Retargeting best practises

Discussions
#1

I am interested in trying retargeting (aka cyberstalking). I have some questions for those who have already tried it.

  1. Was the ROI worthwhile? How do you know that the retargeted customers wouldn’t have purchased anyway?

  2. What provider did you use: adroll.com , perfectaudience.com, Google or someone else? (IIRC @robwalling recommended perfectaudience.com at microconf Europe last year).

  3. Do you show your ads to everyone who visits your site, or only certain pages? Do you vary the approach and/or ad depending on the page?

  4. When do you stop showing the ad. When they buy? Can you put your “Don’t show ads to this customer” script on a third party web page (e.g. your payment processor ‘thank you’ page) or does it have to be a page on your own site?

  5. Did you create the ad graphics yourself, or pay a designer?

  6. Have you had many complaints from customers about ‘cyberstalking’.

#2

Was the ROI worthwhile? How do you know that the retargeted customers wouldn’t have purchased anyway?

Best ROI of any advertising I spend, though it should be since people are already warm to your brand/name.

What provider did you use: adroll.com , perfectaudience.com, Google or someone else? (IIRC @robwalling recommended perfectaudience.com at microconf Europe last year).

I tried adroll, Google, perfectaudience and remarketer.com and perfect audience worked better for me than the others. Perfectaudience uses multiple networks such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook, etc… whereas Google only uses Google’s network.

Do you show your ads to everyone who visits your site, or only certain pages? Do you vary the approach and/or ad depending on the page?

Everyone who visits as long as they don’t login or sign up for a trial. For a certain # of days after they visit, between 30 and 90 depending on results. I don’t vary the ad, but you could. It would be too much time for me to manage different ads for different pages.

When do you stop showing the ad. When they buy? Can you put your “Don’t show ads to this customer” script on a third party web page (e.g. your payment processor ‘thank you’ page) or does it have to be a page on your own site?

I stop showing when they sign up for a trial. I don’t know if you can put it on a third party site - I would email support@perfectaudience.com and ask.

Did you create the ad graphics yourself, or pay a designer?

Paid a designer for both web and facebook retargeting.

Have you had many complaints from customers about ‘cyberstalking’.

Not one.

#3

Rob,

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Why do you stop retargeting them once they start the trial? Aren’t the ones doing the trial (particularly the ones who started the trial and then got distracted) the ‘hottest’ prospects and therefore the ones most worth pursuing?

#4

For those, I already have their email so I contact them directly rather than pay for ads that they may or may not notice.

Since you have a downloadable trial and looks like you don’t ask for email in advance of the download, you would definitely want to retarget them, and that’s where I would consider using a different ad than someone who hasn’t downloaded your trial version.

1 Like
#5

That makes sense. Thanks.

I have considered asking for an email before downloading the trial and then sending them drip emails using www.getdrip.com or similar . It is on my wishlist to A/B test this one day. Some interesting numbers on an A/B test of this here:
http://www.alwinhoogerdijk.com/2010/03/31/mandatory-sign-up-for-the-free-trial/

#6

I know that the company I currently work full-time for are huge proponents of retargeting. They do have a team of SEM and SEO experts in house though - but then I guess it must work!

Certainly I was retargeted plenty when I checked out the site in advance of my interview!

#7

I published the results of my retargeting experiment here:

TL;DR Didn’t work for me.

#8

From a customer point of view, I find retargeting very creepy and stupid.

I bought an air ticket once. For the next month, every single £$%^ website started showing me ads for air tickets.

I bought car insurance, and suddenly everyone was showing me ads for insurance.

It’s clear I was being stalked, and made me less likely to click on the ad and buy anything from that company.

The only thing it accomplished was making me discover ad block.