INTRODUCTION
On average, less than 3 percent of e-commerce website visits convert to a sale. Moreover, close to 70 percent of shoppers abandon their carts prior to purchase.
Retargeting (or remarketing) is a powerful way to show ads to people who have already visited your online store. If you are unfamiliar, retargeting ads essentially follow the customer around as they browse other sites. This can help keep your product top-of-mind and hopefully lead to more completed transactions.
Since Google and Facebook have the greatest reach, it makes sense to start on those platforms.
Following are some tips on how to use Facebook and Google retargeting ads to market products from your e-commerce store.
HOW TO USE RETARGETING ADS ON FACEBOOK
To get started, install the Facebook pixel on your e-commerce platform. Sites like Shopify or Ecwid make it easy to install the code, but you can add the pixel to any site. You also can use Google Tag Manager to help simplify the process.
Once installed, make sure to test the pixel to ensure it’s receiving data. From there, you can set up standard events, such as when a customer views your product page, when they add an item to their cart or when they complete a purchase.
You can then create custom audiences (and ads) based on these actions so you can retarget appropriately. For instance, you can design an ad aimed at people who added a specific product to their cart but failed to complete the purchase.
Go to Business Manager > All Tools > Audiences to create the custom audience. In this case, you would include individuals who added the product to their cart and exclude those who made it to the corresponding transaction confirmation page (usually a “Thank you” page).
After all, you wouldn’t want to push the same product to someone who already purchased it. Instead, you could encourage repeat business by showing those individuals ads for similar products you offer in your online store.
HOW TO USE GOOGLE REMARKETING ADS
Like Facebook, you’ll need to install code on your online store before using remarketing ads on Google. Add the Google Ads global site tag to every page of your website. Optional event snippets also are available to track certain actions such as product views and purchase completions.
From there you can create various remarketing lists within the Audience manager on Google Ads. For instance, you can create a list that includes people who viewed a specific product but did not add it to their cart.
Do this by selecting the specific tags you have set up, or create the lists based on page visits. In this example, you would choose “Visitors of a page” and “Match every rule group.” Then designate “contains” or “equals” and fill in the URL of the product page. Click “and” to create another parameter to exclude the cart. This time, choose “does not equal” before filling in the cart URL.
You may further refine the list by adding a specific time frame (e.g. people who viewed the product in the last 30 days) and a membership duration. Make sure to add a recognizable description before saving the audience.
Then you can launch a display campaign (using the saved audience) that matches their needs. Perhaps these shoppers didn’t add the item to their cart because they felt the price was too high. In response, you could retarget them with an ad that boasts a discount to help encourage them to move forward with the transaction.