CraftedINFORMATION

PPC Remarketing

CraftedINFORMATION

CraftedINFORMATION

Contents

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Lists

3.0 Custom combinations

4.0 Dynamic remarketing

5.0 Control

6.0 PolicyBee

7.0 Notcutts

8.0 Useful data you can get from Remarketing campaigns

9.0 Privacy questions

10.0 Best practice

11.0 Top tips for success

CraftedINFORMATION

1.0

IntroductionRemarketing is an incredibly powerful tool for re-engaging with people who have visited your website. Remarketing can help you:

• Decrease your CPA (Cost per acquisition)• Increase your brand awareness• Increase your conversion rate by getting people back to abandoned checkouts• Promote additional products and services to the right audience

The main difference between remarketing and standard display is how the audience is targeted. remarketing targets ‘the person’ who has already visited your site and engaged with your brand, products or services. This is where the true power of Remarketing lays and, when the right strategy is applied, it can drive great results.

Google AdWords is the system that is used to run display advertising across the Google Display Network (GDN).

Formally known as the Google Content Network it has undergone many changes over the years. Targeting is one area that has seen much

effectively. The visual element means the user has to do less when being reminded about what they were doing on your site. A relevant well presented banner will receive a much better response and as they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

improvement and the traditional methods of targeting contextually or by placement has been expanded. Advertisers are now able to use demographics, behavioural and interests to target or exclude audiences.

The Display Ad Builder is another development and a tool which offers many banner templates for businesses to use. Branding, product images and messaging just need adding. Often the cost of having creative designed and built can be a barrier for companies wanting to run banner advertising. The Display Ad Builder offers a range of banner sizes and styles with animation already built in that can make set up quicker and more cost effective. It is worth noting that, although it is possible to make visually appealing creative in the Display Ad Builder it will rarely look as good as when it has been crafted by a design team.

Businesses can run remarketing campaigns through AdWords using standard PPC text ads. This is by far the quickest way of setting up a campaign, but rarely performs as well. Banner ads stand out much more on page and communicate the brand, product or service visually and more

A picture is worth a thousand words.

CraftedINFORMATION

CraftedINFORMATION

How does it work?

CraftedINFORMATION

2.0

ListsThe fundamental principles of remarketing are fairly simple and work around lists. A piece of code is added across the whole site which allows for a user to be tracked. (Privacy is addressed later) This forms a master remarketing list. (A list is essentially a list of people who have visited a website).

From the master list specific lists can be created. These are defined by URL rules which allow for all or part of URLs to be included or excluded.

Some lists commonly found could include:

• Homepage• Category pages• Product pages• Stages of the checkout process• Any URL that includes/excludes a certain word• Sales/Enquiry confirmation page

A piece of code is added across the whole site which allows for a user to be tracked.

CraftedINFORMATION

3.0

Custom combinations When lists are combined to form custom combinations it is easy to see why remarketing can be so effective. Custom combinations are created by using two or more lists to define a specific audience. A simple example of this can be seen in fig 1.

Relevant ads can now be served to this audience. This is a generic strategy, but useful as it will engage with all non-converting costumers. These combinations can create very specific audiences which allow for highly relevant creative and offers be served. Such as people who view a product and start the check-out process but drop out.

Creative can be tailored to that user’s journey and offer an incentive for them to come back and complete the order. The banner can include the product that was placed in the basket, messaging addressing the exit (e.g. Complete your order now) and the incentive (e.g. 10% off discount code).

Targeting very specific audiences with highly relevant creative is the ideal strategy but is more time intensive. If your site has ten products or services then ten sets of banners need creating. A combination of a wide and specific strategy can be used, with the specific strategy starting by targeting the most important products or services.

Fig 1.

Targeting very specific audiences with highly relevant creative is the ideal strategy.

Homepage listAny of these audiences

Sales confirmation list

None of these audiences

Target audienceUsers who hit the hompagebut did

not purchase

CraftedINFORMATION

4.0

Dynamic remarketingDynamic remarketing is one of the recent developments in AdWords. It links up with your Google Shopping Feed, allowing for products which have been viewed to be pulled directly into a banner.

If you are an online retailer then dynamic remarketing will be a highly effective tool to use. The tag is slightly different though and parameters will need to be set across all product pages.

If you are an online retailer then dynamic remarketing will be a highly effective tool.

Dynamic remarketing banner example.

CraftedINFORMATION

4.0

Dynamic remarketing

Key Example values Definition

ecomm_prodid 1234

Product ID: Must match the product ID fromthe Google Merchant Center feed. This allows the dynamic ad to show people the exact product that they viewed.

ecomm_pagetype

Home, search results, category, product, basket, purchase, other

Page type: Indicates which page people visited. You need to use one of the values that are listed in the middle column. A value must be present on each page. These values might be for the lists AdWords created for you, as well as for pages not covered by the other values.

Important: Every page needs to have a page type value.

ecomm_totalvalue £49.99

Total value: Specify the value of the product. On a basket or purchase page, you need to specify the total value (summing up the value of all products). This value might be used in automated bidding optimisation, and may also be used to categorise your lists into groups according to the value of products.

Table: Basic parameters and their definitions (support.google.com)

CraftedINFORMATION

5.0

ControlAs with all AdWords campaigns there is a great level of control, and remarketing is no different. There are a range of bidding, targeting and ad control options that will play a major role in the success of your campaign, helping to make the campaign more efficient, giving better returns.

On the right are some of the campaign settings that can be used:

Bid modifiers• Increase or decrease bids over certain time periods

Frequency Capping• Frequency capping limits the number of times your ads appear on the Google Display Network to a unique user

• We would recommend around five impressions per week per unique user

Bid Strategy• CPC – Cost per click. Charged every time a banner is clicked on. We would recommend all campaigns are started in this way

• CPM – Cost per thousand. Charged for every 1,000 impressions served regardless of clicks

Daily Budget • Set how much the campaign can spend per day

Location targeting• Target users in certain locations

Ad Scheduling• Specify which hours and days you want the ads to run

AdWords control options help make a campaign more efficient, giving better returns.

CraftedINFORMATION

6.0

PolicyBeePolicyBee is an independent, professional insurance broker, providing dedicated insurance services to consultancies, freelancers and contractors.

Paid search is a major channel for PolicyBee which operates in an incredibly competitive market place. To help stay engaged with potential costumers PolicyBee uses remarketing in a number of strategic ways.

PolicyBee uses both generic and very specific lists to target users who have either not obtained a quote or purchased a policy.

Example of custom combination lists:

Wide• Homepage-no-quote• Quote-no-policy

Profession specific •Accounting-no quote•Photography-no-quote•IT-Insurance-quote-no-policy•Teachers-quote-no-policy

Example creative:

People who hit the site and do not quote

People who get a quote but have not bought a policy

Paid search is a major channel for PolicyBee which operates in an incredibly competitive market place.

CraftedINFORMATION

6.0

PolicyBeeProfession specific example creative:

Results:

Cost per quote decreased by:

17%Click to quote increased by:

24% Quote conversion paths that involved remarketing:

26%

CraftedINFORMATION

7.0

NotcuttsNotcutts is a well-established brand and has been helping gardeners since 1897. It has a number of gardening centres around the UK and also an online shop.

Remarketing for ecommerce is even more essential since Google Shopping has been completely moved over to a paid model.

Incentive-led remarketing has been used to help maintain sales and revenue in an increasingly competitive market place.

Example of custom combination list:

•People who have visited the site but have not purchased

Offer example creative: Incentive-led remarketing has been used to help maintain sales and revenue.

CraftedINFORMATION

7.0

NotcuttsSale example creative:

Results:

Users who purchased after being served an incentive led banner:

20%Overall revenue has increased by:

15%

CraftedINFORMATION

8.0

Useful data you can get from remarketing campaignsWithin AdWords-reporting a range of useful information can be pulled through any display campaign that is running. These reports can tell you some useful information about who is interacting with your ads and where it is taking place.

Some of the data that can be seen is:

•Age•Gender•Locations•Placements (websites)•Time reports (month,week, day, hour)

As we have already established, remarketing serves ads to people who have already engaged with your site. If they do come back and convert it can be a good indication of the type of audience that could be targeted in a traditional display campaign.

By looking at this data you may find that the majoity of your conversions come on Monday evenings from males aged 25-30 who live in London and use eBay, YouTube and Autotrader, for example.

This profile can then be used to build out a display campaign which targets only this criteria, with relevant creative, increasing your Brand visibility to the whole of this audience.

AdWords-reporting can tell you some useful information about who is interacting with your ads and where it is taking place.

CraftedINFORMATION

9.0

Privacy questionsSome people view advertising like remarketing, as an invasion of privacy, stalking or a little bit creepy. It is perfectly legal, but there are policies and guidelines that advertisers need to follow:

Policy for advertising based on interests and location

•Your Privacy Policy must include information on any use of AdWords features which happens on your site or app

•You aren’t allowed to run interest-based advertising campaigns that collect personally identifiable information (PII) including, but not limited to, email addresses, telephone numbers and credit card number

•You aren’t allowed to use or associate personally identifiable information with remarketing lists, cookies, data feeds or other anonymous identifiers

•You aren’t allowed to use or associate targeting information, such as demographics or location, with any personally identifiable information collected from the ad or its landing page

•You aren’t allowed to share any personally identifiable information with Google through your remarketing tag or any product data feeds which might be associated with your ads

Full policy requirements can be found here:https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/143465?hl=en-GB

CraftedINFORMATION

10.0

Best practiceRemarketing is not about bombarding a user until they give in and click on an ad. Some advertisers take this strategy, but it will affect your click through rates (CTR’s). It can also annoy the user who, in turn, gets annoyed with your business.

This is why frequency capping is so important and in many cases the lower the better. We would recommend only serving ads to a user around three-five times per week.

Different industry sectors may require additional levels of sensitivity when remarketing. If you are a solicitor, provide health advice or dealing with any personal and sensitive matters how and when ads are served needs to be taken into consideration or you could damage your brand reputation.

Example:An employee has a dispute at work which escalates and legal advice is needed. The employee searches for solicitors at work and the site he lands on is running a remarketing campaign. The campaign then serves ads to the employee at work which the company could potentially see.

In this case it is worth considering if remarketing is the right channel. If a campaign was to run, one way around the issue of ads being served in work hours is to implement ad scheduling.

The campaign could be set to run only between 1900-0000 weekdays and all day on the weekends.

We would recommend only serving ads to a user around three-five times a week.

CraftedINFORMATION

11.0

Top tips for success1. Get the remarketing tag on your site ASAP. It takes time to build lists

2. Define your remarketing strategy. What is the objective?

3. Offer incentives where possible

4. Use custom combinations to create very specific audiences

5. Create tailored creative to each audience.Things to remember: •What were they looking at? •Where did they drop out? •What messaging or incentive is needed to finish the conversion?

6. Make sure your campaign settings include: •CPC (cost per click) bidding and not CPM (cost per thousand) •Frequency capping is set to around five per week

7. Ad scheduling •B2B advertisers might want to consider only running campaigns during office hours •Is your campaign suitable to be displayed within office hours?

8. Bid modifiers •Are there key periods where conversions are higher than usual? Bids could be up weighted over these period to increase visibility

9. Mine the data out of the remarketing campaign to get a better understanding of the audiences that are visiting your website

CraftedINFORMATION

Ipswich Studio

32 Fore Street

Ipswich IP4 1JU

T. +44 (0) 1473 213222

E. hello@crafted.co.uk

London Office

Clerkenwell Workshops

27/31 Clerkenwell Close

London EC1R 0AT

T. +44 (0) 20 3393 3852

www.crafted.co.uk