Just like Search Engine Optimization, Retargeting is a word that is often feared in the SME community. It seems complicated, there is a lot of funky marketing jargon and you usually need to hire an expert to really get you results from your retargeting efforts.
However, what if we told you that retargeting could not only be simplified, but could yield you at-least 3x your current ROI? You’d say we are joking. We promise we are not!
Before we dive into how Link Retargeting can help ameliorate your social media and email marketing efforts, let’s go over what Link Retargeting actually is.
What is Link Retargeting and why is it easier?
To put it simply, link retargeting is just like traditional ad retargeting. The key difference is that instead of having to send customers to your site, you can display retargeting ads to everyone that clicks on your custom short links. You can create a short link out of any content including third-party content. This short link can be shared on all your media channels including social media and email and everyone that clicks on the link will automatically be added to a retargeting audience!
Why is it easier?
1) You don’t need to add in a pixel code to start
2) You don’t need to build out or tweak custom audiences – heck, you don’t even need to know what they are
3) You don’t need a website to start
All you need is a piece of content that you think would be valuable to your readers. Like we said above, this could be your own blog post or a third party article from a reputable source. Shorten that link and share it on all your media platforms. Every user that clicks on the short link will be added to a highly targeted audience that you can retarget and show display ads to.
Simple, easy and efficient!
If you are keen to learn more about the technical aspects of how Link Retargeting works, we would recommend reading this detailed blog post on the RetargeLinks blog: What is Link Retargeting.
How do I start using Link Retargeting?
Here are two quick ways to start incorporating Link Retargeting into your marketing strategies right away:
1) Use Retargeting Links when sharing third-party content on Social Media
It is a known rule of thumb to always publish content that is valuable to your customers. Based on that rule came the Rule of Thirds where it is recommended that 1⁄3 of your social content should talk about your brand, 1⁄3 of your content should promote your products and services and 1⁄3 of your content should be the latest news from thought leaders.
The problem? You gain nothing from third-party content. Those visitors don’t come to your website and there is no way to reach them again.
But… (and there is always a but)
With Link Retargeting, you can take control of this traffic. Every person that clicks on the link of the third-party content gets added to a retargeting list. Yes – you heard that right. You just gained back at least 33% of your social referral traffic that you had no way of tracking before AND you can retarget them! You can thank us later 😉
Let us put this into context:
Pampers shares an article on Twitter by the Parenting Magazine about “How to prepare for your 1st baby”. They believe that the article would be a valuable read for their customers. By using Link Retargeting, they are able to capture everyone that clicks on the short link and build a highly segmented group of first-time parents!
Now that they have this highly segmented audience ready to go, they are able to retarget them with relevant display ads about diapers for newborns!
Bottom line: With Link Retargeting, every link that you share on your social media channels will help you build, validate and refine your audience. By refining your audience, you show ads only to people that have interacted with and shown interest in your brand. This prior knowledge and interest of the brand increases buyer’s intent and therefore increases conversions!
2) Use Link Retargeting in your Email Campaigns to segment your subscribers
Most companies send a newsletter to their subscribers. We are sure you do too. Newsletters are a great way to stay on-top-of-mind and always keep in touch with your customers. In fact, email is still the number one way to communicate with your customer base over all other media channels.
Scenario A: You send out a newsletter with a couple of call-to-actions and hope for the best
OR
Scenario B: You use site retargeting and retarget everyone that lands on your website with very generic ads.
Either scenario will not yield you a high conversion rate – simply because you are not personalizing the experience for any of your audiences.
With Link Retargeting, you can leverage your newsletters to further segment your audience and then show them relevant ads that are customized based on their user activity.
Let’s put this into context and take the example of Pampers again:
Pampers has a massive database of readers that receive their newsletters. Even within the “new mom” category, they likely have “expecting mothers,” “new mothers,” “mothers with one-year-olds,” etc.
The products that are relevant to one category are irrelevant to the others and hence, Pampers needs a way to segment their “new mom” category into the above subgroups so that they can show the right ads to the right moms. So here is what they can do:
They send out an email with relevant articles for each of the above categories. They use retargeting links to segment their subscribers based on the content they click on.
Once they have their highly segmented audiences, they can show the right display ads to the right subscribers!
Therefore, moms that have walking toddlers and that click on the first shortlink, will be shown ads for Pampers’ Cruisers:
Whereas moms interested in saving money on diapers because their young’uns go through 10 a day, would see ads for economy plus packs:
Bottom Line: Leverage your email newsletters to segment your customers into highly targeted subcategories. Now only can this transform your email marketing game, it can help you discover new characteristics about your customers that are really difficult to discover! If your customers see a personalized ad that is relevant to them, do you think they will buy? We think they would!
Link Retargeting was invented to make retargeting easy.
Using Retargeting Links in your daily social media posts or your email marketing campaigns are two of the quickest, most efficient ways to start incorporating Link Retargeting into your marketing efforts. However, there is a world of possibilities that are open with this technology and a multitude of ways to maximize your marketing ROI. Link Retargeting can transform the way you share, advertise and track returns from your content marketing, email marketing and social advertising strategies.
Have questions?
This post was written by Supriya Gupta, the Marketing Manager at RetargetLinks. RetargetLinks is a Canadian company that invented the technology of Link Retargeting. They aim to democratise digital advertising by making it easy for everyone to advertise on premium online publishers. Everyone from small businesses to global agencies and brands like WPP, Omnicon, P&G and Uber use RetargetLinks to get the right banner ads in front of the right people – at the right time!