Remarketing on Facebook is one of the most effective strategies to increase conversions and maximize the ROI of advertising campaigns.
In the complete 2024 guide, we’ll understand well:
- the importance of remarketing on Facebook Ads.
- I’ll show you how to create an effective remarketing strategy.
- We’ll see how to segment the audience and create personalized ads based on the target audience.
As always, there will be plenty of practical tips to optimize campaigns. At the end, we’ll also focus on remarketing for eCommerce and for SMEs/professionals.
The journey is long, so let’s not waste time and get started!
What is meant by remarketing and how does it differ from retargeting?
In digital marketing, these two terms are often used as synonyms, but they’re not exactly the same thing.
Remarketing
When we talk about remarketing, we’re referring to strategies used to engage users who have already interacted in any way with us, through email marketing, phone contact, social network ads, and even offline directly.
As you can see, there are many touchpoints of different origins, and what matters is that the user has interacted with us and our product.
Retargeting
Retargeting, on the other hand, only deals with online ads and uses browser cookies to follow users who have visited your website without completing a conversion, showing them relevant ads while they browse other websites or social media.
Now you know the substantial difference between remarketing and retargeting, so you understand well why using them randomly is a clear mistake. Okay, it’s not terrible, but it is misleading, and believe me, the clearer and more precise we are in our work, the better!
Why is remarketing on Meta important?
In marketing, digital and otherwise, one of the main objectives is to have a large warm or at least lukewarm audience that already knows the product or brand.
The advantages over a cold audience that doesn’t know of your existence are many. First of all, Meta has a very high and super precise level of audience targeting.
You can segment your audience based on demographic data, interests, online behaviors, and previous interactions with your business.
This allows you to create highly personalized and targeted remarketing campaigns, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
On the cost side, know that acquiring new customers is always more expensive, much more than engaging warm or lukewarm potential customers. And let’s not forget that remarketing increases sales, but also contributes to customer loyalty. It also encourages them to repeat purchases and spread the word through immortal word-of-mouth.
How to create an effective remarketing strategy on Facebook
1. Identify your audience and segment it as much as possible based on interaction with pages and site visits
It’s not the first time I say it and it won’t be the last. The very first thing to do before setting up a campaign is to identify the audience you want the advertisement to reach. Only this way can you personalize the message, respond to users’ needs, and increase sales.
To do remarketing, you need to use the data reported by Facebook Insights and analyze every potential customer at your disposal, to gather as much information as possible and re-target those who have already visited your website or interacted with your Facebook page.
IMPORTANT!
I advise you to segment your audience based on their web behavior, so you’ll have: website visitors, users who have viewed specific products, users who have added products to the cart but haven’t completed the purchase, customers who have made a purchase. And also, users who have interacted with specific posts or videos on your Facebook page.
2. Set up the Facebook Pixel on the website and track events
I’ve talked extensively about the Facebook Pixel in a dedicated guide that I invite you to read. There you’ll find everything you need to create and install it on your website.
Moreover, you’ll learn how to set up events and leverage the data obtained to maximize the return on investment of your remarketing campaigns.
Now let’s continue, but please, if you haven’t done so, read the Facebook Pixel guide right after you finish here, otherwise you won’t be ready to run any remarketing campaign on Facebook!
3. What types of remarketing ads can you create on Facebook Ads?
Meta offers you four different ad formats:
- image ad.
- video ad.
- carousel ads.
- collection ads.
Let’s look at them in more detail.
1. The “image ad uses visual impact to attract the” user to “linger on the” ad. The accepted file types are JPG or PNG, with aspect ratios from 1.91:1 to 1:1 and a resolution of at least 1080 x 1080 pixels.
I advise you to write a title of 27 characters and a main text of 80, because any additional text will be truncated. You can choose the placement and objective, and based on this you’ll have a series of Call to Action options available.
2. By adding a video to the ad, you’ll attract attention thanks to moving images and audio. MP4, MOV or GIF are allowed, with aspect ratios 1:1 (for desktop or mobile) or 4:5 (only for mobile). The resolution must not be less than 1080 x 1080 pixels.
Always remember to add subtitles and audio, along with a main text of 125 characters, a title and a description of 27 characters each. As with the image ad, you can select the placement, objective, and CTA.
3. The “carousel ad allows you to show users up to ten images or videos within the” same ad. You can also add a link to each piece of content. Carousels are perfect if you need to show multiple images of the same product, or to create a scrollable panoramic photo.
4. Finally, you can create collection ads to showcase items from your product catalog, customizing them for each person. Meta also provides dynamic options to vary how products are presented.
The collection ad features a cover image or video followed by 3 product images.
When the user clicks, they will be directed to an interactive experience that you can choose from the Storefront, Lookbook, or Customer Acquisition templates, or create a custom one.
4. Choose the right objective for the remarketing campaign
Based on the type of ad you choose for the remarketing campaign, you need to determine which “objective you want to achieve among awareness, traffic, interactions, leads, app promotion”, sales.
In remarketing campaigns, you are in the middle stage of the funnel (MOFU– Middle of the Funnel), so you’re not very interested in the awareness objective, which has already been surpassed because the audience you’re targeting knows the brand and the product.
What you’re interested in is reawakening the potential customer, taking them from lukewarm to hot, and guiding them to complete the action you’ve established with the Call to Action.
Useful tips to improve the effectiveness of remarketing on Facebook
I want to give you some tips to get the most out of your remarketing strategies. These are simple actions that can make a difference in results. Let’s start with strategic timing.
1. Pay attention to the timing and frequency with which you publish ads
One suggestion I give you is to show ads immediately after users have visited your site, when their interest is still high. This way, you have a better chance of getting them to complete the CTA you want, for example, a purchase on your online shop.
Before scheduling ads, also check what times of the day and days of the week your audience is most active and likely to pay attention to ads.
Be careful not to bombard your potential customers with ads, or instead of attracting them, you risk triggering the opposite effect, namely being invisible. Use Facebook’s frequency settings to limit the number of times an ad is displayed and always combine data with common sense!
Don’t always serve the same dish, change graphics and texts, be creative and not repetitive. Remember that you’re not “the only brand that passes before the user’s eyes”, so make yourself noticed and don’t bore people.
I often repeat this, and I’ll say it again, without preliminary analysis in web marketing, you won’t go far and risk just wasting time and money. So always start with a careful study of your audience, their interests, and how they behave on the web. Then act accordingly.
2. Customize texts and graphics based on the audience segment you’re targeting and the funnel stage
When it comes to marketing, you must always remember your business funnel and consider at which point of the journey “the user is to personalize ads and use images and copy that attract the user” and respond to their needs.
For example, if “the user is already close to completing the” purchase, special offers or customer testimonials are very useful to push them towards conversion.
Personalizing content based on the funnel stage increases the relevance of ads and also improves “user experience and loyalty”. In the image below, you can see an example of Qreativa’s Customer Journey Map. For remarketing, we should already be in the Convert- Loyalty- Advocacy phase.
3. Monitor campaigns and don’t rest on your laurels
Like a broken record, I repeat that a marketer never sits idle to endure events but acts, conducts continuous analysis, and looks around.
You must always check what the key metrics like click-through rate, conversion rate, or cost per conversion say to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns.
Never forget about A/B tests on creatives, which are essential to see which images, videos, and texts perform better and on campaigns, to understand which ones are performing well and which aren’t.
Something not working and you’re not converting as expected? You definitely need to intervene based on what the data shows and change your strategy.
Specific remarketing for different types of businesses
How to do remarketing if you have an eCommerce: personalize the ad based on the customer journey
If you have an eCommerce, remarketing is one of the best strategies to increase conversion rates and optimize the ROI of your Facebook campaigns. Always keep in mind, however, which stage of their journey (customer journey) the potential customer is in and personalize your ads accordingly. Don’t worry, I’ll give you some practical examples now.
Example:
Let’s say a user has visited a specific product page without completing the “purchase, what can you do? Well, I would show them dynamic ads with that product, along with positive reviews, or even better, offer them a” limited-time offer.
If you’re targeting a customer who has already made a purchase, do upselling or cross-selling and suggest related products or accessories.
And if a user has left one or more items in their cart without completing the “purchase? Try to understand their needs and provide the answer with a message that reminds them of the products still in the cart and why they shouldn’t miss out. Maybe add a discount or an additional incentive! You’ll see that a good percentage will click on complete the” order.
Remarketing for SMEs and professionals
A small and medium-sized business or a professional (personal brand) must leverage the power of remarketing to remind potential customers of the services offered.
If you are also an SME or a professional, show testimonials from satisfied customers or case studies that demonstrate your uniqueness and the value that sets you apart from others.
Remarketing is an opportunity to build and cement your reputation and credibility, with ads that focus on skills, experiences, with blog articles for example, white papers or webinars.
Conclusions
Having a remarketing strategy on Facebook allows you to increase conversion rates and maximize the return on investment in advertising.
Unlike retargeting, which only deals with contacts acquired through online campaigns, remarketing includes in the strategy customer lists obtained through email marketing, phone calls, or direct contact.
In this guide, I’ve explained why you need to segment your audience as much as possible and what are the four types of ads you can use, the objectives and the CTAs.
Above all, we’ve delved into the “importance of always assessing at what point of the customer journey the client is, in order to personalize the advertising message and respond to the needs that the” user has at that moment.
Make use of the advice I’ve given you to optimize the ads for Facebook remarketing campaigns, check the timing and frequency with which you publish ads to avoid saturating the customer’s feed and paradoxically becoming invisible due to excessive exposure.
Remember that a well-planned remarketing strategy is useful whether you have an online shop or you are a small or medium-sized business or a professional.
Contact us for a free consultation
If you want to know more about what you’ve learned from this reading, or you’re looking for an expert ally in remarketing and advertising for your company or personal brand, we at Qreativa are here.
Contact us and take advantage of the first free consultation that will only take 15 minutes of your time.
