Retargeting has become a standard online marketing tactic used to engage and convert potential customers. However, there are a few different forms of retargeting and in this post I want to explain the key differences between search retargeting and site retargeting.
Site Retargeting
Site-level retargeting is the best known form of retargeting available today. The goal of site retargeting is to encourage known customers to come back to your site. The key point here is that you are not reaching new customers but are marketing to customers that have been to your site previously but who failed to convert.
When a potential customer arrives to your site, perhaps via paid search or display, they are cookied before they leave. This cookie allows retargeting companies to bring the user back to your site after they’ve left by showing the user display ads while they navigate across other sites. Over the past few years, site targeting has evolved and many companies now offer advanced retargeting capabilities. New techniques involve showing each lost visitor a unique banner based on their very specific past interactions on the advertiser’s website. This new form of retargeting involves real-time personalized banner creation and can results in a dramatic impact on campaign performance.
Site retargeting should be part of your marketing mix to convert lost leads. The true cost per conversion can also be difficult to calculate because you have already paid once or more to drive that customer to your site. Providers include Google, FetchBack, Criteo, AdRoll and most ad networks.
The goal of search retargeting is to find new customers by retargeting users based on the searches they have done on Google, Yahoo!, Bing or other sites. For example, you may retarget anyone that searched for “insurance” on Google, or perhaps they searched for “LCD TV” on a comparison shopping site like shopping.com. The important distinction here is that these customers have likely never been to your site before. Search retargeting targets new customers who have shown intent to purchase your product or service based on the keywords that matter to you. As a result, you are targeting purchase intent exactly like you do on AdWords. Search-retargeting should be combined with customized dynamic ads that target the original search phrase the user searched for.
Summary
In my opinion, both site retargeting and search retargeting are part of an essential strategy for online marketers. Additional info on search retargeting by chango
A great post by Dax Hamman caught my eye on AdExchanger today. A snippet below:
“..put yourself in the shoes of that search marketer who takes that client call and needs to jump into display – where do they possibly begin? On some recent panels about the overlap between search and display, the most common question we have been asked is “that all sounds great but how do I get started”.
I couldn’t agree more. The existing Display world is an intimidating place for a Search marketer. To take advantage of the huge opportunity of Display marketing, most Search marketers have to abandon the very tools and models they are familiar with and adapt to a foreign environment that includes data providers, DSP’s and dynamic ad servers. At Chango, our aim is to eliminate the pain associated with tapping into the massive inventory offered by real time ad-exchanges. First, we provide the exact same targeting capability SEM’s are familiar with (search re-targeting) without the need to strike up complicated 3rd party data deals. Second, we provide a bidding system that mimics the AdWords interface and handles all aspects of keyword level bidding and dynamic text-based ad serving. Third, our reporting system includes conversion tracking and advanced reports to enable the SEM to optimize their display campaign.
Display advertising accounted for around $5 billion in online advertising spend in 2009, which sounds respectable until you consider that Search advertising on Google alone was roughly 12 billion last year. Amazingly, those 12 billion dollars were generated on search engine results pages (SERPs) that represent roughly 5% of the Internet’s page views. That’s right, 5% of the Internet’s page-views generates more than twice the revenue of the rest of the Internet combined!
Massive imbalance.
Why the massive imbalance? Simply put, the primary difference between Display and Search is targeting. Search engine marketing works because it is a one-to-one advertising system that focuses on the purchase intent of a searcher. Type “Mexican vacations” and presto – you see ads that match your search term. Display advertising, on the other hand, has traditionally been more of a broadcast medium where advertisers buy large blocks of ad space and cannot modify or tailor their campaign down to an individual level. While suited for brand focused campaigns, Display advertising has not been attractive to direct response marketers focused on CPA metrics.
Restoring balance.
A host of new technologies including real time bidding across ad exchanges and dynamic ad serving promises to start balancing Display and Search in 2010. Real time bidding enables advertisers to literally bid on 1 impression at a time – thereby cherry picking the right impression (user) at the right time on the right site, just like search engine marketers have been doing for years. J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan says “display spending will surge by 10.5 percent” in 2010, partly due to improved targeting capabilities. Display advertising is going to start becoming very interesting for search engine marketers and retailers traditionally focused on search-only campaigns.
But it won’t be easy.
Participating in this new Display world requires advanced tools and techniques. There are many technical challenges that need to be overcome to accomplish real time targeting of single impressions at scale. Fortunately, a few demand-side platforms are emerging to enable smart advertisers to start dipping their toes into the real time waters in 2010, Chango being one such platform. Stay tuned for more posts on real time bidding, data sources and dynamic ad capabilities.
Chango will be heading down to the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago next week (Dec 7th-9th). We are looking forward to all the panels and in particular the “Search Becomes the Display OS” track moderated by Incisive Media. We would love to buy a beer and chat with any SEM buyers interested in extending their search-targeted campaign into Display ads. Anyone heading there be sure to contact Chris or drop us a tweet @sukornyk or @changoinc
No Comments
