Remarketing is a very useful AdWords tool for targeting users who have already been your site but did not complete the desired action (eg. A newsletter sign up or a product purchase). There are various methods for using Remarketing to work for your campaign objectives. Please see my previous post on the basics of Remarketing.
Earlier this month, Google made some changes to how marketers are able to use this feature. The first change allows for Remarketing lists to be created and managed within Google Analytics, allowing for deeper analysis of these ads. This can be found in the Admin section under “Remarketing Lists”.
The second change is the ability to create various Remarketing lists using one piece of code instead of many.
Before, if you wanted to separate ad messages according to the page category that the user was browsing before they left the site, a unique code for each of those categories would have to be generated and implemented within the corresponding webpage. For example, if you have a site selling shoes, you would have to have a unique code for running shoes, a unique code for boots etc., in order to be able to deliver Remarketing ads specific to those shoe types.
Now, only one Remarketing code needs to be generated and implemented across all pages of the site. Some accounts may already have this code automatically generated. If you have this, it will be found under the “Audiences” tab, within the shared library, named “Main List”. If your account does not have this pre-generated list, then click ‘New audience’. Select ‘Remarketing list’ and then ‘define a list of site visitors by placing a new tag on selected pages’. Select the ‘+New tag’ button, name your remarketing list as ‘Main List’.
When the code of this Main List has been implemented across the site, you will then be ready to create category-based lists. From the Audiences tab, select ‘New audience’ > ‘Remarketing List’. Then select ‘Define a list of site visitors based on the selection below’. You can then create a list defined by the contents of the URL. For example, if you want to create a list for all users who viewed running shoes on your site, you would select all URL’s containing the term “runningshoes”. This method is therefore dependant on the URL structure of your site.
If you have already been using Remarketing, you can continue to use the old method, but some changes will need to be made in order to be able to use this new feature. See an explanation from Google on these changes here.
This new way of Remarketing has the obvious benefit of not having to deal with too many separate pieces of code, which can get especially complex when emailing to clients with explanations on implementation. It is also a time saver in that you would no longer need to keep adding additional code when there are changes to landing pages and promoted products.
