You probably recognise this: you're looking for a new bike and are scouring the internet. Will it be a granny bike or an electric rascal? A few days later, you see an ad on Facebook from a bike shop near you. Aha! It is no accident that you get this advertisement shoved under your nose. This phenomenon is in fact called Facebook remarketing. And indeed: it often works. Sometimes you decide to make an online purchase or you are tempted to pop into the bike shop the next time you pass by. Read on about Facebook remarketing, which target groups it appeals to and what is important when you start using it.
What is Facebook Remarketing?
With a remarketing campaign, you reach only the people who have already interacted with your website or social media channels. They just haven't taken any action and through remarketing, you can still convince them to book or reserve with you. Important to know: only a fraction of people go on their first visit to a website already reservation or booking. Why someone hasn't done this yet could be due to several reasons. Perhaps the timing is not right, the guest is still unsure about your offer or the attention is shifting to something else. Either way, the persuasion process is interrupted. However, in this marketing technique, the power of repetition plays a role. A retargeting ad is both a well-known pat on the back and a way of personalised advertising. Not only is it a good way to achieve a high ROI (return of investment) with advertising, with the right ads, you attract potential guests again. Even better: hopefully, this time you will persuade them to make a reservation.
Why is Remarketing important?
Through a remarketing campaign on Facebook, you can convince people with specific content to book anyway. This is because you know that these people are interested, but not yet convinced enough to take action. If you don't use remarketing, you will lose a large group of interested people. A shame! The interesting thing about remarketing campaigns is that you can segment in a targeted way. This is because you only show certain content to a specific target group. For example, you can focus on a target group that has visited an important page on your website. Say someone visits the menu page, you can retarget that person. And then show an ad with a zoomed-in picture of the food and a convincing text to make them make a reservation. For example, something along the lines of: 'Fancy these juicy spare ribs now? Book now'. After all, this potential guest is already familiar with your restaurant, concept or cuisine. All it takes is a little persuading but...
Is remarketing seen as a positive thing?
With remarketing, you give people that extra push. For example, you can show them reviews, blog posts, awards or sales-oriented ads. Sometimes these ads are a welcome reminder, but remarketing may also cause guests to actually abandon your brand. You can prevent this, for instance, by carefully controlling the frequency in which remarketing ads are served. Maybe the guest has already taken an action by now, or maybe remarketing fosters the feeling that you know too much about your guest. Yikes! So continuously adjusting your campaigns remains crucial in this.
Tip: don't go too long with your remarketing. You want to avoid breathing down someone's neck for weeks on end. This is because in remarketing, it is not always the case that the perseverer wins. So it's fair to say that remarketing is a real skill because you have to find the right balance between frequency, duration and personalisation.
How do you set up a remarketing campaign?
Thanks to remarketing, you can target different audiences. For example, you can create an audience in Facebook that has already visited your website. Or follows you on a specific social media channel. Other examples include people who have been on 1 particular page on your website or watched a video on Facebook. If you want to include the people who have been on your website in the remarketing funnel, you do need the Facebook pixel on your website. In fact, this pixel collects all kinds of important information about a visitor. What's next? Well, next you create in Facebook Audiences create a separate target group for your website visitors and visitors to your social media channels. When doing this, consider how far back in time you want to go. Do you want to target all followers from the past year or just from the past 30 days? Then now is the time to get into the Facebook Ads Manager create a separate campaign for those specific audiences.
Important: be sure to exclude the target groups you include in remarketing in attention-grabbing campaigns. After all, these campaigns are designed to reach new people. If you approach them via a remarketing campaign, you are missing the point. You won't trigger them with the right content.
A/B testing with Facebook remarketing
So, the target audiences have been determined. You also have the right content to target them and convince them to take action. Lastly, your budgets are set properly. Conclusion: retargeting campaigns should now start paying off. Sit back and relax. Or do you? The A/B testing of remarketing campaigns are very important. After all: with this marketing technique, guests can make reservations or end up at a competitor's. Therefore, it is important to use different photos and texts, for example, to see if you can boost the conversion rate. Try keeping the text on the posts very brief or switch between photos. Or offer a discount code. Measuring is knowing, so with testing you gather even more knowledge.
Interesting target groups to approach
These are some examples of potential audiences for remarketing:
- Visitors who viewed the contact page on your website
- People who signed up for the newsletter
- Guests who have looked at your website for more than 2 minutes
- Visitors who watched an inspiration video on your Facebook
- People who have liked a Facebook post of yours
- Visitors who have visited your website or Facebook page in the past 30 days
3 reasons why you should deploy Facebook remarketing
- You reach the target audience that has already interacted with your brand. Through retargeting, you can be a welcome reminder to them: 'Knock knock knock. Do you remember me? Can I tempt you to make a reservation this time?'
- You approach the target audience that wants to make a reservation somewhere, but does not yet know where. Remarketing allows you to get ahead of the competition: 'Hey, you there doubter. Something pulled your attention away last time. But luckily you can now book with us all the time...'
- You don't need a big ad budget for retargeting. That's because you are going to appeal to a specific target audience and many people fall outside that. This is because you are waving to the target audience that already knows you
Your turn now!
After reading this article, you might be eager to get started with Facebook remarketing yourself. Be sure to try it out! With some tinkering and then pulling your own learnings, you'll come a long way. In fact, being at the buttons yourself can give you good insights about your target audience. However, maybe this is still a step too far and you should take your Facebook Business Manager set up properly first. Through this ads manager after all, you manage all kinds of pages and ad accounts, including your retargeting campaigns. So this has to be absolutely right. A bit complicated? We'll help you out. From setting up your Facebook account to remarketing; you know where to find us...
