How to Build Your Next Facebook Re-targeting Campaign

Studies indicate that more than 96% of all website visitors are not prepared to make a purchase on their first visit to any particular site. While first impressions are valuable, they don't usually close the deal, and it's the next two or three impressions which are more crucial to whether or not the sale is made. Once a potential customer leaves your website, he/she becomes a live target for all of your competitors, and that tends to make them forget about the visit to your site.This means you need to do something to remind potential customers about your own e-commerce store, so you can keep your brand firmly established in their thoughts. That means you need to develop a campaign which re-targets them on a platform where they spend a good deal of time, for instance on Facebook.

How re-targeting works

This form of online marketing attempts to bring back website visitors who didn't complete the conversion process on the first visit to your site. This means you need to install re-targeting pixels in the code of your website. For example, a 1 x 1 transparent pixel should exist on a web page, and will be undetectable by visitors.When the visitor scrolls down any given page, a cookie gets added into their personal web browser, assuming that they load the page with the pixel. The one requirement is that they must view this pixel, even though it is transparent. Then when the visitor exits and goes to another web page, the web browser contacts whatever advertising software is situated behind the scenes, prior to the loading of any new web page. The cookie provides an indication to the advertising software that one of your business ads should be displayed on the new site.

Facebook retargeting

With more than 2.4 billion active monthly users around the globe, it's quite obvious why businesses choose to run many different kinds of re-targeting campaigns on the platform. Facebook itself is well aware of the potential for re-targeting, and has made it as easy as possible for businesses to create their own re-targeting campaigns.It's so simple to create and install Facebook re-targeting pixels, that a great many users have already learned how to do it quickly themselves. Even if you're not a tech savvy advertiser like this, you can still take advantage of Facebook's re-targeting options by having the platform send directions to your company's Web developer, so the pixels can be installed.

Once you have this covered, you can segment your viewers, so that personalized ads can be created, based on the preferences of your target audience. As an example, you'll have the capability of targeting individuals who actually put a product in their cart but made no purchases, or you may want to target those who visited a specific page. Since Facebook provides powerful custom audiences, it's an ideal platform for segmenting your audience into groups, so that you can present advertising to them in the most meaningful format.

Ideas for Facebook re-targeting campaigns

If a sale is not made to a site visitor within seven days, there probably will not be a sale made at all. However, this doesn't mean that a visitor has no interest in your product, because there could be a ton of reasons why they chose not to purchase on that particular occasion. For instance, they could be conducting some comparison-shopping to find lower prices on the same product.Some e-commerce stores will offer a limited time discount on certain products to visitors who have left without purchasing. Research indicates that this tactic is successful more than 54% of the time, and that visitors who have left without buying will return and purchase when offered a discount. Shoppers have a tremendous number of options available to them online, and it's easier to do comparison-shopping than it ever has been.By offering discounts, you effectively persuade shoppers to stop their comparison-shopping, and go ahead and complete their purchase. In addition to providing discounts, you can offer free shipping or possibly an outright giveaway, because both these tactics also achieve favorable results.

Creating a Facebook re-targeting campaign

Here are the steps you have to go through in order to create a Facebook re-targeting campaign:

• navigate to your Facebook Ads account
• click on the vertical slash symbol
• find Product Catalog under the Assets tab, and click on Create Catalog
• having created a catalog, click on Add Products and then go ahead and download the .CSV template
• fill out the details on the template and have it uploaded to Facebook
• wait while the template finishes uploading
• creature your campaigns.

Facebook is well aware of how marketing works, and they understand the potential earnings involved for everyone, so they encourage businesses to conduct their marketing campaigns on the platform. That was the whole rationale for creating Facebook Ads accounts in the first place. Any campaigns which are created in this account are generally quite simple and straightforward, and their success can be tracked using standardized metrics. As long as your website includes at least one re-targeting pixel, Facebook will be able to share communications with your site and any campaigns that you create.

After your campaign creation

While it's fairly easy to set up your campaigns, it's not quite that easy to maintain them. Most marketers are faced with the issue of having to keep those campaigns fresh and relevant to target audiences. Whenever a marketing specialist has a 'set it and forget it' mentality, it's very possible that ad fatigue will set in, and ads will become very stale to audiences.By running the same campaign and the same ads week after week, the information and the appeal will become very stale to your readers, and they will lose interest in your brand and your products. This makes it essential that you continue to monitor your campaign metrics, so you know where any improvement or modification is needed. This will help you to avoid ad fatigue, and will help you to keep your ads fresh and vital to all those potential customers you're trying to reach.