Ask Janet: What is "Remarketing?"

When You Really Want a Second (or Third) Chance to Make That Sale

How many times have you wished that you could have a second chance at making a sale to someone who visited your website? Remarketing allows you to do that.

Remarketing is responsible for those almost spooky ads for products and services that you recently viewed on another website when you are just surfing the web. It might be an ad for a specific pair of shoes that you considered buying a couple of days ago. Or an ad displaying a spa package that you thought about buying for your mom. How did they know you were interested in that?

It all comes down to cookies. The most popular remarketing program is an option from Google AdWords. When a business has chosen the remarketing option, Google places a cookie on visitors’ computers when they visit your website.

The remarketing program allows participating businesses several options.

1. You choose who you would like to remarket to. For example, you can remarket only to those who viewed a particular page of your website but didn’t complete some action (like making a purchase or submitting an inquiry via a form on the website). Or you can remarket to anyone who visited an interior page of your site (any page other than the Home page). You choose what activity on your website indicates a likely prospect for you.
2. You choose the duration that you would like the remarketing ads to appear following the initial visit to your website. In order for remarketing to be successful, a business needs to have a good understanding of its sales cycle, and how long their best prospects take to make a decision about the product(s) or service(s) offered.
3. You also choose how many times daily your remarketing ad appears for each individual. You can block ads from appearing on specific websites, such as those that are counter to your brand image.

Remarketing is not an appropriate technique for every business. Generally, it will generate the best results when the sales process is rather long and involves significant consideration. If your sales environment is hyper-competitive and prospects often visit many different company websites before making a purchasing decision, remarketing also may be profitable.

Remarketing is a popular advertising technique among ecommerce retailers of particular types of product lines. For example, if the product is either relatively expensive, an indulgence that generally comes out of disposable income, or something chosen on the basis of a personal sense of style, you can expect that few visitors will make an immediate decision to buy when first presented with the product information on a website. In these cases, remarketing allows the retailer a second, third and even fourth chance to make the sale.

Is remarketing right for your business? Give 1^st Click Consulting a call, and we are happy to advise you.