Digital marketing is a competitive arena and to attract maximum traffic towards your products, advertisers are always searching new ways to reach the customers. Conventional marketing through media, print forms or radio gives you a single chance to attract the attention of your target audience for marketing. digital marketing offers you scope to retarget and remarket your product repetitively to selective consumers who are already interested. When deciding on strategies to market your brand it is a smart way to start with appealing to the customers who have previously shown interest in your product or services.  This is where digital advertising uses remarketing and retargeting. These terms are frequently used interchangeably. There are subtle differences that make one strategy better applicable for your needs than other.

Though both retargeting and remarketing have same goals, they differ in strategies that help in different ways. Both these digital marketing tactics sound similar but the prime difference lies in strategies applied. AdRoll said that in general, only 2% of shoppers convert on the first visit to an online store. The goal of retargeting is to bring back the other 98%.

Retargeting | iTMunch

Let’s understand Retargeting

All of us have been retargeted; when you browse a particular website the very next day you see there are ads or reference to divert you back to that website. This is an example of retargeting. This method allows you to reaffirm the first impression that your product had on the customers along with strengthening the follow up. Along with other tools like content marketing, paid search or social media ads, retargeting can reinforce your product to the visitor and act as complementary tool.

The click-through rate (CTR) is 180.6% higher for retargeted users on the display network. These retargeting statistics mean that a retargeting campaign, on average, performs nearly 10 times better than a regular display ad campaign. A CTR of 0.7% is a significantly better conversion rate of online visitors compared to other digital advertising strategies, which could make a meaningful difference in ROI. The conversion rate is 291.7% higher for retargeted users on the display network.

Retargeting keeps the brand constantly focused and in centre of the customer’s screen, whenever they are ready to buy. Retargeting makes use of cookies, the small pieces of data collected about the user when he is browsing your web page. Repetitive appearance of brand on the screen of the user ensures that you allure the customer by increasing brand awareness and eventually total conversion.

Consumer goods company Kimberly-Clark saw a 50% to 60% conversion rate from website visitors who were retargeted.

Although retargeting is a vital tool for digital marketing, it is crucial to pay attention to the recurrence, context and recency at which the ads are presented to the customers.

When done appropriately, retargeting can generate positive ROI and keep the brand on top of the mind of the customer, especially in the early buying cycle. Social media sites are a flourishing platform for retargeting as you may experience Facebook or Instagram feeds diverting you to a website that you recently browsed and flashing images of the products you have been frequently viewing.

Retargeting can benefit through many formats including rich media, images (static or even GIF), text, and video. A recent trend in increased popularity of video format among customers has attracted the advertisers to use it more often.

There are some great tools out there to help you do just that including AdRoll, Retargeter, Perfect Audience and Google Adwords “remarketing”.

how remarketing works | iTMunch

How does Remarketing work?

Remarketing in digital marketing is generally associated with revisiting the current or previous customer and trying to re-engage them based of their purchase history or actions. Remarketing is usually associated with collecting contact information from prospective customers in order to deliver email campaigns to them. This works mainly as a part of retention marketing strategy.

Examples of remarketing are where promotional or new offers are sent to the customer through email. Reminding them of an item that they left in the cart or price drop of the product in their wish list etc. Sending reminders of coupons or points that the customer has not used after their previous purchase, is how remarketing works. eMarketer reported that 81% of customers were at least somewhat likely to make additional purchases as a result of targeted emails, and Campaign Monitor found that segmented email campaigns could drive a 760% increase in revenue.

Remarketing also makes use of Mobile device ID (MDID) to track customer activity within app to reach and engage customers. With device ID targeting, your company/brand can direct its message to specific users who have previously been in targeted locations during a specific time.

Every smart phones and tablet has a group of number and letters that identifies the device. This unique alpha numeric is called as the Device ID. Every time an app is downloaded or installed these DID are recorded and listed for use by advertisers.

Recent study on “Marketing personalization preferences of Shoppers world wide”, shows that cart abandonment reminders were most popular with those aged 25-34, with 41% saying they appreciated the follow-up.

Retargeting vs. Remarketing: What is the Difference?

Retargeting makes use of cookies; in order to make sure that the interested consumer is kept reminded of your brand by staying constantly in view. By increasing the visibility of the brand retargeting ensures that the customer is familiar with the brand.

Retargeting uses display advertisements as primary medium where as remarketing uses emails especially to previous customers based on their choices or actions.

While remarketing is localized on one platform (email), retargeting involves ad content appearing on outside platforms (such as search engine or social media ads).

SEE ALSO: What is content distribution, its channels & categories + Free content marketing budget template

Retargeting vs. Remarketing: What are the Similarities?

Both remarketing and retargeting have similar goals that include increasing brand visibility and encouraging the customers to choose your product by directing them towards the purchase funnel. They use different tools for same purpose like

  • Targeting audience for marketing who have already shown interest in your web page.
  • Keeping the product in front and center of the qualified customer who are more likely to make purchase.
  • Building brand and increase awareness

What to use?

Remarketing and retargeting both work ultimately to help strengthen your brand and to lead the prominent customers to your web page increasing the revenue.

When used in perfect combination with one another remarketing and retargeting both can act as dual reinforcing forces in digital marketing. Serious marketers use a combination of both as a vital tool to connect with customers and eventually increasing sales. Though both tactics have a similar end goal in mind, deciding when to use remarketing vs. retargeting will ultimately depend on the audience and purpose of the communication.

What does the future of remarketing and retargeting look like?

So far cookies have worked as a great advantage for digital marketing, but with the future without cookies the remarketing and retargeting strategies might face a setback. Cookies primarily work on desktops where as Persistent Identities (PIDs) operate on wide varieties of devices like desktops, mobiles and tablets. These PIDs are created when users log in on one secure platform. The PID then recognizes the user on all devices and can produce data for advertisers to use. As the consumers move from the use of desktops to mobile for browsing, an effective solution is presented through PID in a cookieless future.

Few other methods that can be used for remarketing and retargeting purposes are listed below:

  • Login platforms: Although still in testing phase, login platform look promising alternatives to third party cookies. These track the customer through constant identity (IDs) obtained when the user log in with an email and password.
  • Advertiser’s marketplace: These markets are where advertisers can sell their advertising recourses and others can buy it.
  • Social media: Key players in social media like Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram are now entering the remarketing domain. Facebook is a viable targeting solution, as it offers a pixel tool through its Facebook Customer Audiences services that can be added to a website. This service then enables the website owners or publisher to build a custom audience. It helps the owner or publisher to target audience based on their browsing history on the website.

When deciding on a perfect marketing strategy there is no one-size-fit-all solution. Both the approaches can help reach out to the probable customer and help increase the conversion.

Remarketing and retargeting are both great tactics, appealing to those who have shown in interest in your product, brand, website, industry or service. Understanding the remarketing, retargeting difference will help you decide, which among these strategies best suits your requirement and assist you in making the right call to get optimum results.

SEE ALSO: What is People-Based Marketing and What are its Benefits?

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