people hate retargeting

5 bad habits and how to fix them

Aaron Levy (@bigalittlea)

@bigalittlea

aaron levy

@seerinteractive

@SEERinteractive

@bigalittlea

i’m gonna start with a sad love story

@bigalittlea

i met a girl last month…

On The SERPs @zooeydeschanel

@bigalittlea

i called her the second i got home

@bigalittlea

but she didn’t answer!

@bigalittlea

so i called again

@bigalittlea

and again

@bigalittlea

and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again

@bigalittlea

then i called the next day 13 or 14 times

@bigalittlea

i went all the same places she did!

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea

i did this for 30 days straight

@bigalittlea

I keep leaving her messages!

but it didn’t work

@bigalittlea

uhhhh...

@bigalittlea

can’t imagine why that didn’t work…

@bigalittlea

so why do we do that to customers?

@bigalittlea

note: there is no possible way to take the creepy out of

retargeting

#1

@bigalittlea

it just keeps going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going and

going and going

@bigalittlea

the default cookie length for most retargeting providers is 30 days

@bigalittlea

the maximum cookie length in AdWords is 540 days (!!!!!)

@bigalittlea

how long should you chase the one that got away?

@bigalittlea

hint: you already have the data

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea

75% of conversions occurred within a day of the first visit (you’ll get

these guys anyway)

@bigalittlea

that leaves us with another 25% of people to bug

@bigalittlea

50% of latent conversions (88% of all conversions) occurred within 7

days of first touch

@bigalittlea

70% of latent conversions (>90% of all conversions) occurred within 14

days

@bigalittlea

how much money do you really want to spend to capture a few

additional stragglers?

@bigalittlea

#2

@bigalittlea

it burns bridges

@bigalittlea

how much money do you spend retargeting current

customers?

@bigalittlea

i opened an account a few weeks ago (interest rates, how shiny!)

@bigalittlea

i log into my account a few times a week to check on my billions*

*…hundreds

@bigalittlea

yet…

@bigalittlea

i already gave you my money

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea

tag converters (obviously)

@bigalittlea

tag login pages

@bigalittlea

better yet, tag log out pages

@bigalittlea

tag career opportunities

@bigalittlea

tag affiliate pages (if you have affiliates)

@bigalittlea

spend your money on people who are likely to spend their money

#3

@bigalittlea

use impression caps!!

@bigalittlea

use impression caps!!

#4

@bigalittlea

lets do a little math with your new frequency caps (15/day for this

example) and 14 day cookie window

you have one set of creative

@bigalittlea

a user will see the same ad 210 times

@bigalittlealoved these guys the first 264 times I saw ‘em

Y U NO MAKE NEW AD

@bigalittlea

please invest in creative development or else…

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea

keep your ads fresh

set up the same audience with different lengths. exclude the

shorter length audiences from the longer ones

@bigalittlea

@bigalittlea#5

@bigalittlea

the audience already knows a lot about you

@bigalittlea

are you telling them anything new?

@bigalittlea

don‘t just send your audience back where they came from

@bigalittlea

try sending people to retargeting specific landing

pages

@bigalittlea

and don’t you dare just recycle your paid search ads

@bigalittlea

#1: never ending#2: bothersome

#3: annoying#4: repetitive

#5: boring

@bigalittlea

#1: manage your cookie lengths#2: cut out current customers#3: don’t be a broken record#4: invest in image assets

#5: tell a new story

@bigalittlea

users becoming conditioned to abandon the cart for discounts

@bigalittlea

are giving 20% off to someone who would purchase anyway?

@bigalittlea

are you getting new conversions or paying for the old ones?