How to Use Remarketing Strategies in Holidays for Better Sales?

The Peak Shopping Period for retail sales and for businesses of every measure Is the Holiday Season.

Yes, don’t believe my words….checkout the stat below for more clarity—Digitalcommerce360 found a 45.2% YoY growth in eCommerce sales in the USA only.

This clearly shows that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, people aren’t refraining from shopping. Hahaha….Shopping remains constant every time…

But do you know—75% of customers don’t complete their purchase after adding the product to their cart? You’ll be like—What??? Quite unfortunate but true…Which clearly means a loss of sales. 🥲

Reports say that abandoned carts cost $18 Billion to eCommerce businesses every year. Still, the best part is, there are still a lot of ways in which you can easily recover those abandoned carts. Out of them, one of the best methods is Remarketing; and also the topic of our article today.

Undoubtedly…let’s checkout the specifics then—

What’s Here…to Debunk….???

So that’s all for the structure of this article, we would detail you all alluring strategies for your upcoming holiday remarketing strategy.

But first, we’ll start with the basics.

What Is Holiday Remarketing?

That’s where things start to get a little murky and there is some concept overlap. Often people get confused about Remarketing and consider it another name for Retargeting (even though it actually is different).

Remarketing is focused on email campaigns and contacting those with whom you’ve already dealt, enabling more targeted upselling and message whereas, Retargeting emphasizes paid advertisements (and can take many forms, and target a large range of individuals).

The idea of holiday remarketing is to bring users back to your website or app in the holiday season again and complete the action you want them to.

Google’s Remarketing Tools are a good illustration of this. Actually, they are all retargeting tools in the traditional sense.

Remarketing and Retargeting’s Vague Lines--Email was viewed as a separate entity, and sponsored media usage was limited to top-of-funnel targeting and retargeting based on website behaviors.

However, in recent years, these two have come to be used somewhat interchangeably.

So, the question arises—How can you remarket your business.? Simple, the promotion and marketing. You can display your remarketing ads on other websites and apps to remind users to complete their actions.

8 Advanced Remarketing Strategies for Better Holiday Sales

Well, there are several remarketing strategies that can push your holiday sales. But I’ve mentioned some of the most effective ones here.

So here are they:

1. Run Action Based Remarketing

Remarketing needs to be targeted. Every user is different and has different requirements. Keeping all of them under the same umbrella and retargeting them with similar ads wouldn’t be effective.

Like some visitors must be looking for some knowledgeable content. While others may need some products as a solution to their problem. So the best thing you can do is to display remarketing ads based on their actions. Like if a user visits and spends some time on a product page, only then retarget him with ads. But if a user visited only your blog posts and left the website, don’t go after him.

For this, you need to create a custom audience in your ad manager. In Facebook Ads Manager, you can do this by following these steps–

• Navigate to your Facebook Ads Manager from your Facebook account.
• From there, navigate to Audiences
• Then click on the drop-down and select Custom Audience
• After that, you need to select the criteria for how you’d filter the audience for retargeting
• Let’s say you choose traffic as a filter
• Enter the page URL you want to run the remarketing ads for. Like you’re running a sale for a product and want people to buy them. So enter the link of that product page.
• Then you need to set the frequency of visits, like how many times a user should visit the product page to see the retargeting ads. Let’s say if a user visits that product page 3 times, it shows he’s interested in that product and your remarketing ads are more likely to convert him.

And you’re done.

Now if a user visits that product page 3 times, he’ll start receiving your ads and will come back to complete his purchase.

2. Identify Right Time for Retargeting

With retargeting, you need to make sure the users see your ad. Otherwise, what’s the point of spending money on it? Hence, you need to schedule your ads in a way so that nobody misses it.

But before creating an ad schedule, you must know what’s the perfect time to retarget your audience . So first identify when you should retarget users with ads. Because if you show them ads the next second they exit your website, it will start bothering them.

Give them 1-2 hours of time or even more and then show them remarketing ads. Another thing you can do is to create a common schedule according to your website’s visit frequency.

You can use google analytics to check what days and hours of the week get the most engagement. To check this, you can simply go to the Homepage of your Google Analytics and there you’ll see it.

Once you identify the best slot, you can schedule your remarketing ads for this time. This post by Google on ad scheduling digs deep into the topic. You can check it to know more.

3. Prepare Ads Prior to Holiday Season

It’s a basic one, but many brands are missing out on this.

They create their ads at the 11th hour. You should avoid doing this and start preparing your remarketing ads before the holiday season begins.

With this strategy, you won’t burn yourself out at the last minute. And you’ll have all the required assets in your hand and know how you’ll retarget the customers.

Just create a list of all the holidays you will target. Write what you’ll offer on these days whether it’s a discount, free shipping, cashback, free products, etc.

The more you’re prepared, the easier it will be to execute your remarketing tactics.

4. Gather User Data to Personalize Your Ads

Data is the new currency. Brands are using user data for a long time to offer a better experience.

You need to do the same this holiday season. Try to collect the information of the users. Don’t just limit the emails. Ask things like their birthday, marital status, location, interests, etc.

This will help you create ads that resonate with their interests. And if they see a personalized ad, they’re more likely to click it and shop.

5. Target Cart Abandoners to Bring Them Back

Abandoned Carts are the biggest issue for every online business. According to Statista, the abandoned cart rate in 2019 was almost 70%.

But remarketing is a wonder drug for abandoned carts. Nothing beats remarketing when it’s about abandoned cart recovery. The festive season is a time when most orders are placed. And if there are more orders, there’ll be more abandoned carts.

So target those cart abandoners and bring them back via your remarketing ads.

6. Identify and Target the Best Ad Channels

Among all holiday remarketing strategies, this comes to be an important one. There are many channels out there that help you connect with your target market. You can target these channels to remarket users and drive them towards your store.

However, each channel has a different user base and it may not work like other channels. So, you need to choose wisely which channels you’re going to show your ads on. Here’s a quick rundown for every channel–

• AdWords work well for local businesses promotion, but it may not suit you if you run an advocacy or charity organization
• Facebook is good for eCommerce businesses but cannot work well for local service businesses
• LinkedIn ads can be good for agencies and consultants but not for B2C businesses

So analyze all such channels and then select what’s best for your business.

7. The Frequency Capping, Adjustments

With frequency capping, you can decide how many times a user will see your ads in a day. If you don’t want to bother users with your ads, include this in your remarketing strategies list.

Here’s an example, if you set the frequency capping to 3, then the user will see your Google Ads 3 times in a day.

We can’t say that there’s a perfect frequency that works best. It can vary as per your remarketing campaign, goals, and inventory. But many marketers say that setting a cap to 5-6 impressions a day can be good practice.

If you’re not sure how often your ads should be displayed, you can select the option Let Google decide.

8. Indulge in Testing

The sustainability of your remarketing campaign hinges on how well your landing pages perform. One of the best methods for optimizing your landing page is A/B Testing.

By employing this strategy, you may create two landing pages that, aside from that one point, are remarkably similar. Maybe you edit the language or color palette, add a special video or image, or simply modify the design of one.

Benefits Out of Holiday Remarketing Strategies

A. Improves Conversions

The most obvious benefit of remarketing.

Boosting conversions is the reason why remarketing is done. When you show users your remarketing ads, they come back with more determination to complete the purchase.

For example, I was searching for some football studs a few days back on Amazon. I looked at some, but then dropped the plan of buying it. But then they started showing me remarketing ads of the same studs on one of my mobile apps. As a result, I clicked the ad and bought them.

B. Improves Brand Credibility With Relevant Ads

When you choose the right channel and segment your remarketing ads according to the audience, you make sure that they receive a personalized experience. They’ll see what interests them and they can connect with each other at a personal level. And when this happens, they trust your brand since you understand their needs.

C. Easy Recovery of Lost Sales

You can ask anyone who isn’t a PPC expert and s/he will tell you that the best benefit of remarketing is the recovery of lost sales.

Website visitors who are remarketed with display ads are 70% more likely to convert.

A remarketing strategy gives you another chance to bring those customers who didn’t complete their purchase on the first visit. And if you just don’t annoy your users with your remarketing ads, you have a high chance of recovering all the revenue that could’ve been lost.

D. Strengthens Your Brand’s Image

To rock in the business market, you need the audience’s trust. And remarketing helps you gain that trust. Let me tell you how. When you create your remarketing ads, you try to personalize them according to the user. And personalization enhances the user experience to a great extent.

According to Epsilon, when brands provide personalized experiences, 80 percent of customers are more likely to make a purchase. And another report from Instapage says non-personalized content irritates 74% of customers. You see how impactful personalization can be? So when you display personalized retargeting ads to users, they’ll trust your brand which will strengthen your brand image and make it more credible.

This isn’t a direct way but it makes sense.

You compare how well each page performs over a specified period of time. The variant that generated the most clicks or conversions is then identified.

Let’s learn about performance tracking now…..as reviewing the response out of your campaigning is also essential.

How to Track the Performance of Your Holiday Remarketing Campaign???

To track and measure the performance of your remarketing campaigns, you need to keep an eye on some metrics. Here are those metrics:

I. Returning Visitors

The objective of remarketing is to bring users back to your website or app. Hence, tracking the returning visits becomes crucial to track the performance of your remarketing campaigns.

II. Conversion Rate

Another objective that’s even bigger than returning visitors is conversion rate. When you run retargeting ads, you expect some conversion. So you need to keep an eye on the conversion rate once you start running your remaining campaigns.

Source- StartupBonsai

If your conversion graph goes up after your remarketing campaigns, you’re going good. But if there’s no movement in your conversion, you should optimize your campaigns.

III. Abandoned Cart Rate

Remarketing ads can be a great help to diminish abandoned cart rates. When you retarget users with your ads, they come back to your site to complete their purchase. This helps you lower the cart abandonment on your website.

So abandoned cart rate is a significant KPI that shows how your remarketing campaigns are performing.

IV. Email Open Rate

If you retarget users through emails, your email open rates will see a raise. So it is crucial to track them to understand if the users are engaging with your campaign or not.

If they don’t open your remarketing emails, you need to change your email remarketing strategies.

V. Email Click-through Rate

Obviously, if your remarketing email contains a link to the products, they’ll click on it to purchase them.

This will increase your email CTR. So email click-through rate also becomes a vital metric to track your remarketing campaigns performance.

VI. Email Unsubscribe Rate

The last thing you want is people unsubscribing to your emails. And if your email unsubscribe rate is still going up after running remarketing email campaigns, you need to tweak your email remarketing strategies.

So always keep an eye on the email unsubscribe rate to check whether your remarketing strategy is working fine.

Some Holiday Remarketing Mistakes To Avoid

Just like the strategies, mistakes are also something you should know about. So here are some holiday remarketing mistakes you must avoid while creating your eCommerce remarketing strategies for the holiday season.

1. Including Fresh Audience in Your Strategy

Remember, remarketing costs MONEY. And you can’t waste it on an audience which has fewer chances of conversions.

So make sure the audience you’re targeting is one which is somehow familiar with your offerings. This is because converting existing users is easier than converting new ones.

For example, if you are showing me ads of a product I don’t know anything about, I’ll ignore them. So make sure your remarketing campaign targets an audience that is a bit familiar with your brand. Don’t make it a fresh experience for them.

2. Overlooked Bids, Not Actually Monitoring Them

The amount advertisers are willing to pay per click is CPC bid.

In the holiday season, you need to closely monitor your bids. This’ll help you make sure that your ads are not paused because of your bid cap. Monitoring your bids will help you make sure that you’re not bidding less or more, which can affect your ad ranking or exhaust your marketing campaign budget.

3. Sticking to That Old Technique

You can set the duration of your remarketing list. But here, you need to take care that you don’t set it for an eternity.

Like if a group of people visited a product page, let’s assume denims. If you’ve added a remarketing event snippet on that page, they’ll be added to that remarketing list.

If the maximum duration of that list is 240 days, they’ll see similar Google ads for 8 months. That would be painful😖. So make sure you don’t use a similar remarketing list for a long time in your remarketing campaigns.

4. Irregular TAG Implementation

If the developers say they’ve implemented the tags properly on your site, cross-check once since this is something where many marketers fall short. If your tags are not implemented correctly, your remarketing audience will not populate.

And Google AdWords won’t count the conversions accurately. So make sure the tags are implemented in the right manner.

5. Neglecting Placement Exclusions

Nobody would notice your company’s banner if you hung it on a deserted street.

Placement exclusion is something that. It helps you exclude those locations that aren’t fruitful for your retargeting ads. Like wouldn’t want to show your retargeting ads on spammed websites. With placement exclusion, you can exclude such locations.

If you’re planning your holiday remarketing strategies and neglecting placement exclusions, you’ll end up squandering. So make sure you exclude unnecessary domains. This won’t just increase the relevancy of your ads, but also reduce the cost you’re spending on it.

6. Utilizing Geographic Targeting, That Too Aimlessly

As I said earlier, you cannot keep every user under the same umbrella while targeting them. And this becomes more important if your business operates across the globe. Since every country has its own culture and different approach.

Hence, if you want to target customers all over the world, you need to make sure every user connects with your ads. But many businesses fail here since they target users from different locations with similar ads. This is the thing you need to focus on.

If you’re targeting users from different regions, create personalized content, ad creatives according to their location so they can relate to it. Read this post by Google to know more about Geographic targeting in Google Ads.

Over to You, Now…

Let’s admit it, during the festivities, individuals normally go bonkers. Your CPCs will rise, but so will your click-through rates, and even if your CPCs have risen, your cost per action ought to decline. People are looking for deals like crazy at the moment. Brands are ready to comply and toss offers around.

Everyone shops like crazy in the holiday season. But as people shop more, they abandon more carts.

This leaves you with so much recoverable revenue. And if you recover just a tiny fraction of it, you can see exceptional benefits. I’ve shared above some advanced remarketing strategies for eCommerce businesses. I won’t say they’ll do magic overnight, but it will make things better.

Any other remarketing strategies you know or follow? Let me know in the comments.