How to Use Remarketing for Existing Customers

For businesses that historically experience little return on the old “spend money to make money” approach, remarketing to existing customers will be music to the ears – and, with some guidance, money in the bank. Let’s take a look at how this phenomenon works and how you can start taking advantage of it.

Remarketing Means Less Dollars Out of Your Pocket

If you’re like many budget-conscious businesses of today, you’re looking for ways to be a little more spendthrift without compromising important profit-driving agendas. Fortunately, remarketing to existing customers gives you just the avenue to do both.

Remarketing is the ability to reach out to customers again, existing or not, with targeted ads that (hopefully) convince them to return to your website and do what you want them to do (buy a product, sign up for a newsletter, etc.).

Because existing customers already know your brand (they have purchased from you, after all), there’s no need to regurgitate language you would normally use to influence new buyers.

By creating ads with this specific audience in mind, you shorten the sales cycle and get in touch with those that are most likely to buy from you again.

Essentially, what this means is that the money you do spend should encourage previous buyers to become repeat customers.

Photo Credit: viviandnguyen_, Creative Commons

Generating Future Sales through Remarketing

Say, for example, that you operate an e-commerce business that sells athletic apparel and your customer just purchased a pair of cross training shoes. Since that customer just spent a good deal of money, it wouldn’t make sense to remarket to them right away. What would make sense is to remarket (that is, create a targeted ad) to that same customer 30, 60 or 90 days after the sale when they are more likely to be ready to make another purchase from you.

Fortunately, Google AdWords gives you the ability to focus your ads on a granular level. Through its multiple filters, AdWords lets you target new ads for any type of audience based on when they made a purchase, how long you want to wait to show them your ad, how often you want your ad to display, and many other preferences.

If we follow the example from above at the athletic apparel website, we would create three separate ads that would be shown to the existing customer: one for 30 days after the sale, one for 60 days, and another for 90 days later. (Of course, if the customer makes another purchase at the 60-day mark, you would also want your filters to understand that the 90-day ad should not be shown. This can also be arranged using AdWords filters.)

By using targeted ads that speak to existing customers, you can start to see how effective remarketing is for your business. You can even test different content, visuals, and landing pages to measure which ads get the most response and results.