Go back to:
- Part #1: Facebook Advertising Basics
- Part #2: Getting Started With A Facebook Campaign
The Basics of Facebook Remarketing
Remarketing allows you to show content to users who’ve visited your website, by automatically placing a cookie on their computer.
We’re using the word “content” here, since what you show your website visitors is up to you. It can be an ad, but it doesn’t have to be one. As we’ll see in the final section of this article, there are a number of ways of using Facebook Remarketing to promote your content, no matter what that might be.
There are a few key things you need to think about before you start implementing Facebook Remarketing:
- Once unhappy users leave your site, they most likely won’t return, without a point of contact. (Source)
- People are getting fed up of signing up for newsletters or giving their email addresses away – they’re also drowning in emails. (Source)
- Some of your users would’ve loved to join your course, but they haven’t learned about your 10% discount.
- People spend an average of 21 minutes on Facebook every single day. (Source)
- There are more than 1.35 Billion Facebook Monthly Active Users. (Source)
So not only is Facebook Remarketing able to reach a huge number of users, but they spend a lot of time on the platform. Meaning they’ll get exposed to your content multiple times throughout their day. And because the whole process is automated, you don’t have to think about doing it. It’s enough to set some basic rules and some ads and you’re off!
Update: AppInstitute just published a great Beginners Guide to Remarketing which is also worth a read.
The Top Apps to Use for Facebook Remarketing
Even though KISSmetrics did a rather thorough rundown of the top apps in a blog post here, it was time to update the information and only include the 3 top apps I recommend using. This list has been compiled based on the following pillars:
- Ease of use – How easy is it to get started with a Facebook Remarketing campaign (is there a lengthy tutorial, are there multiple snippets of code needed to place on your website)?
- Speed of support – How fast does the support team answer your questions (and does it provide you with value, time and time again)?
- Quality of service – How good is the actual remarketing service (does it load fast, are there multiple customization options, is there automation built into the product)?
Perfect Audience
This is my first Facebook Remarketing app, back when it was using Facebook eXchange, which was a huge buzzword at the time. Today, it’s my go to app for remarketing (whatever kind it might be – for products, content, on the web or on Facebook).
There’s a quick get started guide, which really helps get the ball rolling in the right direction. Sign up for their free trial and your campaign runs free for 2 weeks (after that there’s a minimum spend of $25 per week, but that carries over from one to the next).
I’ve had excellent customer support – every single question or complaint I had was addressed within 24 hours. The interface is very easy to understand and it just feels like there was a focus on less. No additional tooltips, no extra tags or labels. Everything just clicks and you can concentrate on providing a great experience for your users.
AdRoll
I found out about AdRoll through their ads and I’ve always seen them as #2, after Perfect Audience. Lately, they’ve surprised me with a fresh new interface, a great trial offer and nice A/B testing features for creating loads of ads fast.
They’re now calling themselves “Cross-platform, cross-device reach”, which is a fancy way of saying: no matter the device, the operating system, the platform or the browser, you can show targeted ads to the visitors who’ve left your website.
AdRoll also makes sure to let you know about their case studies. One in particular mentions an 8.5 X ROI from using the platform. Keep that in mind next time you’re thinking about investing in a particular marketing channel.
Many people don’t remember, but this function wasn’t always available with Facebook. They’ve created FBX and let people use the API and the platform, but they didn’t have a product of their own. Now they do and this is a simple (but technical) guide on getting started with Custom Audiences from your Website.Do you need to use a dedicated app? Absolutely not. If you’re unfamiliar with Facebook in general or feel insecure about using third parties to manage your credit cards for Facebook Ads, you can use the options provided by the social network itself. The problem with that is Facebook has grown to be such a behemoth, that it’s unlikely they’ll ever be able to respond to every customer in a timely manner.
Compare that with the great experiences I’ve gotten with Perfect Audience and AdRoll – free money upfront, user feedback is listened to, new features are pushed pretty much every week and all my questions have been answered within 24 hours. You’d think it doesn’t make any sense – Facebook is huge, while those other companies are noticeably smaller in size and scope. That’s just the thing – because they’ve chosen a very specific niche and allocated all these resources in that direction, they’re able to do what Facebook can’t (or won’t). Useful to know when you do get started with Facebook Remarketing.
Best Case Scenarios for Facebook Remarketing for Bloggers and Publishers
1. Retarget website visitors who saw your sales page but didn’t convert.
This one is pretty basic. Your leads have gotten really close to the point of conversion, but something fell flat. Maybe the pricing, the page design, the copywriting…something was just off and those leads didn’t convert. Lucky for you, with remarketing you can show them an ad telling them about an exclusive 50% off offer, if they buy within 24 hours.
Notice how we’re using 3 elements here: showing personalized ads + showing a (seemingly) exclusive offer + the illusion of urgency.
2. Retarget website visitors who are not fans of your Facebook page.
Let’s go back to our basic marketing funnel. We need signs that website visitors could turn into leads and then hot leads. Making them a fan of our Facebook page helps us go in the right direction.
You should definitely show the benefits of liking your Facebook page – mention exclusive content, giveaways, contests (preferably all you say should also be true, in one form or another) – and carefully look at frequency. The last thing you want is to just blast your Facebook page ad all day long to a new website visitor.
3. Retarget website visitors who read more than 3 articles, but didn’t see any of your sales pages.
Having readers and traffic is fine to start with. But what about monetization and sales? Surely, that’s why you’re doing marketing and Facebook Advertising in the first place. Use this tactic to notify those users that there are extended courses, free ebooks or webinars available back at your website (you have all these by now, don’t you?).
The beauty of testing here is that you can show multiple offers for those visitors, during the day. That way, you’ll get a sense of your most popular pages and create additional ones, based on your findings.
Part #4: The experts on Facebook Advertising
