Welcome to the latest installment of the Day One Strategy series. This is a weekly blog series that will address how to start from scratch. Each week we’ll discuss a new topic and offers tips for the business that is taking their very first step. Last week’s topic was Creating a Website.

Today’s Topic = Remarketing

Remarketing is an easy way to get started with digital marketing. And it works off of a pretty simple concept. You market your products to people who are already familiar with who you are because they visited your website.

But my purpose here is not to convince you, it’s to tell you how to get started after you’ve already been convinced.

Choosing a Partner

The best way to get started with remarketing is to go out and sign up with one of several services that know remarketing forwards and backwards. Not only do they have the expertise, but they connect you with the largest advertising networks so that your ads will get seen by more people.

A few of the most popular companies include AdRoll, Fetchback, and Retargeter. Google and Facebook also offer remarketing. Any of the other three companies above offer the ability to remarket on Google and Facebook as well.

Placing a Pixel

All remarketing works based on simple tracking technology. You will install a pixel (or several) on your website which will be provided by the partner you choose to work with. They will tell you exactly where it needs to go and will even help you install it if they can have access to your website.

That pixel will allow you to track all visitors to your site who do not convert (become a customer or lead, etc.). That will create an audience of visitors who will be targeted by your remarketing campaigns.

Creating your Ads

Before you can launch your campaigns, you will need ads to show to your new audience. These ads can take many different forms.

On Facebook, these ads take the same form as traditional Facebook ads. You will need an image, some headline copy, longer body copy, a call to action and the URL of the page that you want anyone who clicks on your ad to land on. This might be a landing page you use for other advertising campaigns or the product page they last viewed on your website.

For all other networks, you should have both display ads and text. Display ads come in all shapes and sizes, for both mobile and desktop browsing. Depending on which partner you chose to work with, they may have design services so that they can help you create your ads. If not, you’ll want to work with a web designer who has experience with banner ads.

Your ads should entice people to click and come back to your site through targeted messaging. You can offer a discount on the product they were researching, or simply remind them that you still offer the thing they want.

Tracking and Optimizing

After you turn the remarketing campaign on, you should work with your account manager to continually improve its performance. You can do this in a number of ways.

First, you should always be testing. You can test new ads against old ones to see which ones attract more clicks. You can test sending the traffic to different pages on your site to see which one leads to the most sales. And you can test different, more specific targeting in order to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.

And second, you should monitor where your remarketing ads are showing up and where they are getting clicked on. There may be some sites you want to block because they don’t help. And there may be some you want to research further as potential advertising partners, because you see that a lot of your traffic is coming from there.

Stay tuned next week for another installment. If you have a topic you would like to see covered in the Day One Strategy blog series, use the comments below or contact us today.