How to Use Retargeting to Win Back Holiday Shoppers

With holiday campaign implementation right around the corner (if not already begun), it's important retail brand marketers layer in retargeting as part of their digital strategy. This tactic helps engage users who have expressed interest in the brand and win them back by advertising relevant products to them. This includes consumers who visited your website and took no action, cart abandoners and customers that have made a purchase.
The key to retargeting is personalization and relevance to the consumer. Separate cookie pools should be created in order to target users based on the part of the retailer's site they've visited. Retailers need to make sure they're serving ads to users who have already showed interest in a particular product. By doing so you're providing a quality user experience and aren't wasting impressions on users who have no interest in buying the product.

Each visitor segment needs to be addressed differently since they're in various stages of the purchase funnel. For users who have visited your site and taken no action, offer them a coupon for their next purchase. Through the use of dynamic targeting, retailers can retarget customers who have recently made a purchase by showing them additional items they might consider buying. To help stretch your marketing budget, you can remove users once they've made a purchase so impressions aren't wasted on those customers who have already made a purchase.

Retailers should allocate 5 percent to 10 percent of their campaign budget towards testing new audience segments, offers, creative and messaging. Testing allows retailers to scale campaigns and discover new audiences for success. Campaign media budgets need to be fluid and have the ability to be adjusted accordingly based on performance and optimization needs. Give a marketing channel enough data and time in order to make sure there's sufficient data to evaluate performance. It's a best practice to start broad, then narrow in on top-performing audience segments, messaging and creative as a campaign matures and results are analyzed.

In regards to measurement, keep in mind that retargeting goals and benchmarks will vary by audience segment. Different values should be placed on different audience segments in order to scale campaigns properly and optimize. For example, a retailer might place less value on a consumer that's made a purchase vs. a site visitor who abandoned their shopping cart.

All of the above must be taken into consideration prior to choosing a retargeting vendor to work with. Campaign goals, testing and creative messaging will help determine the retargeting solution that will best deliver results. When talking with potential vendors, be sure to ask about inventory sources, analytics and tracking availability, the ability to segment audiences, implementation timelines, pricing models, frequency capping, advanced pixel capabilities, and cancellation policies.

Retailers must make sure that they discuss these key factors during the proposal phase, not during the implementation phase. It's important to note that based on the retargeting vendor and retailer's website, the implementation process can take up to three weeks. Make sure that proper time is budgeted for implementation and quality assurance so any issues can be discovered prior to launch.

Lastly, make sure to take into consideration your brand's image. Choose a retargeting vendor that provides the ability to use frequency capping so multiple ads aren't appearing on the same web page; you want to be able to have control over this. Additionally, retargeting vendors should also be able to accept ad verification so advertisements aren't appearing on inappropriate sites.

By incorporating retargeting into their overall digital strategy, retail brand marketers will be able to win back customers and convert new ones.

Jennifer Leonard is the associate director of media at iProspect. Jennifer can be reached at jennifer.leonard@iprospect.com.