Monday, July 1, 2013

Google Remarketing Optimization Tips (Part 1)

So you’re excited that you’ve launched your Google Remarketing campaign and it’s generating conversions out of the gate, but now what? How do you go about optimizing the campaign to maximize results? Remarketing is not a “set it and forget it” type of campaign. Similar to Search campaigns, you’ll want to continue to optimize and test.

Looking for some tips to get started? Here are three best practices in no particular order; they are all equally important.

1. Ad Testing: You need to approach Google Remarketing ad testing with a slightly different mindset than traditional display advertising. Remember, these visitors are presumably more familiar with your brand as they’ve had some sort of interaction. Speak to your audience with this understanding. Test different messaging to try to win them back. Utilize all banner ad sizes in addition to text ads. When crafting your messaging, think about what pages the audience has already viewed. What can you say to them that will entice them enough to give you a second chance?

2. Landing Page Testing: Similar to Search campaigns, the experience from the ad to the landing page should function in a complementary fashion. If the messaging is disjointed, you’ll lose the visitor again. For instance, if your ad promises 10% off, be sure that messaging carries through front and center on the landing page. Experiment with landing your audience on different relevant pages to understand what messaging resonates best.

3. Offer Testing: Remember that you need to speak to this audience differently, so you’ll want to test a variety of offers. The generic type of offer will probably not appeal to these folks. Approach Remarketing offers with the mindset of “upping the ante”. What do you need to offer this audience to lead them further down the funnel?

Have you noticed the common theme in these tips? Test, test and then test some more. These tips will get you heading in the right direction, but there are many other tips to cover. In my upcoming posts, we’ll review additional optimization best practices so you’ll want to stay tuned.

What questions do you have about optimizing Remarketing campaigns?

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Image credit: Horia Varlan