Funnel Talk Pt. 1: How to Increase Sales with Remarketing & Retargeting
Remarketing is powerful for B2B marketing – profoundly so. It squeezes every last drop of value out of website traffic to boost conversions and improve sales, both on and off site.
It was surprising, then, to hear that a client which invests thousands of pounds each month into online advertising didn’t see the value in it.
A previous agency’s failures had led the client to believe that remarketing was a total waste of money.
What is Remarketing?
Before we dive in, let’s take a high-level look at what remarketing is.
Also known as retargeting, remarketing makes use of cookie technology to target users with adverts as they browse certain websites. These ads come in many forms but the most common types are:
- Image ads shown in the newsfeeds of social media sites or within fixed ad placements on other websites
- Search ads shown in the search results of Google and sometimes Bing
QliQ uses various platforms and technologies to achieve this; Google Ads, LinkedIn Insights, Facebook Ads, B2B social media, to name but a few.
At a primitive level, remarketing targets ads at users who’ve recently visited your website.
To be ultra-effective, remarketing should make use of the many different formats and styles of ad to re-engage with users based on specific online behavioural categories, such as those who:
- Reached checkout but didn’t complete their purchase
- Expressed interest in a product, feature or benefit of your offering
- Visited a group of product pages on your website
- Interacted with your YouTube channel or other videos
- Visited your site from a mobile device, or used a mobile app you own
These ads can be further targeted towards groups of users based on demographics like location, job title, age or income.
In summary:
- Someone visits your site but leaves without completing your desired action
- Later, while browsing other websites on any device, they get targeted with your ad
- Their interest is recaptured and they return to your site to complete your desired action
- Hopefully this process concludes with a sale or a fresh lead for your sales team!
Common Objections to Remarketing
So, what initially turns clients away from this great tool? Reasons vary; here’s a few we’re familiar with.
Self-reference criterion: As a B2B marketing agency, the most common objection we face around remarketing is entirely understandable. Clients say they never click on ads, so why would their customers?
It’s an unconscious reference to one’s own values and experiences as a basis for future decisions. We’re all guilty of doing at some point in our lives and, often to our detriment, it’s extremely common in business.
Ad control: ‘If I can’t see my own ads or control where they are shown, I’m not interested!’
A common query; it’s difficult for business owners to invest in advertising they can’t tangibly ‘see’.
The good news? Remarketing ads are delivered programmatically using intelligent algorithms, and it works – we have full control of where, when and how many times each ad is shown to each user or group of users.
Third-party websites: Why show my ads on other websites when I’ve invested so much money into my own?
A fair objection; in 2019 websites are the flagship investment of many businesses.
Instead of only holding the attention of visitors while they’re actually on your website, you can extend that potential even further by interacting with them after they’ve left it and even when they’re searching for your biggest competitors’ brand name!
Invasion of Privacy?
It’s true that remarketing can make users feel like their privacy is being invaded, particularly so when advertisers repeatedly target the same ads at the same individuals for weeks or months on end.
The key to success is in understanding where to draw the line.
At QliQ, we use frequency capping to ensure that users never feel intruded upon. If a user sees the same ad multiple times in any given time period we restrict their exposure to it.
If a user clicks an ad and acts on the initial message, we show them something different next time.
Smart strategies like these help to avoid oversaturation and the negative impression of your business it can create.
A Case for B2B Remarketing
Still in any doubt? Let’s look at some numbers from QliQ’s own work.
I did some data mining on a recent campaign to demonstrate how effective B2B remarketing can be. This was taken from one client’s campaign throughout the first three months of 2019:
| Campaign Type | New Leads | Conversion Rate | Cost per Lead |
| Search | 384 | 2.14% | £97 |
| Remarketing | 129 | 0.93% | £54 |
| Other banner ads | 75 | 0.44% | £78 |
Looks good, doesn’t it? It gets better…
33% of the leads we generated from remarketing resulted in a sale. With an average order value of £995, that’s an immediate 499% return on investment (not including lifetime customer value) – revenue that would’ve likely been lost without a remarketing strategy in place.
There are some key points here that I have to disclose:
- This remarketing campaign was only this successful because we drove targeted traffic to it from other paid channels
- Ads were highly targeted. Every user saw a series of different remarketing ads containing messages that were specific to the product they were most interested in
- Landing pages were built to support each ad set, meaning that we were able to provide the most engaging landing page experience for every user
Leveraging Intent
The fundamentals of successful remarketing remain the same today as they did five years ago: your campaign should target users by their intent.
If the ad material is relevant to your user they will notice it and at some point and they will probably take action based upon the message within it.
Your remarketing campaign should be well thought-out, considering your buyers’ motivations at each stage of the funnel.
Read Funnel Talk Pt. 2: How Remarketing Supports Your B2B Marketing Goals to learn more.
