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PPC Fridays: What is Remarketing and How Does it Affect Alberta Businesses?

If you’re using Adwords to any degree you might have heard the buzz about a “new” feature called Remarketing. In super secret Adwords Manager circles (Adster team lunch at Denny’s), Remarketing is quite the talk of town.  First made available back in 2010, remarketing was ignored for a fair amount of time as users were skeptical and unfamiliar with this new fangled option called Remarketing. A few brave souls dared to tread in the uncharted waters.

The whole concept of Adwords Remarketing took a little bit of time to gain steam. At first, there were just a few random indications that there might be something to it. Now two years later, Remarketing is the hottest thing in pay per click since Adwords Experiments. I have lost track of how many times someone has asked me about this new thing called Remarketing in the last couple of weeks. It seems like if people are talking about Adwords, they’re talking about Remarketing.  If you’re not familiar with Remarketing, let me fill you in.

PPC Remarketing, it’s whats for dinner.

Google RemarketingIn a nutshell, Adword Remarketing is where Adwords allows targeting of ads to visitors who have already been to your site. The thrill of Remarketing is that it gives the opportunity to communicate with individuals that have already expressed interest in your site by visiting. Remarketing will target these visitors to your site as they visit other pages across the web (YouTube for example). Remarketing keeps your site fresh in the mind of previous visitors and allows for additional opportunities to bring them back to your site by showing your ads across the Google Display Network.

You might have noticed this yourself. Perhaps while visiting CBC.ca, getting the latest news and you see an ad that catches your eye for water purifier filters. Although it may seem ironic, it isn’t! You’re seeing an advertisement from the water purifier filter site you visited just a few days ago! That, ladies and gentleman, is Remarketing in all its glory.

Ok, so that’s all fine and good, but “how can Remarketing work for my small business in Grand Prairie?”, you might ask.

Anyone that uses Adwords to reach potential customers knows that it’s all about relevancy, and there’s few things more relevant than targeting ads to someone that has already visited your site, signifying their interest in your products or service. Using the example above of water purifier filters, a person would not be visiting a site about water purifier filters if they didn’t have a water purifier. We already know they have a water purifier because that person visited a site that sells water purifier filters! In terms of direct marketing that is laser focused my friends.

But wait, there’s more!

Remarketing in Adwords is built around Audiences. Audiences allow for highly customizable targeting based on a variety of variables and combinations. To go a step further with the water purifier example, a Remarketing Audience could be set for a page on the site that sells water purifier filters to target an ad with a coupon for water purifier filters. On another page selling shower filters an Audience can be set to target ads to visitors that offer shower filter deals, another Audience for visitors to a testimonials page that will show ads based on user reviews. Other potential uses of Remarketing are seasonal messages, and cost effective branding. The list goes on and on with many creative applications for Remarketing possible.

Just one more thing.

Compared to Adwords campaigns targeting Search and the Display Network, the Average Cost Per Click of Remarketing campaign is often less. So not only is Remarketing powerful and flexible, it also is cost effective. Having utilized Remarketing over a wide variety of different small business Adwords campaigns, in my experience the data shows that Remarketing is worth exploring for the majority of small business Adwords advertisers.