Facebook's ReMarketing Tools

Not before time I’ve put together an overview of the highlights from the Facebook Marketing Summit which was held in DCU in Dublin on 19/20 June 2014.

The event had companies who were preferred partners of Facebook presenting the latest tools and apps to monitor, listen, attract and retarget users. And retargeting is where it’s at folks, it was the buzz word of the event.

The Multi-Channel User

We heard how the ownership and use of multiple devices offers consumers numerous touchpoints with a brand. Combine that with the move towards a cookie-less world and you begin to understand the challenge it presents the marketer trying to track, reach and create targeted ad campaigns. Without some form of automation, it’s a near impossible task which is why we’re starting to see so many tech companies creating tools and apps to automate the process.

Tracking the Online User

Right now you’re probably using Google analytics to track behaviour on your website but what do you do when users jump off your website to your Facebook page or to an app you’ve created where you don’t have similar type tracking? Or what about the user who has spent time on your website showing real interest in a product but their boss walked in or life got in the way and they abandoned your site without completing the transaction, what do you do then? You retarget them.

Leveraging Intent Data

Quite a few of the presenters mentioned Facebook Exchange, if not familiar, it is part of the suite of tools Facebook offers brands who want to retarget the multi-channel user. At one time it was only available to big brands with massive ad budgets but now it’s available to all. Learn more here.

Facebook’s remarketing tools include Custom Audiences and LookaLike Audiences which many marketers see as real game-changers. Now, when creating an ad, you can get a piece of code (a pixel) from Facebook that is placed on a page(s) within your website. When a user has visited that website page, has left and is back on Facebook, they are retargeted with your Facebook ad reminding them of their earlier search.

Remember, the user sourced out your website so therefore expressed interest and by leveraging this intent data, marketers are able to target the right people at the right time for the user.

Converting Shoppers to Buyers

For some, it may feel a bit creepy if they’ve searched on Google for a product, found a site, left it without taking any action and then see an ad for that same product pop up in their Facebook news feed. On the other hand, others might welcome the reminder. Either way, this intent targeting is proving very powerful for marketers wanting to re-engage shoppers and convert to buyers.

Retargeting – Why It’s so Powerful

So to finish off, let’s look at why retargeting is so important. Apparently the average conversion rate for an ecommerce website is 2% which means 98% of people who visit a website leave without doing anything. By retargeting them, you have the potential to bring them back to your website and push up those conversion rates. The photo I took at the summit kind of says it all…don’t ya think?

And Finally

As you can see, I’ve kept the focus primarily on retargeting as it was such a big part of the summit so hopefully you’ll find this blog useful if making decisions about the future direction of consumer targeting campaigns.

If you have questions send them over, if you have comments, go ahead and post them below. And if you need help with using Facebook advertising, SynNeo offers a Facebook Ad creative and management package with competitive rates for SMEs.