Just because you have an online retail store, it doesn’t guarantee that you will generate purchases or have repeat customers, even though there are numerous benefits for consumers in terms of accessibility, choice, and value for money.
In this post, we will cover the strategies that help drive sales by repeatedly bringing consumers back to your online store. We will discuss various topics such as audience segmentation, optimization of shopping carts and landing pages, cross-selling and upselling, and incentive strategies.
We will also discover the crucial customer pain points that can be leveraged to influence their behavior and convert them into devoted brand supporters.
For those of you who may not be familiar with remarketing, and maybe have recently learned about it, we will provide a brief explanation of what remarketing is and its crucial importance to online businesses.
Remarketing
Can you explain what remarketing is and how to develop a effective strategy? According to Wikipedia, remarketing is a method of targeted online advertising that focuses on consumers’ previous actions on the internet.
To put it simply, remarketing involves using various tools to reconnect with customers based on their prior interactions with your brand. However, let’s move away from party comparisons and dull explanations. To emphasize the significance of an effective remarketing strategy, here are the five key business facts about remarketing:
- Remarketing is a driver of 62% for shopping’s, 39% for food and drinks’ and 24% of lifestyle’s total conversions – SocialMediaToday.
- Staggering 91% of marketers state that remarketing performs better or equal to other channels like search or e-mail – according to IAB poll.
- The percentage of users who have abandoned their carts and then made a purchase can increase from 8 to up to 26% using remarketing – according to WIshpond.
- 30% of customers have a positive or very positive attitude towards remarketing ads – according to a poll from emarketer.
- Retargeted visitors are 70% more likely to convert – invesp.
Remarketing strategies
1. Identify the best performing Google Ads keywords or Facebook audiences and retarget them using a combination of channels
If you own an e-commerce store selling sneakers, consider that the Facebook audience known as “Sneakerheads” provides a return on ad spend (ROAS) that is double that of your second-best paid audience.
To ensure that customers from this audience come across your offer and become familiar with your brand, you can follow these steps: create a custom audience by attaching a unique utm_campaign to users within those audiences, and allocate additional budget to specifically retarget them.
Consider creating a remarketing audience on Google Ads or any other paid channel you use, in addition to Facebook.
It is not possible to determine the frequency of your ads for an individual user across platforms. To prevent being penalized for surpassing the frequency limit, it would be advisable to distribute a large retargeting budget across various channels.
By utilizing a proper tagging convention, you can effectively retarget B2B customers. This means you can specifically focus on remarketing to users who have visited your website through costly Google Ads Search keywords or LinkedIn Ads (which can be very expensive).
A positive aspect is that after they have visited your website, you have the opportunity to retarget them through more cost-effective advertising platforms such as Display or social media. This enables you to target the most expensive audiences through remarketing, somewhat resembling a gamble.
To achieve a well-planned, reliable conversion tracking, you have the option to utilize our URL builder or develop your own method.
2. Cross-sell and up-sell using paid ads and emails
It doesn’t make any sense that most e-commerce businesses would end their paid activity once a user has made a purchase.
The “foot in the door” marketing psychology principle suggests that selling to someone becomes easier after they have completed their first transaction. It is generally not effective to target users immediately after they make a purchase. To make the best decision, it is recommended to analyze the actual user data.
By employing a step-by-step thought process, attempt to detect cohorts of users who are significantly less inclined to make another purchase (such as individuals who haven’t made a second purchase in the past 100 days), and subsequently utilize email or paid advertisements to exclusively target them for remarketing purposes.
When considering the order of actions, it is possible to identify a moment when a purchase is more likely. For instance, returning users tend to make another purchase after 27 days. On this specific day, one strategy to employ is to send a trigger through email containing a list of the week’s bestsellers.
The tests that can be conducted with this remarketing strategy are virtually limitless, as you can see from the information provided above.
3. Use paid acquisition funnels
You should not plan to get engaged on a first date. You should not suddenly decide to become a marathon runner after watching a short video on YouTube. You should not immediately sell your house, quit your job, and relocate to Hawaii after having one argument with your boss.
The more time it takes, the more effort it may require. Additionally, the greater the risk or price, the more difficult it becomes to reach a decision.
If you are in a business where switching or integrating new providers is difficult, do not finalize the deal immediately. By doing this, you will only attract customers who are already certain or in a hurry. As a result, you will miss out on a significant amount of money.
When considering each step, individuals who could be involved in the process need to be identified, without adding or removing any information. Generally, the number of decision-makers involved increases as the conversion brings higher value or pain. These individuals could include, for instance, family members (in the case of a car sales company) or a trio consisting of a growth specialist, a marketing manager, and a CFO (in the case of a marketing SaaS startup).
Take the time to consider and outline the fears and objections that individuals may have at various stages in the acquisition process, and create corresponding content for each of these concerns.
Segmenting audiences by their stage in the funnel, assign specific content types such as quick videos or short written content for Awareness, in-depth e-books for Consideration, and well-crafted Landing Pages for Conversion.
To prevent users from leaving your funnel, utilize paid remarketing and marketing automation. Address any objections each persona may have for each content and stage, while maintaining a non-salesy tone. This will simplify your life and keep users engaged.
One possible representation of a paid funnel can be this:
- Awareness videos distributed via Facebook
- Users who saw 75% of one of the videos receive a Facebook ad leading to one of the blog posts answering purchase objections
- Users who spend 20 seconds on that content and scrolled 50% of it, receive an ad on Google, Facebook & Twitter leading to a Sales Page
By following the steps carefully, you will be able to not only expand your acquisition efforts but also enhance the average volume order. Additionally, this approach can alleviate some work for the sales team as prospects will be more engaged before entering the CRM system.
4. Tackling cart abandonment
If you are new to online retail, you will quickly realize that cart abandonment is a significant issue. It is surprising to see the number of individuals who abandon their virtual shopping carts without making a purchase. According to a survey, the average rate of cart abandonment falls just below 70%.
Using Google Analytics, you can employ remarketing to greatly decrease cart abandonment rates by monitoring page visits.
By following a step-by-step approach, you can gain insights into the number of users who progress to the checkout stage but do not ultimately reach the purchase completion page. This data can also be used to track the specific products that shoppers add to their carts, providing an opportunity to create remarketing campaigns targeting these items.
One option is to give them a small discount to motivate them to return and finish the purchase. Another option is to remind them in a polite manner that their product is still available and waiting for them.
5. Audience segmentation
When it comes to retail, comprehending the various aspects of your customer base is consistently essential.
Customer segmentation can be extremely useful in this situation. Each customer is unique, so it’s crucial to have a detailed strategy for targeting them effectively. It is essential to ensure that ads are tailored to the interests of customers; otherwise, they will be ineffective.
Users vary in terms of their level of purchase intent. Certain individuals may quickly leave your site without further exploration, while others may visit multiple pages. Some potential customers might only view a single product page, whereas others may go as far as adding items to their cart before ultimately abandoning them.
By comprehending this concept, you can identify the specific segments to focus on and determine the appropriate approach. Visitors who quickly exit your website are not a priority, whereas those who initiate a purchase but do not complete it are clearly important.
6. Target existing customers
As previously mentioned, to ensure long-term success for your business, it is crucial to attract repeat consumers. Therefore, you should consider the strategy to convert first-time customers into loyal ones. Although acquiring new customers is important, it is a costly endeavor as it requires more resources compared to retaining existing customers.
There are several methods you can use to ensure that existing customers will return in the future. Some of these methods may include:
- Rebuying – encouraging customers to buy products they’ve bought in the past,
- Reinviting – enticing past customers back to your business,
- or cross-selling – inviting customers to buy products related to other purchases,
- Loyalty campaigns offering unique discounts and offers can also be very effective.
7. Use remarketing traffic to drive email signups
We have previously emphasized the significance of post-purchase emails in effectively engaging with customers.
When considering email marketing, it is important to remember that bombarding consumers with emails is not ideal. However, if there are enticing incentives for signing up such as exclusive offers, updates on new products, or informative content, people will generally find it valuable and worthwhile.
By using your remarketing traffic, you can attract additional individuals to subscribe to your email list. With the appropriate keywords, Google Ads can be utilized to advertise your email content and motivate individuals to register. Consequently, you can develop more detailed lists that advertise content customized to their specific requirements, effectively increasing conversions and value.
