Have you ever felt the frustration of knowing people are visiting your site and showing interest, but not committing to buy, subscribe or use your services? Wouldn’t it be encouraging to know there was a way to continue to reach out to people who have shown interest in your site even after leaving it?
Well, one such way of doing this is with Facebook Retargeting. Not only does it help you to keep your business and your product in the customer’s mind, it also takes advantage of the hugely important advertising platform of the social media giant. Facebook retargeting works by using small lines of code on your website’s pages which track users back to their profile. Facebook will then target advertising set up by you to these users.
What is Facebook Retargeting?
One of the most important things to consider when planning any advertising campaign is who your target audience is. Retargeting potential consumers through Facebook is an excellent way to reach people who have already shown an interest in your business by visiting your website. With over 2 billion active users as of January 2018, Facebook remains the largest social network active today which means it is essential for any business to tap into that user base as a source of potential revenue.
Thanks to this useful method, it is possible to track customers who have clicked on your site, have added items to cart but not completed an order, or have engaged with any aspect of your website that you deem worthy of interest.
For example, if you are a clothing retailer, a customer may be browsing your product catalogue, add some items to their basket and then leave your site for whatever reason. I’m sure many people have done this from time to time. In a world where we have endless choices and ads being pushed at us all day every day, it is easy to then forget about that great jacket you saw and added to your basket to look at later.
If you set up your website with the correct Facebook coding, when that potential customer returns to their Facebook page, you can target advertising directly to them. They will be scrolling through their feed and suddenly there is your website with that jacket they liked, serving as a reminder for them to hopefully complete the purchase. I’m sure everyone can remember a time when this has happened, and it has spurred them on to revisit that site with renewed interest.
The way that Facebook can decide who to target with your ads is by creating a Custom Audience. This is essentially a list of users which meet certain parameters that you set within their Ad Manager. There are several criteria to consider when specifying these parameters, but it is worth always bearing in mind that the more specific an audience you can create, the more effective your advertising is likely to be.
Creating Your Custom Audience
There are three options within Facebook’s Custom Audience settings that will help you to build a database of users. The first is Customer Files. This refers to emails, addresses etc. which are collected as data on your website, perhaps by way of newsletter sign ups or previous purchases in your store. You can upload this information into your Ad Manager and Facebook can cross reference with their own user database to recognize these consumer’s social media accounts. It is vital to remember that you must obtain permission from all users to be able to manage their data in this way.
Website Traffic is referring to the example that was discussed above. These are people who have clicked on your site and interacted with it in some way. There are many ways you can control and specify which users are targeted. Just one example, aside from that which has already been discussed, you can aim a campaign at people who have visited your site within the last month, week or whatever amount of time you like up to a maximum of 180 days.
The final Custom Audience option is App Activity. This is fairly self-explanatory and refers to any users who have interacted with your business application. This may be active users, people who have added items to your store cart or you could even target a specific campaign at anyone who has registered with the app but not used it for a certain amount of time.
As well as your Custom Audience, you also have the option of building a Lookalike Audience. This offers real benefits as it has the potential to be much larger than your original audience. A Lookalike Audience is essentially a list of users that Facebook will compile for you based on certain specific aspects of your Custom Audience database. For example, things like shared interests, location etc.
Using Dynamic Product Advertising to Reach Your Audience
Once you have identified your audience, you now have to think about what advertising you would like them to see. A great way to achieve targeted ads is with Dynamic Product Advertising. This gives you greater control over what each user sees and therefore creates a more effective campaign. You can tailor your advertising to each user based on a number of factors. You can show them products they have clicked on in either your app or your web store. It is also possible to show content that is relevant to their location, interests and other information which is stored on Facebook’s database. You can even create ads which showcase products chosen by you as a retailer, so perhaps anything that is a best-seller or any new and exciting products you want to get out there for people to see.
Making Facebook Retargeting Work for You
By now you should have an idea of just how useful and varied this tool can be for helping you build an audience for your business. When setting up Facebook Retargeting you will need to have some code for your website. It is relatively straightforward to set up and even novice developers shouldn’t have too much trouble with it. By all means, if you feel that it is beyond your capability then you can leave this up to your website developer. You will need to create and install something called a Facebook Pixel. This is the key to building your Custom Audience, optimizing ads for conversion and tracking those conversions to attribute them back to your ads. You can utilize your personal Facebook Pixel to monitor the effectiveness of your ad campaign in Ads Manager. It also gives you something that is easy to share with any agents or marketing partners through the Business Manager.
Below are some useful links with more information about the subjects discussed here such as the Facebook Pixel, Dynamic Product Advertising and building a Custom Audience. They include step by step guides and tutorials to get you all set up and ready to take advantage of this great tool and make Facebook advertising work for you and your business.
Links for reference
https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-ads-reach-existing-customers
https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-ads-pixel
https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-create-ad-dynamic-ads/
