By Rachel O’Neill (Senior Account Executive)
I love to shop online. Why sit in traffic, walk through a poorly-lit mall, and fight people for what you want, when you can binge-watch Netflix, eat pizza and get the same thing either next day or shortly thereafter?
Amazon Prime is basically my best friend. Nordstrom offers free returns and free shipping. And Thrive Market keeps me coming back with high-quality products for lower prices than most grocery stores.
(But I love all e-tailers equally, unless you have done something egregious or just have awful products. I’m looking at you, ASOS.)
By now, we all know I am not alone in my love for online shopping. According to Statista, global B2C e-commerce sales are expected to reach 1.92 trillion dollars in 2016!
Let that number sink in.
With all this money being spent online, you would think marketers would pay closer attention to their retargeting practices, but that simply isn’t the case.
Retargeting, for those who aren’t familiar, lets you show ads exclusively to people who were already shopping on your website. This is done by dropping pixels on pages and cookies in browsers. (For a more in-depth explanation, see here.)
Although this process can drive sales and increase loyalty, many brands are wasting away their advertising budget with costly, easily avoidable retargeting mistakes that, in the end, only serve to annoy their customers.
Here, I rant about share my 3 biggest retargeting pet peeves.
1. YOU DIDN’T DROP A CONVERSION PIXEL.
I looked at a product on your site. I bought the product. Then, I went to Facebook, and you are still trying to get me to buy the product I already own.
Why are you wasting money on a customer that has already converted? Add a simple conversion pixel to the post-transaction page – also called a burn pixel – and then try to cross-sell me… If I bought a dog leash, then sell me the collar!
Please, stop trying to sell me what I already have.
2. YOU ARE BOMBARDING US.
I have seen your ads 100 times. Overkill, man! Especially, if it’s for something I already purchased. (See pet peeve #1.)
Adjusting your frequency will not only save you money, but will stop you from irritating your customers. The last thing you want is someone to stop visiting your site because they realize you are stalking them non-stop.
3. YOU ONLY HAVE ONE AD.
Switch up your creative. Another way to annoy someone is to show them the same ad over and over again.
This is similar to frequency, but even if you have adjusted your frequency, that doesn’t mean your customers want to see the same stale ad – even if it’s the perfect amount of times.
This is an absolutely wonderful place to test creative and see what’s working as well.
There are loads of other “best practices” for retargeting. (Maybe another blog post can cover that.) However, if you are smart about the way you talk to your customers, I would guess they will actually buy from you – not once, but over and over again!
ALSO READ – Improving Customer Retention With Existing Data
The post Retargeting Blues: 3 Common, Avoidable Mistakes That Waste Money & Drive Customers Crazy appeared first on Wilde Agency.
