing budget.

ONLINE RETARGETING IN ACTION

Retargeting advertising services, such as AdRoll or Google AdWords, are connected to a wide network of websites that employ display ads on blogs, social media, and other websites. But how does retargeting work?

Cookies

When prospective customers explore the Internet, possibly visiting your site in the process, they use web browsers that rely on data files called “cookies” to track information like login status, preference settings, and other data that enable more sophisticated website functions. Each visitor to your site will receive a cookie.

When the visitor leaves your site and continues to explore other websites, the advertising program sees the tracking cookie and “follows” the visitor around a bit, allowing your brand's product or service ad to show up to that potential client when they are on their favorite news site or checking the weather.

As the user browses throughout the day, they become far more likely to see multiple instances of your advertisements, reinforcing the memory of your brand. This process of following or "targeting" internet users to convert them into loyal customers is called retargeting or "remarketing" if you're using Google Ads.

RETARGETING STRATEGIES FOR CONVERSION RATES

Create Custom Audiences

Retargeted advertising is a useful tool in a marketer's playbook, but it needs effective and strategic use to have the best results. Don't dump all of your advertising focus into plainly wide-scope retargeted ads. Focusing on smaller, custom audiences is a proven way to drive sales and reach your conversion goals.

Retargeting is the most effective when you cast a smaller net. Google and most social media platforms, like Facebook, have retargeting tools that can customize your remarketing campaign to target audiences by demographic or user online behavior. Take advantage of the traffic that your business is already getting and set goals for conversion rates.

Strategic Targeting

Developing a strategy in narrowing down your target audiences is the first step and the traffic you already have is the best place to start!

Internet and social media users who have already visited your website and put something in their cart are a key target audience to zone in on. This trend in shopping cart abandonment is a user behavior that the online marketing technology of Google Ads or Facebook is built to track. Once your business effectively employs Facebook Ads or Google Ads to follow these leads, you will see your conversion rates sky-rocket.

The idea is that these shopping cart abandoners were knee-deep in the buying process, and maybe even the checkout process, when something else grabbed their attention or they changed their mind last minute. This portion of your traffic is the easiest to convert because with a little nudge into the retargeting funnel, your business can turn traffic into leads and leads into sales.

Proof it Works

Take this case study of Myfix Cycles and Webrunner Media Group for example.

Myfix Cycles started out losing quite a bit of money on their ad spending, however, once they transitioned to using Facebook Pixel and set up custom audiences to target, they saw a 1,529% increase in ROAS (return on ad spending).

Their custom targets were three simple audiences:

• Internet users who visited their website within the past 2 weeks
• Users who had added something to their cart in the past 2 weeks
• Customers who had made a purchase from their online store in the past 180 days

With these Facebook Ad settings in place, MyFix Cycles focused their retargeting ads on relevant content to their potential customers like the standout visual appeal of their bikes (usually the same product or type of product that the user had placed in their cart not too long ago) and the digital ads emphasized their competitive sales and shipping deals.

Your business can use MyFix Cycles as a model on how to successfully run your retargeting campaign for conversion impact.

TAKE AIM AT YOUR REMARKETING GOALS

You don't need a huge remarketing budget to get started on your retargeting efforts, but what you do need are goals and projects. Whether its conversion rates or a higher ROAS that your business needs, marketing strategies like behavioral targeting and user-relevant content paired with vital tools like remarketing pixel customization and Google Analytics will steer you in the direction of success.

From putting retargeting ads in the right place for the right customers to creating robust social media profiles that will connect with old and new customers alike, WT Marketing can push small business advertising into the modern era and reach your retargeting and conversion goals.

Read more: Best Practices for a High-Converting Website.