remarketing strategies facebook custom audiences

Remarketing Strategies with Facebook Custom Audiences

In my last post, I talked about how to set up Facebook Custom Audiences and why it can be incredibly beneficial to your marketing. This week, I’m going to look at some specific remarketing strategies that you can use to reach relevant audiences and increase your sales once you’ve gotten the hang of Custom Audiences. (You can review how to create Custom Audiences here.)

Remarketing Strategy #1: Web Users Who Visited Your Site but Didn’t Convert

Have you noticed that your website has been getting a lot of hits but not a lot of conversions? This could be because web users are visiting your site to learn more about your products but are not yet ready to buy. It’s very common for web users to spend some time researching before making an online purchasing decision, and Custom Audience Targeting can help remind those people about your products when they are closer to making that purchasing decision.

You can use this remarketing strategy by creating a Custom Audience that targets people who have visited a specific landing page, such as the product page for a floral print suitcase, and then create an ad featuring that same product in order to further entice them. Include a call-to-action or a special deal that might convince a web user who hesitated before to buy your product now.

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Remarketing Strategy #2: Mobile Users on Desktop Computers

Why would you want to remarket to people who viewed your website on a mobile device later on when they’re at a desktop computer? For one thing, many people will browse and research on their smartphones but feel uncomfortable making bigger purchases on these devices, especially because they may be using their phone when they’re on-the-go and can’t dedicate all their attention to the potential purchase.

Let’s say that you own a resort. A web user might start looking at their vacation options on their phone, but they might not come to the decision to make a purchase until they’re at home on their desktop computer. By remarketing to people who viewed your site on their mobile devices, you’re encouraging them to take more time to look at your products and services—when they have the time to spare.

Remarketing Strategy #3: Desktop Users on Mobile Devices

This remarketing strategy is most useful for businesses that have brick-and-mortar locations. You can create a Custom Audience of people who visited your website on their computers and create geo-specific ad campaigns to target them when they’re using their mobile devices and may be near one of your brick-and-mortar locations. Again, you’re trying to reach them at time when it’s more convenient to give your business a try.

Remarketing Strategy #4: Target Existing Customers

As a business owner, you should already know that retaining existing customers is significantly less expensive than finding new ones, so why not use Custom Audience Targeting to keep current customers engaged? There are several approaches you can take to engaging these loyal customers.

In some cases, you may wish to upsell or cross-sell customers on a product similar to something they already purchased. If they bought a laptop from your website, why not encourage them to buy a laptop case? You may also use data from your existing customers to create a Customer Loyalty list, so you can offer these customers special deals if they shop with you again.

Another good way to target loyal customers is to create a Custom Audience of your Facebook Fans. Your fans can already see content you post on your business page, but because your fans’ Newsfeeds may be crowded, you may want to create targeted ads so fans are more likely to see special deals and other valuable information they may have missed earlier.

Remarketing Strategy #5: Newsletter Subscribers

Improve your newsletter open rate and increase conversions by creating custom ads for your newsletter subscribers. Since you already have their emails on file, you can easily create a new Custom Audience based on this data by either uploading the emails in a one-column .CSV Excel file or importing an email list from MailChimp.

As with your current customers, you could offer special deals to your newsletter subscribers or create an ad letting them know about all the great deals they’ll find in the next newsletter.

Remarketing Strategy #6: Using Lookalike Audiences

One other strategy you may find useful is to market to audiences that are similar to a Custom Audience you’ve already set up. This allows you to get your ads in front of new people who may be interested in your products or services. To do this, go to ‘Audience’ under your Ads Manager and select the Custom Audience you’d like to use. Click ‘Create Lookalike Audience’ at the bottom of the page, and then select the country you want to target and the level of similarity between the new audience and your current one. You can try this with different Custom Audiences and compare performance to see what converts best for you.

No matter whom you’re targeting, Custom Audiences on Facebook allow you to remind relevant web users about your brand and products, making them more likely to convert into paying customers in the future.

21 thoughts on “Remarketing Strategies with Facebook Custom Audiences”

  1. Wow interesting! I didn’t even realise there was so many ways to use remarketing ads with Facebook. I was aware of #1 but #5 and #6 would be very interesting to try. From your experience Tom, which one of the 6 ways has been the most effective?

    1. Daragh, Good question. I have seen them all work well, but the real magic is having the right offer for the target audience. For instance, if you take a small but very targeted group of prospects who you know have not purchased you can offer them a very aggressive offer. This can work really well, but you have to make sure you have the right list. I think one of the best tactics is using this on the people you have not been able to get to with email. Check this post out: https://www.tomfanelli.com/using-email-marketing-facebook-custom-audiences-together/

  2. This is wonderful information! I have a tracker on my site that shows me the landing pages and could really use a lesson like this. You have motivated me to take a deeper look at my information on my site and adjust things. Thank you!

  3. Thanks for the advice. Like pretty much everything else I have read on this site, you truly give “actionable marketing advice.”
    I’m especially enthralled by #3 and #4 above. It makes such good sense that I’m surprised I hadn’t done it already. (I guess I don’t have all that much good sense after all.) There is an interesting relationship between mobile devices and desk/lap tops. There are things I do on my phone and things I do on my laptop. I am writing this on a laptop and probably wouldn’t take the time to do so on my phone.

  4. This is incredibly useful information, I’m always trying to target my ads to as specific an audience as possible, but this takes it one step further. I’m fairly new to the online marketplace and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the options. Thanks for this!

  5. Wow
    This was really interesting to read and i was researching since a while for the same. Just before i got onto this post. Amazing ideas, and a great way to Remarket. Didn’t even know about half of them! Now, thanks to you, i do. Will try to implement this.

    Thanks for posting and keep blogging,
    http://www.theguyfactor.com

  6. I also read your previous post on facebook custom audience. I followed your tips and its helping me reach apt audience. This post is another eye opener. I was just using marketing ideas on various blogs but these tips are more efficient and useful for me. Thanks!

  7. Targeting existing customers is important for me. I like this post because it helps us understand and make proper use of our audiences instead of shooting arrows in dark.

    1. Max, you are right, this is a highly targeted approach. I have found when you have really specific targeting with very specific creative and offers, you get great success using Facebook.

  8. I like the mobile users on desktop idea. I never thought of that. Instead of again giving users time to decide we can simply give them a way to make payments. Wow.

  9. Internet marketers need to learn this. I see some of these tips are already being followed by some of leading companies and this is also not annoying for customers. I accept this idea. We must know our audience well for getting sales.

  10. I am running a startup and I must say this post is an eye opener for people like me. Instead of following the conventional way of marketing we now can follow the above tips in marketing. I read the previous post on Facebook custom audiences and this is just a plus to that. Nice post!!

    1. Thanks Julie! Appreciate the comments and glad you found them informative. Remarketing continues to be one of the best ways you can makret your business. Especially in a world where paid search is so expensive.

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