Only a fraction of web visitors will land on your website and consider purchasing your product(s) or service(s). From this group, 70% will abandon their cart without completing a transaction.
Understanding why prospective customers turn around and walk away at the bottom of the funnel and providing them with properly used incentives to convert is what remarketing is all about.
The world’s largest e-commerce retailers agree that remarketing is a highly effective tactic for increasing conversion rates among interested or engaged traffic.
This should convince you of the importance of remarketing, if not the effort of writing this blog post!
Let’s start with a quick definition of remarketing; then we’ll uncover some helpful insider tips.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing is a tactic digital marketers use to reconnect with customers who have expressed a high level of interest in your offer, primarily through email subscriptions.
We say primarily because you can also build a remarketing strategy via phone, social media or offline.
In its simplest terms, remarketing consists of marketing to the same prospect several times.
You should see an abandoned cart as the perfect opportunity to front your product/brand’s core values and show what makes it unique.
Sounds like flogging a dead horse? Think again.
Not all online merchants send shopping cart abandonment emails (barely 20% of them).
However, statistics also show that cart abandoners will spend 55% more than first intended if you convince them with clear, proper and timely incentives.
Not only does email remarketing allow you to limit the impact of cart abandonment and capture more revenue, but it also helps you improve your purchase funnel, create a positive customer service experience and leave a good impression on your prospects.
To achieve this, you first need to understand the root causes of why your customers abandon their cart.
Is it because of unexpected additional costs or competitive prices found elsewhere?
Is your website navigation complicated?
Maybe your visitors were just browsing and not ready yet.
Analyzing your funnel and finding the cause(s) of cart abandonment will enable you to address and overcome these obstacles in your remarketing emails.
Remarketing vs. Retargeting
A lot of folks are struggling to understand what’s the difference between remarketing and retargeting. Big Ol’ Google deserves much of the blame.
Even though we’ll cover the topic of Retargeting in another blog post, let’s make it clear once and for all.
While both consist of reaching the same people through multiple marketing efforts, Remarketing and Retargeting are not the same.
Remarketing describes the act of reaching out to your prospects who have not converted at the bottom of your funnel, mainly through targeted emails.
How can we get you to make a purchase? By the way, here’s a little discount.
You can also achieve remarketing through phone and social media, but shopping cart abandonment emails are its most common form.
On the other hand, we can define Retargeting as a subtype of Remarketing, as it actually consists of targeting the same traffic with online ads.
It’s more about reminding your visitors that you still exist and re-engaging them with the same message. So it’s a better strategy for the earlier stages of your funnel.
Put very simply:
Remarketing = Bottom of the funnel
Retargeting = Top of the funnel
Remarketing Best Practices
Now that our vision is clear, let’s dive into our handful of insider tips and tricks.
1- Two simple and effective strategies stand out for Remarketing.
- Using MailCatchers to collect emails
- Collecting web push subscribers
The earlier you start collecting, the quicker you’ll be able to achieve results when your remarketing strategy is all set.
Also, timing is everything. Engaging your prospects through email remarketing within the first hour after they abandoned their cart shows up to 10x more results than if you wait just a little longer, as shown on the graph below.
2- Use psychological triggers to drive visitors back to the cart.
- Include images of abandoned items, product recommendations, consumer reviews and a single call to action.
- Include customer satisfaction reminders, such as guarantees, return and shipping policies, and anything else coming to your mind that could make your prospects happy and more confident about their purchase decision.
- Use a first email for a quick follow-up and ask how you can help, and a second offering a discount one day later.
- Have an open ear for your customers when they respond. This will help you find the right triggers, but also adjust the number of remarketing emails you send accordingly.
- Don’t be boring! Capture attention with compelling targeted messages.
3- Consider Remarketing solutions for maximum results.
You can use powerful tools such as OneSignal to ease up on the remarketing efforts.
What’s more, some remarketing solutions like this one are free up to a certain level!
We also suggest checking out Rejoiner and CartStack.
Some tools will even allow you to automate your cart abandonment emails through their API.
How cool does that sound?
And just in case this post hasn’t converted all skeptics yet, let’s wrap up with our Top 5 reasons why you should use Remarketing to give your results and revenue a boost:
5 Benefits of Remarketing
1- It will help you learn more about your website’s UX and checkout process.
2- You’ll be able to identify potential conversion barriers and address them efficiently.
3- You’ll create a great customer service experience and leave a positive impression.
4- You’ll recover prospective customers and increase your earning potential.
5- You’ll do what 80% of online merchants don’t, but should.
That’s it, folks! Now let’s make money.
