Hey everyone! I can’t stand all these articles talking about the downsides of remarketing. It seems like advertisers who are afraid of it either aren’t using it correctly or don’t grasp how effective it can be.
At nexus-security, we’ve been using remarketing since 2012, and last year, we spent over $500,000 on these ads alone. The reason? It works incredibly well! If you’re hesitant to give it a shot, I’m going to give you a nudge in the right direction. Here are 10 facts about remarketing that will make you reconsider your whole PPC marketing approach.
1. Remarketing Conversion Rates Go Up Over Time
Some people believe you should be very cautious with how often you show remarketing ads and how long you keep people on your lists, thinking it might annoy potential customers. They’re mistaken. This isn’t the case with remarketing.
We’ve observed that the more times users encounter an ad within remarketing campaigns, the higher the conversion rates climb. It’s true that click-through rates decline over time, but the people who do click on your ad after seeing it a few times become twice as likely to convert! It’s important to remember that people lead busy lives and have other things going on. Remarketing acts as a gentle reminder to finish what they started on your website. It also reinforces your brand messaging each time they see your ad. They become familiar with your brand and develop trust. When they finally have a moment, they’re more inclined to do business with you. And if you utilize a tool like our free Smart Ads Creator, you can create top-notch display ads that not only effectively represent your brand but also encourage engagement.
2. The Entire “Creep Factor” Argument Against Remarketing is Exaggerated
Another reason I dismiss concerns about remarketing feeling “creepy” is the idea of ad fatigue. If your prospects were truly creeped out by your ads, you’d expect them to just ignore them, right? And they certainly wouldn’t click on them if they were annoyed by them. So, a simple way to test the validity of this claim is to analyze ad fatigue. Ad fatigue refers to the idea that the more someone sees an ad, the less likely they are to click on it because they get tired of seeing the same thing repeatedly. If users find your ads bothersome, the fatigue should set in faster. I examined thousands of display ads to compare how ad fatigue affected remarketing ads versus non-remarketing ads (like Managed Placements, Keyword Targeting, In-Market Segments, etc.). Guess what I found? Those “creepy” remarketing ads fatigued at half the rate of regular targeted display ads:
So, if remarketing ads are truly “creepy,” why do people remain interested in them for twice as long as regular display ads? And why do they convert at increasingly higher rates with each additional view? Perhaps the “creep factor” argument is baseless, especially since none of the articles warning against it provide any data to support their claims! Remember, you can always rotate multiple display ads within your remarketing campaigns to make them more useful and engaging.
3. Facebook and Google Display Network Provide the Widest Reach
Where can you get the most out of your remarketing budget? Currently, the Google Display Network and Facebook offer the most extensive reach for your campaigns. GDN reaches a staggering 90% of internet users globally, with 65% reached daily. Over a trillion impressions are served to more than a billion users each month (source: Google). Facebook boasts over 1.4 billion users, with more than a billion logging in yesterday (source: Facebook). I always recommend running remarketing ads on both GDN and Facebook, as I’ve found both to be incredibly effective.
4. Remarketing is Extremely Powerful for Building Your Brand
You all know I’m passionate about search ads and organic search, but they both share a minor drawback. It’s challenging to establish a strong brand using concise text ads and organic search listings. They offer limited character space and lack support for logos and other visual elements marketers typically use for branding.
Display remarketing is an excellent way to build your brand because image ads offer so much more creative freedom. You can create visuals that resonate with your audience and make them remember you. I realized this a few years ago when I noticed most of our site traffic came from non-branded organic searches. These visitors didn’t convert, left our site, and never returned. We were great at attracting visitors but terrible at making them remember us. That’s where remarketing came in.
Our remarketing campaigns for our PPC Grader were quite bold, aiming to persuade people to try it out. The impact is evident in the graph above, using direct traffic as a measure of branded searches. Within just 18 months, remarketing helped us achieve a 50% increase in returning visitors, a 51% conversion boost, and an incredible 300% increase in time spent on site! Remarketing helped make our SEO 7x more awesome by keeping us visible to interested consumers and encouraging them to take action.
5. Remarketing is an Incredibly Powerful CRO Tool
The traditional marketing funnel concept is outdated when it comes to CRO. You no longer have to follow a rigid path from impressions to clicks to conversions, losing people along the way due to ineffective landing pages. The funnel is an outdated desktop-era concept, and we’ve moved past that. Today, consumers can enter your funnel at any stage. It’s more like a river now, with customers flowing in from various points. And thanks to remarketing, they never truly leave.
By leveraging remarketing and innovative ad formats, you can cut out sections of the funnel entirely!
6. Quality Score Matters on Both GDN and Facebook
Repeat after me: I will not prioritize ineffective low click-through rate strategies.
Trying to make your remarketing ads unattractive to discourage clicks in hopes of getting “free impressions” is detrimental to your Quality Score. This leads to fewer impressions and higher costs for the clicks you do receive. How crucial is this? Consider this:
On the Google Display Network, every 0.1% increase in CTR results in a 20% decrease in CPC! The opposite also holds true—decreased CTR equals increased CPC, which is not good. Quality Score (or “Relevance Score” as Facebook calls it) is even more critical on Facebook! A 1% rise in Post Engagement (likes, comments, or clicks on your promoted posts) typically translates to a 5% reduction in cost per engagement:
You could be paying as little as a fraction of a cent per click, or over $5.00 for promoting low-engagement posts. Striving for low CTRs is a poor PPC strategy in general, and this applies even more to display and social remarketing. Don’t do it. Instead, leverage your knowledge of Quality Score and focus on crafting compelling and clickable remarketing ads targeted at the right audience. These ads will generate better conversions at a much lower cost. Remember that images significantly outperform text ads. Google might even automatically transform your “text display ads” into “Richer Text” ads, which are essentially image ads.
7. Search Ads Have the Highest Conversion Rates, but Display Ads Are Catching Up
Search ads naturally boast higher conversion rates because of the strong commercial intent behind keyword searches. Just a few years ago, display ads weren’t as effective. However, thanks to advancements in remarketing and display and social ad targeting, they now convert almost on par with search ads—and even surpass them in certain industries. Here’s some data from a few hundred nexus-security clients (note: this is not official Google data):
Remarketing performs exceptionally well because past browsing behavior is a strong indicator of future purchase intent. You’re often targeting the same users who were initially searching for products or services on Google—just engaging them at a later stage.
8. Remarketing Clicks Are Surprisingly Affordable
In highly competitive industries, search ads can cost several dollars or more per click on average, with some keywords costing upwards of $50 per click. In contrast, display and social remarketing ad clicks can cost significantly less—anywhere from 2 to 100 times cheaper. Here’s some illustrative data from nexus-security clients:
While search ads might generally yield higher conversion rates compared to display/social remarketing, they also come with higher costs per click. If the higher conversion rate is counterbalanced by increased click prices, social/display remarketing could potentially deliver a higher ROI.
9. Remarketing Goes Beyond Display and Social Platforms
We’ve primarily focused on display and social remarketing, but there are other avenues to explore. RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) combines the power of search query intent with user context like location, device, and time of search. Layering browsing history on top of this creates an incredibly potent combination.
We’ve observed that RLSA campaigns, on average, generate twice the CTRs, have 50% lower CPCs, and convert at double the rate of regular search campaigns!
10. “Super Remarketing” on Facebook & Twitter Amplifies Remarketing’s Power
While I love remarketing, targeting everyone who visits your website isn’t always the most effective strategy. Just because someone shows interest in your offerings doesn’t necessarily mean they align with your ideal customer profile. (Can they even afford your product?) Typically, only around 2-4% of your remarketing audience will convert into leads and sales. So why not take it a step further and engage in Super-Remarketing, focusing solely on your target market? In essence, Super-Remarketing (a term I just coined) allows you to filter your remarketing audience based on numerous social media demographic factors (age, life events, job titles, etc.), as well as their recent purchase history and interests.
Currently, Super-Remarketing is only available on Twitter and Facebook’s ad platforms. However, its remarkable effectiveness suggests that Google will likely develop something similar soon.
Remarketing Should Prompt You to Re-evaluate Your Entire PPC Strategy
Remarketing is an indispensable tool for paid search, social media, and content marketers. It simply enhances everything. Never let potential customers slip away or forget about you. Embrace remarketing and watch it work wonders!