Say goodbye to the days of letting a potential customer slip through the cracks, says marketing experts from automotive marketing companies BitMoto and Blue Mint Marketing. Through the technique of remarketing or retargeting, businesses can engage potential customers who have previously visited the company’s websites, mobile apps, or engaged with social media posts.
And, according to Matthew Finke, marketing lead strategist for BitMoto, remarketing is one of the cheapest ways to advertise to customers and can be done through Google Ads and Google Analytics. Finke began his career in the service department and, after 10 years, switched to digital marketing. In his years helping the industry, he has seen remarketing develop into an essential tool for dealerships to re-engage with customers after they have visited the website but haven’t converted into any form of revenue.
A typical Google advertisement could cost $1–$3 in cost per click but a remarketed advertisement has an average cost of 25–60 cents per click, according Top Floor.
“One of the best uses of remarketing is that it makes it so easy to keep your business top of mind with prospective customers, even in long sales cycles and even if you don’t have their contact information,” says Kyle Byers, co-founder of Blue Mint Marketing and founder of GrowthBadger.com.
Businesses have a goal to reach a customer through multiple touch points, which in marketing can be referred to as the rule of seven touch points, Byers says. Remarketing is a way to easily get in front of a customer who initially showed interest in a service several more times.
And, he says, it’s a myth that remarketing can only be used for sales departments. Customers can be retargeted according to individual interests and customer types.
Byers and Finke share the three most important factors, advertising content, audience and the landing page, that can have the biggest effect on improving any type of remarketing campaign and taking it to the next level. These three items are essential to capturing the customer’s eye within mere seconds of an interaction.
Advertising Content: Revamp and Redesign
Managers need to keep in mind the type of customer the ad is being designed for and tailor it accordingly, Byers says. For example, if a customer searches the dealership’s website but not for a specific model of vehicle, the advertisement should include general information.
To take ad content to the next level, dealership personnel can use dynamic marketing.
“[Dynamic marketing] automatically shows people the exact model they were looking at along with pricing information if it is in stock,” Byers says.
Finke says revamping the ad content in the remarketing campaign can become a way for businesses to place friendly reminders in front of a consumer in his or her daily life. For example, even a simple ad about taking a car in for an oil change placed with a discount coupon could bring someone back to the facility.
To increase the dealership’s revenue, rebates and incentives are changing constantly for the customer, Finke says. One customer might visit a dealership website looking to buy a specific type of service but it is too expensive. Placing a retargeted ad in front of the person when a discount on the service becomes available can result in a purchase.
Audience Segmentation: Separate and Target Wants
“Someone who spends 15 minutes on your website is obviously more interested in it than someone who spends 10 seconds,” Byers says. “So, these prospects can and should be treated differently.”
Byers recommends separating the audience based on how much money they plan to spend, where they are located in relation to the dealership, how many times they’ve visited the website and estimated income.
In order to divy the customers according to interests and perceived investment into the business, Finke says to create a Google ads and analytics list of customers. The lists can be divided by different categories like the type of service a customer initially searched for on the website.
Managers can keep up to date with the lists by setting a timeframe for how long a customer remains on a particular one, he says. The timeframes can be set for five days or up to 120 days.
“As time passes, the customer interests start to decline,” Finke says.
Landing Page: Convince and Cap the Customer
According to Byers and research by the Nielsen Norman Group, a company only has 10 seconds to convince someone to stay on the website in the first place. So, it is critically important for a customer to click on an advertisement and be taken to a page that delivers the promise the company made in the ad.
The business can also do frequency capping, which is how often a remarketing ad is shown to a given person.
Byers says it is also essential for the business to have good conversion tracking so the company can see if it can afford to spend more per click, lead or sale, or if it is already spending too much.
The landing page can become an opportunity to keep the customer engaged longer in his or her initial task, Finke says.
The remarketing process can work for all departments because it is a way to get the attention of a customer that might have become distracted when visiting the site, Finke says.
“Did they get interrupted or just forget what they were doing?” he says. “Depending on the answer, a retargeted ad can act as a reminder the next day.”
