- As one of the most effective digital tools available for marketing, Facebook retargeting may be the answer for leading more traffic to your website.
- Retargeting provides an opportunity to reach a wide range of potential customers through the social media and websites they already visit.
- There are several benefits of Facebook retargeting, such as reducing the amount of time and money allocated for marketing.
As the world's biggest social media platform, Facebook offers countless opportunities for brand growth. Of course, as with any other type of marketing, there's no guarantee that a potential customer's first exposure to your brand will result in a sale. This is where Facebook has a distinct advantage with its retargeting options. Retargeting has consistently proven to be one of the most effective digital marketing tools available, with retargeted visitors being 70% more likely to convert into sales or leads.
What is Facebook retargeting?
If you've ever been scrolling through your Facebook feed and came across advertisements for services or products that you recently viewed online, you have encountered retargeting. Facebook uses a retargeting pixel, which is a tiny piece of code that can be inserted into the back end of a website. It basically works like tags in that it helps to drive and decode performance metrics that are generated by a particular platform. For example, if you are searching the website for a plumber and click on a page but leave the page without buying the product or service, the information is stored, and Facebook can basically transfer the type of information into your feed. This type of marketing integrates ads for targeted audiences (the people searching for specific products or services).
Needless to say, those numbers can represent significant growth for your brand. Here's how you can use Facebook's retargeting tools to achieve stellar results.
1. Use different retargeting campaigns for different groups.
There are many different ways that a potential customer could initially encounter your brand – and you can use Facebook retargeting to reach all of these groups. You can use a wide variety of metrics to build a custom audience for your retargeting campaign.
While many marketers start with the broad option of retargeting all website visitors, you can fine-tune your targeting by creating campaigns focused on those who have downloaded free content from your site, installed your company's app or visited a specific landing page.
Establish a conversion goal for each retargeted group. Whether you want to reengage with former customers or turn a free trial into a paid subscription, these campaign goals will ultimately guide your entire Facebook ad campaign.
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2. Fine-tune your messaging.
Not all retargeting groups are created equal. After all, there's a big difference between someone who has made a purchase from your online store in the past and someone who merely browsed your landing page without taking any additional actions.
Each of these groups is at a different stage of the buying journey, and the content of your Facebook ads should be adjusted accordingly. After determining the metrics for your retargeted group, you'll want to carefully consider what messaging will be most relevant to them.
For example, someone who has signed up for a free trial could benefit from ads that remind them about the end of their trial period and encourage them to sign up for a paid subscription. Former customers, on the other hand, could benefit from ads detailing new features of your service or a newly launched product. Engaging content is always key to success.
3. Retarget social media users, not just website visitors.
Retargeting campaigns tend to focus exclusively on people who have visited your website – this certainly tends to be the case in SEO campaigns. But Facebook offers a completely separate channel of brand interactions. As such, you should also consider retargeting campaigns based on past social media experiences.
Facebook allows businesses to build custom audiences based on previous engagement on the platform. You could set up a campaign to retarget individuals who have messaged your page, watched a recent video or only partially completed a form on a lead ad. As with other retargeting efforts, adapting your messaging to each customer's stage of the buyer's journey will be key to landing new conversions.
4. Use the Facebook pixel.
Measuring the effectiveness of current social media campaigns and making necessary adjustments is easier than ever thanks to Facebook's pixel tool. By embedding the pixel in your website code, you can more accurately track onsite actions that occur after someone clicks on one of your Facebook ads.
This process doesn't just make it easier to build custom audiences for future retargeting campaigns – it also gives you key insights into your website. As you come to understand the actions people are taking (or not taking) once they arrive at your site, you can implement changes to enhance the user experience and improve conversion rates.
A quality website is just as important as an engaging Facebook ad. By eliminating roadblocks in the user experience, you can optimize everything from your landing page to the checkout process.
5. Scale growth with look-alike audiences.
After you've identified retargeted groups that are converting at a high rate with the help of your pixel, you'll naturally want to expand your efforts to new audiences who haven't interacted with your brand before. This is where Facebook's audience insights can prove even more beneficial.
Using pixel data from your past successful campaigns, you can more easily identify commonalities among the demographics or interests of your top customers. Facebook's Lookalike Audiences tool can then use this "source audience" to target individuals who are most similar to those who converted from your retargeting campaign.
Because these "look-alike" individuals have much in common with your best customers, they are also more likely to be interested in your product or service. The result is a greater return on investment for your other Facebook advertising campaigns so you can enjoy even better growth.
What are the benefits of retargeting?
Facebook retargeting is a cost-effective way to advertise your business, your products and/or your services. There is also a good return on investment, because the advertisement is reaching a targeted audience. So, you no longer have to spend large amounts of your marketing budget on advertisements that may or may not reach the people who are interested in the product or service. For example, if one of your marketing strategies is to print, address and mail out hundreds of mailers, there is a risk of most of these being tossed in the trash as soon as they are taken out of the mailbox. Retargeting means the advisement is being seen by those who have recently searched for the specific product or service being retargeted.
It's time to grow through retargeting.
Building a successful Facebook retargeting campaign may require a bit more work than simply creating an ad campaign of your choosing. But going the extra mile can yield far better results for your brand as you reach high-converting groups with messages that are most relevant to them.
Leverage retargeting today to start achieving more conversions.