Remarketing has become a necessity for most PPC accounts. It is an AdWords feature that was introduced last year, which enables marketers to re-capture user who have been to their site. This means that a user’s first visit need not be their last, and marketers get another chance to entice them to convert.
Setting up a remarketing list can be done by selecting “Remarketing Lists” under the Audiences tab. Most online marketers will already have tried this targeting feature, but for those who are unaware of how it works, it adds the cookie ID of a user who visits the site is added to the remarketing list by means of a generated code snippet. This allows ads to be targeted to those users when they have left the site and continued to browse on the Google Display Network. The number of days that a cookie is stored on the list can be decided on by the creator of remarketing list. This opens the opportunity to relay different messages for different lengths of time that a user has been away from the site.
Taking it a step further, it is possible to remarket only those users that have visited the site, but did not convert. This prevents an already-converted customer from being targeted with your ads and possibly annoying them, as they have already done what you wanted them to. This is done by creating a negative remarketing list of users who have been to the conversion page (this list will collect cookies from users who have converted by means of code being placed on the conversion confirmation page). This list must then be added as a negative list by expanding “Negative Audiences” under the Audiences tab, and adding the list. Now all users who have converted will be excluded from the remarketing campaign.
Remarketing can also be used for new customer acquisitions. If it is the goal of an account to attract more unique visitors, negative remarketing can be a useful tool. This is utilised by creating a remarketing list targeted to all who visit the website, so the code must be placed on all entry pages. This list can then be added as a negative audience to all display campaigns that have a unique visitor objective. This basically excludes everyone who has already visited the website, and display budget can be more ensured to attain uniques.
Remarketing is a dynamic targeting tool that can be altered in various ways in order to meet account goals and has become an essential feature to use for all online marketers.
