Retargeting is the New Lead Nurturing: 6 Simple Ways to Increase Online Conversions through Display Advertising 565 Commercial Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 866.497.5505 www.bizo.com Follow us on Twitter: @bizo
Retargeting is the New Lead Nurturing: 6 Simple Ways to Increase Online Conversions through Display Advertising Most marketers who target business professionals rely heavily on email as one of their tried-and-true online marketing channels. And, it s not hard to see why. The email address is still seen as a window into the buying soul of the business professional: capture this piece of information in your marketing database and you re set. Target people with relevant content offers and newsletters on a regular basis, monitor their engagement with a lead nurturing program, and use key online behaviors opens, click-throughs, website visits to high-value pages to strike while the iron s hot. While lead nurturing through email should be a solid part of every online marketer s strategy, it does have its limitations. Email marketing relies on a lead s contact information being known, and influencing the prospect or customer takes place within the confines of the inbox. Did your prospect visit your pricing page in the last two days? Send an email from your sales rep. Did a customer coming up for renewal search for a competitive product recently? Send an email with a promotion. These techniques can be effective, but if your potential customers are on email only 8.3% of the time that they re online, you re missing a huge
opportunity to get in front of them the other 91.7% of the time. 1 The single best way to ensure that you re reaching and nurturing your audience whenever and wherever they are online is through targeted display advertising. And, the technique known as retargeting is one of Did You Know More and more marketers are moving their ad spend online. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), displayrelated advertising totaled nearly $10 billion in 2010, which represents a 24% increase from 2009. 2 the most powerful ways to increase your online conversions. But, before we take a look at how to use retargeting as an effective lead nurturing strategy, let s first examine how it all works. What exactly is retargeting? Retargeting is the ability to serve up relevant display advertising to people who have already visited your website or landing pages. This is accomplished by placing a small piece of HTML code on the Web page(s) from which you re looking to capture your retargeting audience. Whenever someone visits one of these pages, an ad server then loads a retargeting pixel (a clear, single pixel GIF image), drops a cookie onto that person s machine, (which identifies him or her as part of a specific retargeting audience), and enables marketers to serve them specific display advertising wherever they may travel on the Web. As an online marketer, you ve made large investments in multiple marketing channels from email to search 1 What Americans Do Online: Social Media and Games Dominate Online Activity, NielsenWire, August 2, 2010. 2 IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report, Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, May 2011.
to display advertising. And let s face it online conversions are hard to come by. Whether you want prospects to download a white paper or register for a free trial, they may not have the time or are just not interested yet. By incorporating retargeting across your marketing activities, you can rest assured that people who don t convert the first time aren t lost forever you can continue to keep your message in front of them until they are ready to engage with you. How Basic Retargeting Works User visits your website and receives a retargeting cookie Your Website Your Website SIGN UP NOW! Visitor does not convert, leaves, and visits other site Business News Website Visitor receives a display ad with a specific retargeting message and returns to your website Your Display Ad: Limited Time Offer - Sign Up Now! Why is retargeting perfect for lead nurturing? If you think about what constitutes an effective lead nurturing program, it is the ability to build strong, trusting relationships with prospects, regardless of their readiness to buy. This includes staying top of mind with your brand, addressing the right questions or concerns at all stages of the buying cycle with relevant content, and influencing all of the individuals involved in the buying decision.
If you have a marketing automation platform, you re probably already familiar with setting up automated workflows that send out different emails based on your leads specific demographics or behaviors with the overall goal of nudging them further down the sales process. Think of retargeting as accomplishing the same objective only this time you don t have to wait until you have their email addresses, and you can reach them beyond the inbox anywhere on the Web. Whether your prospects are on WSJ.com, Citysearch.com, or AOL, you can reach them wherever they go, and if you also know their business demographics, you can expose them to even more relevant messaging. Retargeting is proven to increase online conversions The idea behind building up a retargeting audience is that the people who comprise this audience segment have already demonstrated an interest in your brand, product, or service, and although they may not have converted the first time around, there is a higher probability that they will convert once they are retargeted. If this sounds familiar to the lead nurturing you do with email, that s because it is! If you send an email to a prospect at the top of the funnel, someone who is just beginning to research solutions to their business challenges, he or she may click through and actually purchase, but there is a higher probability that they ll click through to your landing page, download your whitepaper, and come back another time. In most cases, you ll need to send additional emails that will nurture them further down the funnel first. This is where retargeting comes in it s your key to nurturing leads, but instead of being confined within the inbox, you can reach them wherever they go online. 6 Simple Ways to Increase Online Conversions through Retargeting Now that we ve covered how basic retargeting works as well as its role in online lead nurturing, let s dive into the best ways to apply retargeting in your online marketing strategies to increase conversions and sales.
1. Just getting started with retargeting? Don t be intimidated all you need is a pixel and one set of retargeting ad creative. Even if you re new to the area of display advertising, it s actually quite easy to get started with retargeting. As we mentioned earlier, retargeting simply requires a pixel to be placed on any Web or landing page for which you re looking to create a retargeting audience. Next, start simple by developing one set of retargeting ad creative to serve these people that don t convert off of your page(s). For example, if you re developing a retargeting pool based on people that have visited a landing page for a free trial, they may have not converted because a product trial may have seemed like too much of a commitment. Instead, why not retarget them with ad creative that promotes a way for you to keep in touch with them in a low-commitment way, such as with an email newsletter? By employing basic retargeting such as this, you re already on your way to nurturing prospects who at one point would have just been lost conversions on your landing page. Your brand will now be top of mind with this audience, and you can further strengthen your ad targeting by incorporating business demographics (e.g. industry, company size, etc.), interest-based targeting, and more.
2. Let the stages of your marketing funnel from awareness to evaluation to purchase influence your retargeting strategies. As with lead nurturing, retargeting can help you prepare your prospect to buy whether they are at the top of the funnel learning about your product or service or even if they ve begun to evaluate specific vendors to solve their business challenge. The great thing about retargeting is that you can tailor your ads to address wherever your prospects are in the buying cycle. For example, if you have an audience that has visited your home page and done nothing else, retarget them with ad creative that focuses on increasing your brand awareness and overall value proposition. However, if you have a retargeting audience comprised of people who have visited specific product pages on your website (indicating that they are further down the funnel and know what they re searching for), it would be more effective to retarget them with ad creative that addresses the particular features and benefits of your products. Typical Sales/Marketing Funnel Awareness Education Evaluation Proposal Purchase Retargeting Message Focuses On: Brand/Company Main Value Proposition Competitive Differentiators Customer Successes Retention and Renewal Use the stages of the marketing/sales funnel to help inform your retargeting strategies.
3. Over time, develop multiple sets of retargeting creative, be as specific as you can with your messaging, and test, test, test. One of the great things about retargeting is that you do get a second (and third, and fourth ) chance to make a first impression. It s not easy to convince prospects when they first hit one of your landing pages that you re the solution for them. And the length of the average B2B sales process proves this point it can often take months to close a deal, despite numerous emails, phone calls, and other activities. As with other marketing channels, it s useful to incorporate some A/B testing into your retargeting efforts to better optimize your conversions. For example, if you have a retargeting audience based on people who do not convert on a landing page promoting a whitepaper download, you could make the assumption that this audience may not have time to read through a whitepaper. Why not create two versions of retargeting creative that address the same topic of interest, but offer new ways of consuming the information: one that offers access to a short video and the other promoting a subscription to a blog? As you begin to refine your strategies and ad creative, and test these over time, you re likely to see a larger increase in online conversions.
4. Incorporate business demographic insights into your retargeting to provide even greater relevancy (and reap more conversions) from your ad creative. Retargeting lets you create more relevant online experiences for your audience by knowing the Web pages in which they were interested. But, what s even more powerful is building in an understanding of who is actually visiting your website into your retargeting efforts. By incorporating into your Web analytics the ability to detect key business demographic information about your visitors (e.g. industry, company size, job function, etc.), your display advertising can home in on what matters most to your audience. For example, if your company specializes in financial services products, your offers and promotions to C-level executives from Fortune 500 companies would probably differ greatly from those aimed at small business owners. By incorporating business demographics into your retargeting approach, your messages will have a better chance of resonating with the right audiences, and will result in improved conversions. Landing Page Landing Page Display Ad #1: Small Businesses: Fee-Free Checking Accounts for You Get the Top-Rated Business Checking Account Display Ad #2: The Bank that Fortune 500 Companies Rely On By incorporating business demographic insights into your retargeting efforts, your display creative can have even greater impact on conversions.
5. Use retargeting to increase your search marketing conversions, including branded search. Search and display have been known to offer a powerful combination to online marketers seeking to increase conversions. In recent research, comscore found that search alone produces an 82% lift in sales from visitors exposed to ads, compared to 119% when search and display are combined. 3 The key is providing your prospects with the most relevant online experience possible, and display ads especially retargeted ads can play a huge role by reinforcing your marketing and messaging. Did You Know In a study spurred by the tremendous growth of online advertising, comscore and ValueClick examined the lift in trademark searches from various online targeting strategies. Retargeting provided the greatest lift in trademark searches at 1,046%. 4 Retargeting helps you better monetize existing investments in search marketing. Think about how you would want to address all of the people that visit your search landing pages, but don t convert. People that are already searching for you online are potentially more qualified, bottom funnel prospects, which means there s a high probability that they ll convert versus those who are just educating themselves about your solution, industry, or market. Place a retargeting pixel on your search landing pages and start to create a retargeting audience pool to which you ll serve more targeted ad creative. For example, if you know that users visited a landing page as a result of searching for a specific business solution you offer, your retargeted ad creative may want to offer a discount on that solution to help nudge these visitors closer to a sale. 3 The Bottom Line Is Online Ads Work for Branding and Sales, Laurie Sullivan, MediaPostNews, July 31, 2009. 4 When Money Moves to Digital, Where Should It Go?, September 2010, comscore and ValueClick Media.
6. Boost the power of your email marketing by including retargeting pixels in your HTML emails. While retargeting can play a powerful role in increasing conversions for anonymous prospects, you can also incorporate the technique into your email marketing to have even greater impact on those in your email database anywhere they travel online. By inserting retargeting pixels in your HTML emails, you can create a specific retargeting pool for this high-value audience once they open the email in a browser or if they click through to a specific landing page from the email. Since the people in this segment have already opted-in to receiving communications from you, use retargeting as an opportunity to continue building your company s relationship and trust with them. For example, you might consider creating ads that promote a specific offer to only your loyal email newsletter subscribers. Nurture Leads across the Web with Retargeting To recap, retargeting can play a huge role in lead nurturing, a strategy that was once only reserved for email and known prospects. By creating retargeting audiences for virtually all of their existing online activities, marketers can maintain their relationships with prospects across the Web, and turn lost conversions into new opportunities. 565 Commercial Street, San Francisco, CA 94111 866.497.5505 www.bizo.com Follow us on Twitter: @bizo