Facebook Advertising: How to Run a Successful Retargeting Campaign

Online advertising, in general, can be tricky, especially if you do not know how to best leverage your advertising platform. Regardless, it should not stop from testing the waters of pay-per-click and social media advertising. After all, it is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote your business and increase your sales.

Meanwhile, you can run Facebook retargeting campaigns to make the most of your online ads. But we share some tips on how to run a successful retargeting campaign, let’s first define what a targeting ads is.

What are Retargeting Ads?

Retargeting ads are a powerful marketing tool that specifically targets Facebook ads to users who already have shown their interest in your brand. It lets you focus on the ones that are in-market, reminding them how great your products are or why going with your services is the right decision.

Unlike the usual banner ads, these ads are a form of online advertising which shows up to people who have already visited your site, as well as your previous customers. When a user visits your site, a particular “cookie” is placed on their browser.

• This cookie allows you to follow the users, wherever appropriate, as they visit other websites. Thus, your ads can follow them on the web.

What’s excellent about retargeting is that it is easy to set up, and there is a high chance that your site visitors could be one of those 2 billion users of Facebook. This gives you an excellent opportunity to connect with your prospective customers.

Does a retargeting strategy actually work?

You might question whether or not retargeting is just another marketing tactic that promises you grand things, only to leave you struggling with your ROI. Well, the truth is that Facebook targeting does work, and there are statistics to prove it.

• Website users that are shown with display ads are 70% more likely to convert.
• A retargeted ad has 10x higher click-through rates than the average display ad.
• 44% say that they’re likely to become repeat buyers if they experience a more personalized experience with a company or a brand.

A lot of brands tap into retargeting. However, only a few use it to its full potential.

While it is pretty essential to run retargeting ads campaign on Facebook, you need to apply technical measures in order for it to be effective.

How to run a successful Facebook Retargeting campaign

If you are ready to set up your Facebook retargeting campaign, then all you have to do is take note of these tips:

1. Set a limit to your custom audience

You do not necessarily have to bombard people with your ads. In the end, it will start to get boring, and could even become a nuisance to some.

So, to make sure that this does not happen to you, you need to place a limit on your custom audience. That way, you will only get to target those who have visited your site.

2. Consider your messaging

There is a big difference between someone who has bought something from you online and someone who browsed through your landing page without converting.

Usually, these groups are in different stages, which means that you need to adjust your Facebook ad copy. After you determine the metrics of your retargeted group, use the kind of messaging that you think will be relevant to your target audience.

Let’s say someone has signed up for a free trial. Let them know that the trial period is about to end and that they have to sign up for a paid subscription. As for your previous customers, they are running retargeting ads about a new product launch that would work well.

Of course, you need to pair your ads with engaging content.

3. Be slow and steady

At the end of the day, slow and steady wins the race.

It’s crucial to establish solid relationships with your customers first. First off, you can start with brand awareness, which will simply introduce yourself to your audience. Sure, click and convert might work, but there’s also a good chance that it won’t.

What you can do is run a retargeting campaign that features your ad to users who have engaged with your previous ad. Then, you can focus more on your lead generation and conversions. An excellent way to do this is to use video in your very first ad, allowing to gain a medium to tell your story.

You can also build a custom audience from users that have watched at least half of your video, as this shows that they have a strong interest in your brand. You can find this when you click “engagement” when building a custom audience and then select “video.”

What you can do next is to create a retargeting ad that has, even more, offers to encourage them to click on your ad. You can also build a custom audience from Collection Ads and Canvas and then show them particular products.

You can look for these in the “Full-screen Experience,” which is under the “Engagement” category of your custom audience.

4. Target active site visitors during the past 30 days

People who have visited or have been active on your site for the last 30 days, they are likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Therefore, they have to be shown with ads that have specific content or contain products that will draw them to your site, make a purchase, or sign up for your email newsletter. This is excellent if you want to boost your site traffic, and your email subscriber list, and improve your brand awareness.

5. Run paid campaigns

Are you looking forward to growing your page likes? Well, whatever metrics it is that you are trying to hit, it is always great to have huge followers on social media. However, you need to know that raising these numbers organically can be extra challenging. Good thing there is Facebook that allows you to run paid campaigns.

If you have experience advertising through Google Ads, then you are aware of the fact that the Quality Score will affect your ad rank. The same thing goes with the cost that you pay per click.

Similarly, Facebook also has almost the same metric called relevance score, which will dictate how much you will be paying for these ads when they are shown to your target market.

The primary influence of your relevance score will be your engagement rates. Therefore, your engagement will probably be higher if it’s seen by your brand loyalists on Facebook. After all, the last thing that you want to happen is to show your ads to people that are hardly interested in your brand.

Ideally, you want users to be brand ambassadors and who will engage with your post. That way, it will have a high relevance score, which leads to less expensive clicks and more visibility for your brand.

That’s why the best way to do this is to promote your page and your brand to those who are already quite familiar with your brand through remarketing.

Organic visibility is also a bonus here. When a fan likes or shares your post, then chances are, it will show up to their network of friends as well. This can help you gain more free likes and followers through organic visibility.

6. Retarget those who wanted to learn more

Users that want to know more about what you have to offer are more likely to convert than others who have merely browsed through your homepage for just a couple of seconds and then left.

These users that “want to know more” also need a higher bid and budget. So, for you to accomplish that, you have to place them in a separate custom audience.

To get this done, it’s quite simple. All you need to do is to build a custom audience and segment them into who are the ones that browsed through your site’s “features,” “how it works,” and “about” pages.

Usually, these are the ones that want to know more info or inquire about something; thus, you need to focus your attention on it as well.

7. Retarget social media users

You need to retarget social media users, not only the ones who have visited your site.

Facebook allows you to create custom audiences based on previous engagements. It’s quite easy for you to set up a campaign, then start retargeting users who have previously messaged your Facebook page, watched a Facebook video, or did a partially completed form of a Lead Ad.

Just like with your other retargeting efforts, you need to know how to adapt your messaging depending on the location of your customer in their buyer journey, as it will help you land more conversions.

Focus your efforts on retargeting

Retargeting helps you gain higher engagement, boost brand awareness, click-through rates, and conversions. So, it is time to focus on retargeting than crafting campaigns for cold audiences.