Remarketing Your Website Visitors with Google Display Ads

How many times have you gone to a business website and been ready to buy right then and there? Internet marketing is kind of like dating. When you meet someone for the first time, you aren’t ready to marry them yet. Consumer surveys have found that around 90% of website visitors are not prepared to buy the first time they visit a business website.

People who’ve visited your website for the first time or even the second or third time are at the top of your sales funnel. These leads coming in from Google search or elsewhere online need to be nurtured, coaxed, and convinced to purchase your products or services. Marketers can do this by touching base with people who visit your website through optimised remarketing campaigns.

Google display ads are one of the key ways to optimise a remarketing campaign for previous website visitors. So, how can you get started? It’s critical to understand how these display ads through Google work, and how you can use display ads to target people and nurture leads at the top of your sales funnel.

What’s at the heart of a remarketing campaign?

At its core, a remarketing campaign uses tactics to show ads to people who’ve already visited your business website, or your business’s mobile app. Remarketing tactics revolve around the understanding that viewers are rarely ready to make a purchase the first time they see your products and services and unique offerings. Plus, people are busy and modern, digital living is full of distractions. A potential customer can see your offering once and be compelled and intrigued by what they see, but they aren’t ready to buy just yet for whatever reason. Perhaps the copy didn’t’ convey a sense of urgency, or your viewer wanted more reassurance with testimonials before making a purchase.

Before you create ads for a remarketing campaign, it’s critical to understand who your ad is speaking to, where they are hanging out online, and what their main concerns and desires are. For businesses with a tight advertising budget, remarketing ads are a more cost-effective way to increase conversion rates, since you’re showing ads to people who have already demonstrated an interest in your brand.

What are Google Display Ads?

Google is the world’s largest and most frequently used search network it the world. It’s the gatekeeper for practically everything else that takes place online. If your web pages don’t please the search engine, you won’t show up in search results, and no one will know you exist. Advertising on Google is a way to get your web pages to display and rank at the top of the search engine results pages or SERPs. Google’s advertising network is called Google AdWords. Google AdWords offers internet marketers access to two display networks that can show your ads to people while they use the search engine network. These ad display channels are called the Search Network, and the Display Network.

When businesses use the Search Network to show their ads to people, Google AdWords will put a company’s text-based ads on the SERPs. The Google Display Network (GDN) lets advertisers put display ads across a massive network of sites all over the internet. Advertisements placed on the Google Display Network can reach up to 90% of the entire world’s internet traffic, and the number of sites on the GDN is two million strong.

How do ads on either the GDN or Search Network display to website visitors?

Ads on the Search Network target people who type their query directly into the search bar on Google, or on Google partner sites. The GDN is a passive form of advertising. These ads are in the type of a banner ad or a small box on the side of a webpage that promotes a particular product or service. Passive, unobtrusive display ads are an excellent way to keep your products or services in front of people who have already visited your website or checked out your company’s mobile app. You can also display ads to people who have viewed your brand’s youtube videos.

How do you create ads on the GDN for remarketing purposes?

Are you already advertising with Google AdWords? Then creating an ad for remarketing on the GDN is pretty simple. All you need to do is add a piece of code to your website, called a remarketing tag. A remarketing tag is also sometimes called a pixel, and the remarketing tag will add website visitors to a remarketing list for search ads with browser cookies. Marketers can also customise this code for different pages on their website, so you can create ads that are audience based, and can target the audience more effectively.

A remarketing list for search ads is a list of the people who’ve visited your site. When you create a remarketing list for search ads, you get to set up “rules” for when website visitors can be added to the list. For example, you can set up a rule that visitors can stay on the list for 30 days or less than 30 days. After you create the list, you can add the users to your campaigns’ ad group targeting, which allows you to display ads to the people on your list. You can also upload an email address or email list of people you want to target.

Creating an audience target with specific GDN ads is incredibly useful for increasing your sales and your market share online. For example, let’s say you sell makeup, and you want to increase eyeliner sales. You can place a remarketing tag on the sales page for the eyeliner product you want to sell more of. That way, your remarketing ads will display the eyeliner product to visitors across the GDN who’ve specifically viewed that sales page. Using Google analytics for your website can also help you target audience members more effectively. Google analytics will also show you how long website visitors are staying on your pages, where those visitors are located, their age, gender, and the device they are using to view your website.

Can We Help?

Optimising your remarketing ads on the GDN is an excellent way to increase your sales and conversions. But Google remarketing takes skill, expertise, and specialised knowledge to get the most out of this form of highly useful advertising. Contact Australian Internet Advertising today to get started with a customised and effective remarketing campaign for your business.