Seeing the whole world has just moved to social media, I think this is the perfect opportunity for most businesses to capitalize and capture some new business.
Do you know?
Facebook has 2.5 billion users per month and more than 7 million active advertisers, making it the second-largest player in the digital marketing space after Google.
However, many advertisers complain that their Facebook Ads fail to capture intended targets, and it did not perform as per their expectations.
What most advertisers overlook is the fact that digital shoppers find it easier to walk away from an online sale as compared to a brick & mortar one. YES!
According to Smart Insights, 96.7 % of people walk-away, from your site or app without buying anything for the first time.
If this is happening to you, don’t fret. It is nothing you can do here as this is considered normal consumer behavior. It is all about the customer journey through the sales funnel.
Amazingly, only less than 4% of people who interact with your brand online will buy from you for the first time.
The rest will need time to go through the awareness stage, interest stage, decision stage, and finally reach the action stage.
The final conversion cycle can last much longer than 30 days. Therefore, if you are not engaging in Facebook Ads with a retargeting campaign, you are losing big on business.
What is Facebook Ads Retargeting?
Retargeting is the act of showing ads to someone who has already visited your website or scrolled through your application once and exited. It is about targeting and convincing them to head back to your site or app to complete a purchase or a transaction.
When a probable customer visits your site, they get tagged with a piece of code. When that person browses Facebook, it reads those code snippets and uses it to find their social profiles.
You can use this information to run a Facebook retargeting ad campaign.
How will it work?
Facebook will show your ads based on your targeting parameters. As these customers previously had some awareness of your brand and showed interest, conversion chances are more likely.
The retargeting campaign gives better ROAS and an opportunity for a higher conversion rate than traditional advertising, remember that!
Why is it Important?
Facebook ads are a fun, engaging, and exciting way of informing customers about your brand. However, if you jump in without having clarity about the purpose of doing a Facebook Ad, you could end up wasting a lot of money. Check this Facebook Ad below.
Even though the product is fashionable, the Facebook Ad is amiss!
Apart from the lack of eye-catchy headline and landing page directions, the Ad does not have clarity on advertising goals.
It does not have a story to awake the curiosity in viewers to know more about the product.
Just 3-likes and 1-share!
Such type of Facebook advertising with no call-to-action won’t increase your sales. People who see it would mostly ignore and forget about it.
In the absence of a clear goal, the ad fails miserably to engage people.
If you are a small business owner and doing these kinds of Facebook Ads, no doubt, you are wasting your money!
You need a better Facebook ads campaign for retargeting and to increase your conversion rate.
But all will work only when you have clarity on the goals first.
Decide Goals
There are three types of goals-
- Awareness: Letting people learn about your brand. You make your brand easily recognizable to your target audience.
- Consideration: When people are aware of your brand, they click on the CTA button on the ad to check out your website. It gives you potential leads, and you collect information on your target audience.
- Conversion: Potential leads becoming customers buying your product or service trail.
But, not everyone who visits your site will convert!
For converting more customers, you need Facebook retargeting ads.
It is a digital reminder for potential clients who have visited your site but have not closed a deal.
If you have already invested so much in Facebook Ads and wonder why you should spend more on Facebook retargeting ads?
Doubts are natural!
But before you take that call, check how your existing Facebook ads are performing.
How to Check the Performance of Your Existing Facebook Ads Performance?
The Facebook ads already posted might be focused on awareness or conversion goals.
But, before you strategize and make the Facebook retargeting ads, check how the existing ones perform.
To determine whether the ads are performing as per your strategies or not, use the Five Metrics System.
Check the facts/numbers to answer the below questions.
1. Conversion Rate: What is the % or the total number of conversions?
See how many of them have bought your product/hired your services, or subscribed to an email list.
2. Frequency: How often the ads get displayed to the user?
Customers have short memories. They see several brands together, so the frequency of viewing your ads plays a decisive role in your brand’s success.
3. Spend & Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): How much are you earning back through ads?
You need to know whether the ad is benefitting you or you are making a loss.
4. CPC & CTR: What is the cost of an average click from your ad to your website? What is the % of people who have clicked on the ads?
If your Cost-Per-Click is high, check your ad efficiency with Click-Through-Rate. When your CTR is lower, it shows your ad is not appealing. Then there is some problem with the ad audience targeting itself.
5. Cost Per Action: How much does it cost you to convert a lead or make a final sale?
An action can be anything, click to your website, click on your video’s play button, or share your ad, etc.
When you combine the ads’ expenses and check how much you have gained business out of it, you get a clear idea of how your existing ads are performing.
You get the clarity on the return-on-ad-spend (ROAS). If it is not satisfactory, you need to think about retargeting your ads for more conversions.
I believe you got the idea, how vital Facebook Ads Retargeting is for your brand.
Now, let us work on creating custom audiences.
They are your targeted customers with an expected higher conversion rate.
Building Your First Custom Audiences
Step 1: Go to your Facebook ads manager, click “Audiences” in the top left corner.
Step 2: This will lead you to a page where you can choose between creating a custom audience, a lookalike audience, or a saved audience.
Click on “custom audience” for making retargeting ad campaigns.
Step 3: Choose “Website traffic” to retarget audiences who have visited your website searching for a product, service, or just more information.
Step 4: Now create a pixel that will guide Facebook towards a website you want to track visitors. Make sure to enter your website’s page in the text field.
Step 5: From here, you can choose the time frame that you want to target.
The default option is people who have visited your site in the last 30 days.
But, as you know, the actual conversion cycle is longer than 30 days, so go for the next higher level.
Step 6: After you click the “Create Audience” button, it’s complete!
Your first custom audience is ready for your retargeting campaign.
Now, you can view and add more such custom audiences as per your set goals.
Facebook Ad Retargeting Strategies to Convert Website Traffic
These strategies help you create a reminder for your custom audiences.
You can utilize them to drive immediate leads/sales for your business.
#1. The Apple Strategy for Product/Service Reminder Campaign
Nagging customers with Ads to ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Shop Now’ at the first instance of Facebook retargeting can put off customers.
It is better to reach out to the cold audiences with a product/service reminder ad just talking about the brand.
Instead of a product/service image or a GIF, go for a video ad to tell your brand story for higher engagement.
Those whose buying decisions were interrupted earlier will convert now immediately with it.
Now retarget the audiences who saved or engaged with your ad, focusing on conversions or lead generation.
#2. Back “Must-Have It” Strategy with Testimonial Ads that Emphasizes on Social Proof
Sometimes customers explore the product in detail on your website, yet they never add it to the cart.
The reasons could be many like their budget, better deals/offers, or better features with other competing products.
More than 80% of people who make online purchases check for reviews/testimonials on Google about the product.
Therefore, create Facebook retargeting ads that are testimonial Ads.
The above images are an example of testimonial ads.
You can either do short testimonials like Everlane, which is cleaner, easier to absorb, look smart, or go for a long one like Mott & Bow.
The goal is to reach the targeted audiences with a testimonial ad first and then retarget it with a ‘Must-Have It’ hook followed by a discount offer.
#3. Use the “We Miss You!” strategy
Such retargeting campaigns explicitly focus on connecting with users who have not visited/purchased from your site for a long time.
Depending upon your audience and business, you can design retargeting campaigns in this category for targeting customers three months after the last purchase, or more than that.
Use a big headline of “We miss you!” and combine it with an exciting offer to get them back to your website.
#4. “Limited Period Offer”/”Free Shipping” Strategy
This strategy works well for those who need just a little more push to make that final shopping call.
Customers add items to their wish-list or shopping cart but do not make the transactions.
You can retarget them with an ad campaign targeting days 5-8 from your site’s last visit.
Get them back with a “Limited Period” offer or a ” Free Shipping” offer to encourage them to shop.
#5. “Did You Forget Something” Strategy
Cart abandonment is a big issue that affects e-commerce businesses worldwide.
It is more than 75%, and shoppers are high potential customers.
There could be any reason for it like they selected a product but forgot to click payment options. They could have found a better offer or they got distracted. More issues related to budget and expecting discounts could be the reasons as well.
If you have a “view cart” option on your site, use it for custom audience setting to target these customers.
Remind them about the items on the cart by giving them free shipping, or coupon codes, or discount offers to get them back to your website and close the deal.
Conclusion
Now that you know about the importance of retargeting ads, you can start creating your custom audiences.
Begin the retargeting campaign using some of the strategies, I mentioned above and check what resonates with your audience. Until you test, you will never know how to optimize it better and get your ads to perform better.
I have personally utilized reminder campaigns and testimonial ads for some of my clients and I have seen great results.
Test it out, and let me know your experience.
If you need any help with Facebook ads or social media strategy, feel free to get in touch with me for a quote!