• by Charles Dearing , May 2, 2019

According to a Forrester report, 96% of website visitors leave before completing a single desired action. Only a very meager percentage of your site’s visits will result in a conversion.

This sobering figure means the vast majority of visitors just aren’t interacting with your website in a meaningful way.

Luckily, you can still recapture these visitors. By retargeting them, you can get them more exposed to your brand, back to your site and, ideally, convince them that your product or service is worth their time and money.

Follow the customer to land better conversions
Hooking a customer in with a link is e.. In many ways, leading users to your website is the most labor-intensive and cash-consuming task of all — but it’s only half the battle. It’s well worth the resources invested if (and only if) you use the lead wisely.

By retargeting, you can harness the user’s information and direct personalized advertisements that encourage her to revisit your site. This is the essence of retargeting. You gather a pool of individuals who have shown minimal interest in your site and pump tailored copy their way until they end up at your site again.

Use pixel-based retargeting to hook customers
How does retargeting work? How do you find the individuals who have happened upon your site and magically fill their browsers with banner ads featuring your logo?

While it can be a bit technical, there is no magic to it. Typically, there are one of two ways to go about it: pixel-based or list-based retargeting.

Pixel-based retargeting allows for an anonymous user who visits your site to be captured immediately. Implement this by applying a small slice of JavaScript, which is referred to as a “pixel,” to your website, that attaches to a visitor's browser.

Using their browser’s cookies, you can follow them as they traverse the web. Retargeting platforms use the cookies, which give them information such as which pages they happened to visit, and doles out specific advertisements based on this information.

Create lists to attract returning visitors
List-based retargeting, although less common, is another way to recycle web visitors. Meanwhile, pixel-based retargeting is more common than list-based retargeting because of its automation and its ability to immediately collate groupings of individuals and serve ads to them based on their behavior on your website.

Unfortunately, implementing the cookie-based technology will most likely require a JavaScript developer. With list-based retargeting, you might be able to increase precision (as you can put ad groupings together yourself) and you may be able to eliminate the need to hire developers.

Tailor ads to fit your customer’s needs
You’ve chosen a retargeting format and created copy. How do you wield the tools you’ve acquired to turn curious window shoppers into happy customers?

First, you will need to refer to the handy marketing funnel. Retargeting efforts first concern themselves with the top of the funnel, awareness. From there, you can begin serving ads based on products consumers viewed, further tailoring their experience as they encounter your ads.

As you track users’ behavior, you can serve ads that answer their questions about specific products they’ve viewed. They will serve to help them evaluate your product’s usefulness. While your retargeting ads will most likely be more expensive than your regular banner ads, you’ll want to cut out ineffective techniques as quickly as possible.