Retargeting

A fundamental part of any campaign is successfully retargeting social media campaigns .

For those e-commerce stores (and brick and mortar businesses ahead of the curve!) that are well versed in running such ads, they are the bread and butter of their online marketing efforts.

An evergreen campaign that delivers consistently high ROI over a long period - the marketing equivalent of gold dust!

Despite this, it never ceases to amaze me how many online stores - across all niches and of all sizes - still fail to take advantage of this HUGE opportunity!

On average, it takes approximately five to seven touchpoints to close a sale.

Cold ad campaigns alone will not cut it - retargeting is nothing short of essential.

“What are retargeting campaigns?” you may ask.

Well, they are quite self-explanatory.

Retargeting campaigns are those ads that are targeted solely at individuals who have previously engaged with your business. Those who have visited your website, viewed your social media profile, interacted with your adverts, downloaded your content, joined your email list, added your product(s) to their cart, you get the gist.

There are variables in every retargeting campaign, but the fundamentals remain the same. Place your product or service back in front of those people who have shown previous interest - however small or large this showing may have been.

For e-commerce stores, the Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) is the holy grail within this broader field.

Dynamic Product Ads use data collected by the Facebook pixel alongside your product catalogue to place the exact product a potential customer has viewed back in front of them.

These ads help reach that 5-7 ballpark of touchpoints needed for conversion and when coupled with small incentives, our results speak for themselves...

So, now you’ve seen the power of these adverts - let's talk about the setup.

The key to running these adverts is data. Data collected by Facebook via the pixel (something I will cover in a future article), email lists uploaded to the platform, and any other sources you have access to.

You need to know whose interacting with your business and in what capacity.

These interactions can be separated by the level of intent they show. For example, someone who adds your product to their cart is going to require much less of a ‘push’ (incentive/offer) to convert than someone who has liked your Instagram picture - your ads should reflect this.

So, segment your audience by intent and create incentives and copy tailored to each level. Once this is done, you can move on to the ads themselves.

Small product offering?

Create your standard photo, video, and carousel ads combined with a message and incentive that speaks to each audience, target that audience with these ads and watch the money roll in!

Larger catalogue of products?

Things become slightly more complex.

First, you’ll need to integrate your product catalogue with Facebook in order to create the DPA’s that will bring the highest possible returns.

There are a number of ways to do this and the exact method will depend on which website CMS you use. Regardless of the system, a quick Google search will give you all the information you need.

Once set up, simply add the relevant copy to these adverts and Facebook will take care of the rest (If only it were that simple!)

Now your ads are up and running - you need to understand how to judge their performance.

Return on ad spend (ROAS) is the obvious metric to focus on. ROAS shows the overall ROI for your campaign and is, in the majority of cases, the true measure of success.

However, providing that you’ve set up the campaign correctly and have chosen the correct copy and incentives (this will require a significant amount of initial testing) the ROAS should take care of itself.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

If only.

Although you should naturally see good ROAS from these ads, there is always room to optimise. Your focus should, therefore, shift to another metric, one that will allow you to reach the highest possible ROI.

Frequency.

Frequency = Impressions / Reach or how many times an individual has seen your ad.

Remember, the average number of touchpoints for a completed sale?

5-7.

It will come as no great surprise that, from our experience, the optimum frequency for these retargeting campaign is right in the middle of this range - 6 (keep in mind that this does vary between industries, generally increasing as average order value increases).

With this in mind, once your ads are live, adjust the budget (or adjust the audience size through more cold advertising) around your target frequency and watch those ROAS skyrocket!

When Black Friday comes around, things can get really crazy...

From what we have covered it is easy to see why retargeting social media advertising is so powerful, easy to set up, easy to analyse, easy to optimise, and yet, despite this, HUNDREDS of e-commerce (and physical) businesses fail to take advantage of their huge potential.

To use the classic and somewhat cliche saying, they - and possibly you - are leaving thousands in revenue on the table each month.

Use this article and take advantage of the opportunity, set up your retargetting campaigns as soon as possible.