Recently when discussing retargeting with business owners I have been hesitant to share statistics about just how good retargeting is…
…because the numbers are so good I wonder if they’ll be believed!
So I want to talk here about why retargeting has been so good for my clients and many others.
(If you don’t know, retargeting means showing your ads around the Internet to people who have visited your website, after they leave and go to other sites)
Here are are a few statistics compiled by CMO, the magazine of Adobe Software:
– Kimberly-Clark reports seeing 50-60% higher conversion rates among consumers it has retargeted.
– The average click-through rate for banner ads is 0.07%, but for retargeting it is 0.7% (My record is 7.8%).
– Comscore reported that those using retargeting saw searches for their brand name increase 1,046%.
How could retargeting be so effective?
Picture the last time you used your computer to shop for something… maybe a gift for the holidays, or a good lawyer, or a restaurant…
Where did you go first to look?
Did you make a Google search? Go to Yelp? Post on Facebook asking for advice from your friends? Head straight to Amazon?
How many websites did you visit during your search? 1? 3? 10? More?
How long did you take to look? 5 minutes? An hour? Several sessions over the course of a few weeks?
If you spent more than just a few minutes shopping, were you able to remember all the websites you visited?
Did you give them all equal thought and attention?
While you were shopping, were you distracted by an IM, an email, Facebook activity, or a real live person in the vicinity?
If you shopped for a long time, did you find yourself feeling overwhelmed with too many choices?
It is now the norm to look at more than just one vendor of the desired product or service, and to do so repeatedly over a period of several days.
This is true whether you are selling a product or a service, whether you are a small, medium or large business.
Consequently, Internet shoppers are distracted, overwhelmed, and quick to forget most of the websites they visit.
I’ll prove it to you: look at your browser history for the last week. If you’re like most people you see many hundreds or even thousands of web pages.
Do you remember all of them?
I bet you don’t.
I’ll bet you might even be surprised by just how many websites you’ve been to in just a week.
Are you starting to see why it is a massive advantage over your competition to be able to advertising to people for weeks after visiting your site? And to do so affordably?
Every retargeting ad makes the prospect more familiar with you and more aware of you. That awareness and familiarity makes the prospect more likely to buy from you or hire you.
It’s that simple.
That’s why Comscore found search activity increasing an average of 1,046% with retargeting: people became more aware of the brands using it and went to look for more information.
Here’s another way to look at it: if it’s worth it to bring qualified prospects to your website by spending money on any number of marketing channels- television, radio, and print ads, or SEO and Internet ads, or just to make a website at all- then isn’t worth spending just fractionally more to bring them back to your website?
You bet it is, whether your business is brick-and-mortar or not.
The question is not “how much more money can I make with retargeting?” The question is rather “how much money am I losing by not retargeting?”
