Developing an audience strategy

Remarketing is a powerful tool that has seen a resurgence this year as both Google and Bing introduce new tools to target visitors that came close to purchase, only to change their minds. Companies now target these users, and while this is an effective way to increase sales, it does not take advantage of the opportunity that remarketing offers.

Start by developing a profile of your customer. Do you know your customer? The issues they face? The primary use of your product? To maximize the effectiveness of remarketing, you need to know your customer inside-out. Use analytics and customer information to find out how they arrive at your site, what guides their actions, and why they leave. Every bit of information counts, so do not limit the kind of data that you gather.

When you have this information, you have the beginnings of a segmentation strategy that has data as a foundation. True, it is possible to assume certain segments, target, and then confirm with some ad buy, but that will never provide the kind of accuracy you need.

Now put all the information you have together. You want information like the audience, the definition, size, stage of purchase, value, traffic, etc. Now using this information you can build out landing pages, strategies, and remarketing campaigns that will target more than just a problem, but an entire customer segment.

The entire exercise can be time-consuming, but the returns will be far greater than a simple remarketing campaign.