Every ecommerce business has that one customer. The one who browsed through your website, added items to their basket and then disappeared without making a purchase or taking action. It's frustrating, especially after you’ve done the hard work of driving traffic to your site and built strategies such as SEO or paid media.

However, that customer is still out there, and with the right strategy, you can reel them back in using retargeting, an incredibly effective way to re-engage those who were on the brink of buying but never quite made it over the finish line.

In this article, we'll walk you through how to craft a retargeting strategy that’s not only laser-focused but also tailored to your unique audience.

What is retargeting?

Retargeting, often referred to as remarketing, is a strategy that targets individuals who have already interacted with your website but didn’t complete the desired action, such as making a purchase. By tracking visitors with cookies or pixels, retargeting ads follow these users as they browse other websites, reminding them of the products they viewed or abandoned in their shopping basket.

This is the perfect way to keep your brand at the forefront of potential customers’ minds and encourage them to return to your site to complete their purchases.

The benefits of retargeting

Steps to build a successful retargeting strategy

Now that you understand why retargeting is essential for your ecommerce business, let’s break down how to build a successful strategy.

Set clear goals and KPIS

Before launching a retargeting campaign, it’s essential to define what success looks like. Are you aiming to recover abandoned baskets? Promote specific products or seasonal sales? Or perhaps re-engage past customers with complementary items? Establishing measurable goals will help guide your strategy and determine how you’ll measure success.

Some key performance indicators (KPIS) to track include:

Segment your audience

One of the core principles of a successful retargeting strategy is audience segmentation. Not all website visitors are the same, so you shouldn’t treat them as such in your retargeting ads. Creating segments based on user behaviour ensures your ads are highly relevant and personalised and ensures that your content is being crafted to suit different interests and needs.

Common audience segments include basket abandoners, product viewers, previous customers and engaged visitors.

Creating engaging ads

Like any content or marketing strategy, your retargeting ads must be eye-catching and effective and must encourage users to take action. The ad copy, visuals, and call-to-action (CTA) need to work together to entice users to return to your site and ensure that the customer is engaged with your products or services. There are a variety of different ways in which you can ensure that your ads are compelling and effective:

Utilise dynamic retargeting

Dynamic retargeting takes personalisation a step further by automatically showing users the exact products they interacted with on your site. This approach is highly effective in re-engaging users because it speaks directly to their interests and reminds them of what they were considering. Dynamic ads also allow you to cross-sell or upsell your products by displaying related items or collections that the user has yet to discover. For example, if a customer looked at a pair of shoes, dynamic retargeting could showcase matching accessories such as socks, laces or insoles.

Choosing the right retargeting platform

Several advertising platforms can help you implement retargeting ads, each one providing a range of different benefits and characteristics. When choosing the retargeting platform you want to use, it's important to consider what and how your audience interacts and which one you think will have the most impact.

The different retargeting platforms include:

Optimising frequency and timing

One of the risks of retargeting is overexposure.

Showing the same ad to a user too many times can lead to ad fatigue, resulting in lower engagement or even annoyance from a customer's perceptive. To avoid this, it's recommended to set a frequency cap on how many times an individual sees your ad within a given time period to avoid your content from being spammy.

Timing is also crucial. If a user abandons their basket, it's best to retarget them within a few hours to remind them to complete the purchase while their interest is still fresh and the item is still on their mind. For customers who did make a final purchase, consider retargeting them a few weeks later with related products to encourage repeat business.

A/B test and optimise your campaigns

Retargeting is not a one-and-done strategy. To get the best results, you need to constantly optimise your campaigns and ensure that your strategy is meeting the needs of a modern-day customer. There is a range of elements that should be tested when implementing ads, including:

Measure and analyse results

After your retargeting campaign is live, it’s crucial to monitor its performance to discover what's working and what's not. Through using analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Facebook Ads Manager, or other reporting platforms, you can accurately and regularly track your KPIs and gather insights which can be used for future campaigns.

Digital marketing e-commerce agency

Here at Imaginaire, we’re a digital marketing agency specialising in web design, website management, social media, SEOand PPC in and around Nottingham and the rest of the UK.

Simply book your free consultation and we’ll get to work on devising a strategy tailored to your business. If you’d like to find out more about what we can do for your business, drop us an email or call us on 0115 697 1541 to find out more.

You can even get a free website review from our specialists. Just head over to our free website review page and we’ll take a look!