Retargeting is one of the many wonderful things you can do with the Facebook pixel. Let us imagine this simple scenario: one of your leads is looking at a product on your website during their lunch break. Then the lunch break is over, and the person goes back to work without making a purchase. Later in the evening, while they leisurely browse Facebook, they see an ad featuring the exact product they looked at earlier. Right now they have the time, the willingness and, with this ad, the motivation to buy your product.
This is how Facebook retargeting works. If you want to add extra momentum to your conversion rate, you have to make sure that each customer in your custom audience is exposed to the right ad at the right moment. In order to achieve this, you need to use a few smart tactics, some of which we will discuss in this article.
Let us get started:
1. Retarget Customers at the Right Moment
Look at the little example we offered at the beginning of the article. We were talking about a lead being retargeted with a Facebook ad at the moment when they are at home in the evening. This is one crucial aspect about retargeting: reaching out to the customer at the right moment.
It is absolutely pointless to expose a Facebook follower to a retargeting ad during the rush hour, as they are trying to get to the office on time. It is also pointless to retarget them after they just made a purchase from you.
2. Remind Them of an Abandoned Shopping Cart
Statistics show that 68% of shopping carts are abandoned before completing the transaction. There are many reasons behind this situation: sometimes people are suddenly interrupted from their online shopping session and forget to come back and finalise the transaction. In other situations, they place items in the cart but decide to consult with a friend or with their spouse before finishing their purchase.
These people are ideal candidates for a Facebook retargeting campaign. If you offer the extra incentive of a small discount on the product they left in their shopping cart, you maximise your chances of conversion.
3. Do Not Forget about Silent Subscribers
Do you have a clear view of what happens to your email newsletters? How many people open them without taking action and how many are not even opening them? All these people can and should be retargeted on Facebook with an ad promoting the same offers included in your emails.
To do that, you should put all their email addresses in a list and use it to create a custom audience for a Facebook ad. Thus, your ads will be served only to those people who did not take action or did not open your email offers.
4. Get Customers to Buy Again
In order to get maximum conversion from this type of Facebook retargeting campaign, you need to estimate how long it takes for your customers to be ready to make another purchase. If you sell consumable items such as cosmetics, home improvement tools and building materials, you can make a fairly accurate estimate to determine how long it takes a customer to run out of supplies and need more.
However, when you sell digital properties such as ebooks, training courses and so on, the matter gets more complicated. If you are hurrying too much with a new series of ads, your customers will believe that you are trying to milk them of all their money. If you wait too long, they may have lost interest in your business.
In conclusion, the biggest take away from this article is this one: always keep your eyes on your followers, subscribers and website visitors. This is how you can identify the right moment when they are steering away from a purchase and can be targeted with a Facebook ad to bring them back and determine them to complete the transaction.