Is Facebook Retargeting Right For My Business?

Facebook’s latest earning report announced that the social media monolith’s ad revenues skyrocketed 45% in the last year to $4.3 billion. This has left thousands if not millions of businesses like yours asking: “Is Facebook retargeting right for my business?”

Our answer to this question is pretty simple: yes, Facebook retargeting is right for your business.

However (ah yes, you knew this was coming!), we’re obliged to point out that you shouldn’t just head over to Facebook, pull out your credit card, answer some questions, click GO, and sit back and expect the customer floodgates to open. Just as with all other kinds of online advertising, there is a right way and a wrong way to proceed.

It’s beyond the scope of this blog post – or frankly any blog post for that matter – to give you a step-by-step, detailed analysis of what you need to do; especially because your business and marketplace is unique. Your strategy has to align with many variables and integrate with your inbound marketing campaigns.

Nevertheless, we can certainly shed more light on Facebook retargeting, and describe what it is and how it works when customized and optimized.

Facebook Retargeting 101

Facebook retargeting is similar to all other kinds of retargeting efforts, and involves displaying targeted ads to visitors who’ve left your website without making a purchase. Here’s how the process works:

Step 1: A customer visits your website, and has a pixel – or “cookie” – automatically sent to their browser. This happens in the background, and in no way diminishes the customer experience, or has any impact on any other element of your website (e.g. widgets, etc.).

Step 2: The customer leaves without making a purchase (or “converting”). However, as noted in step 1, a cookie has been sent to their browser, and it travels with them.

Step 3: The customer is one of hundreds of millions of people each day who head over to Facebook to connect with friends, check out a business, and so on. Without diminishing their experience in any way, the cookie in their browser sends a message to Facebook saying “this person was on your website recently”.

Step 4: Facebook responds by displaying your ads, which are designed to recapture the customer’s attention.

Step 5: Ideally, the customer will click the ad and return to your website, ultimately taking some desired action (e.g. make a purchase, download an eBook, request a demo, etc.).

As you can see, the “retargeting” happens in Step 4 – because the ads are not random, and there’s no coincidence. They’re specifically being sent to individual customers who were on your website in recent days or weeks.

The Bottom Line

Facebook retargeting can be a very effective way to stay on a customer’s radar screen. They’re not aggressive and they don’t hound or harass customers. Rather, they remind them about a journey that they recently started, but for a variety of possible reasons, paused or stopped. And while retargeted ads don’t reclaim all wayward customers, they’re very successful in achieving heightened brand awareness and recall. According to research by Digital Information World, customers who are retargeted are 70% more likely to convert!

To learn more about Facebook retargeting, and how to integrate this effective strategy within your overall inbound marketing program, contact us today. Leap Clixx is happy to help you identify the best ways to get results from your online marketing with our helpful eBook guide.