When considering the digital marketing strategies available to your retail brand, it’s important to keep in mind that one of the best bets is to re-engage people who have already shown interest in your brand. To accomplish this, we often recommend remarketing and/or retargeting tactics.
These two digital marketing tactics may have some similarities, as well as key differences, but it’s crucial to understand both to see which fits your brand better.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing is the process of reaching out to current or past customers and re-engaging them with the purpose of incentivizing them to buy again based on their previous purchases or interactions with the brand.
Normally, this strategy is used through an email marketing campaign that highlights the customer’s past purchases, promotes certain products the customer will be enticed to buy, introduces new offerings, reminds the customer that they may have something in their cart and maybe even include a coupon to draw the customer to make a purchase again.
According to eMarketer, 81% of customers were at least somewhat likely to make more purchases after receiving these targeted emails through remarketing, and according to Campaign Monitor, segmented email campaigns drive a 760% increase in revenue.
Remarketing is extremely effective, with experts backing it up and a survey of 1000 marketing professionals done by Interactive Advertising Bureau confirming 91% of respondents agree that email marketing is at the same level or better than search marketing. In our experience with clients, we agree – it’s a strategy that gets results. In that way, we encourage brands and agencies to create a remarketing budget since, when done right, it drives more revenue.
What is Retargeting?
Retargeting is simply identifying people who have taken some action online (whether they visited your website, interacted on social media or have an interest in products similar to yours) and targeting them with digital ads.
Retargeting normally works by adding a pixel to a brand’s website that captures data about the people visiting the website and the actions they take (page visits, buttons clicked, etc.), and creates audience data that can later be targeted through social media ads.
According to ReTargeter, 2% of visitors convert during their first visit to a website, and that’s when retargeting enters the scene. Consumer goods company Kimberly-Clark sees a 50-60% conversion rate from retargeting, which shows us that retargeting leads to more conversions than first time visitors who are never engaged to visit the website again.
Consumers who see retargeted ads will buy from that brand 70% of the time, according to a report by Critero researchers, so you’re more likely to get amazing results.
What is the Difference between Remarketing and Retargeting?
On the surface, they aren’t that different. Both remarketing and retargeting are digital marketing strategies to nurture leads that have shown interest in a brand and lead them into a purchase funnel.
They both have the same goals – to target audiences who are aware of your brand and have shown interest in the past, re-engage an audience who is more likely to buy from your brand and build brand awareness that won’t fade with time.
Comparing Remarketing vs. Retargeting Tactics
Despite a lot of similarities, these two strategies require different digital marketing tools and tactics to achieve the same goals.
While retargeting primarily uses paid ads to re-engage audiences who have visited your brand’s website or social media, remarketing primarily focuses on email marketing to re-engage past customers and get them to buy again.
Which Strategy Works Best for Your Retail Brand?
As with most digital marketing campaigns, it really depends on the types of market segmentation that you’re using and what your long-term goals are. Shopper marketing agencies can help you sift through the goals and tactics that will have the biggest impact on your brand.
Here are a few considerations, we take into account every time:
If you want to focus on attracting new customers and drive more site traffic but you don’t have an email list of interested prospects, it’s better to go for retargeting.
However, if you want to focus on re-engaging past customers and you can utilize your existing list of contacts and emails without creating a budget for ads, then remarketing is for you.
To maximize results, you can even use both strategies and see which works better for you in the long run.
How to Get More ROI from Remarketing and Retargeting
Our clients quickly realized that, to get the best ROI from any marketing tactic, it’s best to partner with a retail marketing agency like Cliffedge Marketing. Our remarketing and retargeting specialists will outline the perfect digital marketing strategy for your brand so you can stay focused on your business.
