Retargeting Strategies to Fight Shopping Cart Abandonment

Seven out of ten customers abandon their shopping carts before completing their purchases. That is a statistic that will strike fear into the heart of any eCommerce site owner.

Fortunately, there are many ways to overcome this issue.

In our fighting shopping cart abandonment ultimate guide on the topic, we have given you a rundown of various strategies that you can employ. The article does a great job of addressing shopping cart abandonment in general, so we will not go through that again.

We will, however, hone in on one strategy that the ultimate guide touched on—retargeting.

In this post, we will look at effective retargeting strategies for recovering lost sales.

1. What Is Retargeting?

Retargeting is an advertising strategy based on a visit to your site. You place a pixel or piece of code on a specific page on your website. When visitors visit that page, this code tracks their movements.

When they leave your site, the code springs into action. It displays advertisements related to the product your visitor was considering.

2. Retargeting vs Remarketing

At first glance, both terms seem to point to the same thing. They are often used interchangeably.

There is a difference, though.

• Retargeting refers to showing display ads on different sites your prospect visits.
• Remarketing refers to reaching out to your prospects via other channels. You email or call them instead of using display ads.

3. Does Retargeting Work?

Let us go over the statistics:

• When performed correctly, retargeting works very well. 70% of visitors to your site are more likely to convert if they see a retargeted ad.
• Retargeted ads have a 10 times higher click-through rate than standard ads.

Retargeting is highly effective if you have a well thought out strategy going forward. In the next section, we will go through some highly effective strategies to get you started.

4. Retargeting Strategies

There are several strategies that you can employ. The results you get will depend on how well placed your pixels are and how targeted your advertising is.

4.1 Retarget All Visitors to Your Site

It is a common strategy for those who do not know much about retargeting. The pixel is placed on every page on your site. We do not recommend it, though, because it is wasteful.

If you adopt this strategy, you will present ads to every visitor to your site. That includes people who clicked on the site by accident. A second reason why it is not effective is that the advertising must, by nature, be very generic.

4.2 Retarget Visitors Who Have Spent Some Time Browsing Your Site

Someone who spends 15 seconds on your site is not likely to be very interested in your products. On the other hand, someone who spends five minutes on your website clearly sees something that they like. It makes sense to follow up with a retargeting ad for visitors who stay on your site longer.

4.3 Retarget Visitors on a Particular Page

Another useful strategy is to retarget based on the page that the person visited. You could, for example, place the pixel on the shopping cart page to retarget clients who did not complete their purchase.

It is also helpful to consider the different stages of the customer’s journey. Someone who has added a product to their cart is clearly interested. Ads for the product and related products will do well.

Someone who is still doing their research, however, might need a bit more information to sway them. You could put a pixel on the page describing your processes, or the about page. The difference here is that your ad will link through to more information.

You could link to a blog post, video on how the product performs, white paper, or any content that makes customers trust your product.

4.4 Retarget on Your Checkout Page

Customers who get to your checkout page are clearly very interested in your products. If they do not follow through with the purchase, it could be because of a pricing issue. Retargeting these people with a special offer could prove useful in recovering the sale.

Make sure that the offer has a time limit. It creates a sense of urgency that should get customers to act faster.

4.5 Retarget Customers Who Have Purchased an Item

This is basic cross-selling. Here your adverts will be about products closely related to the item that a customer bought.

If they purchased a barbecue grill, for example, they might be interested in:

• Barbecue tools.
• A useful rack to store the utensils on.
• Charcoal or gas, depending on the type of grill.

We could go on, but you get the picture.

4.6 Retarget Users Based on the Search Terms That They Use

How did your visitors find your website in the first place? What search terms did they use? With this type of retargeting, you must focus on content that matches the search term. Using the grill example again, visitors might ask how to clean their grill.

Your ad will then focus on answering that question. You will present the prospect with the best cleaning options on your site. Alternatively, you could advertise a blog post of yours that answers the question more thoroughly.

4.7 Retarget by Selected Demographics

With a social media site like Facebook, you can narrow your audience as much as you like. Use this to your advantage by creating personalized ads.

You can target people based on their income, geographical location, interests, and so on. Say, for example, that you want to market a video game. Determine your main target audience and tailor your content accordingly.

In this case, your primary target audience is teens. You can create an ad that shows how exciting the game is. It should be fun and lively. Your secondary audience is adults who buy the game as a gift. To convince parents to buy the game, you might have to point out educational aspects, focus on cost-saving, and so on.

The point is that you need to consider a lot of things when it comes to marketing.

5. Mistakes to Avoid

5.1 Overestimating the Size of Your Audience

Start by checking the number of visitors who visit your page more than once a month. Is it a sizeable audience? If not, consider taking analytics over a three or six month period instead.

For retargeting to be effective, you need to know that there is a substantial number of people to remarket to.

5.2 Not Upselling and Cross-Selling

When customers fail to complete their purchase, we automatically assume that they wanted the item but thought better of the purchase. The truth might be very different. Perhaps they chose not to complete the sale because the product was not exactly what they needed.

In such cases, it is a good idea to bring up related items that might be a better fit. You could even promote a high-end product. The idea is to convince your clients that they were getting a great deal on the first item.

5.3 Not Excluding Already Purchased Items

Many e-commerce retailers make the mistake of showing us an item that we have just bought. That is a great way to get seen as a spammer. It is also a complete waste of time. Therefore, exclude those who have converted in the past two weeks.

If you do want to market to them, ensure that you promote different products. Otherwise, your return on investment will drop.

Another thing to consider is the type of purchase your customer made. You do not want to cross-sell products that make no sense in this regard. Say, for example, that a customer bought a gas grill. Trying to sell them charcoal is a waste of time because they do not need it.

5.4 Not Considering Long-Term Campaigns

When most people think of remarketing, they think of the saying, “Strike while the iron is hot.” We have a different strategy in mind. We are focusing more on when the customer will need to replace your product.

Say, for example, that a bottle of shampoo lasts two months. Why not set up a campaign about a week before you think that the shampoo will be used up? If it is almost time to replace the product, your client might well be nudged into making a purchase again.

5.5 Not Setting Clear Goals

Before you even consider creating a pixel, you must set clear goals. Define in advance what you want to get out of the campaign. Are you looking for a boost in sales or a brand-building exercise? Retargeting can be used for both, but the tactics employed in either case are quite different.

Be specific—how many new sales do you want? What conversion rate are you aiming for? Without clear guidelines, it will be impossible to measure your progress going forward.

6. Final Notes

Retargeting can become a valuable tool in the marketer’s arsenal. If you want it to be successful, you need to do more than just add on a pixel and hope for the best. By making use of the data that you already have, you can create targeted campaigns that are highly effective.

The key is to place the right information on the prospect’s path at the right time. Sometimes that means promoting a blog post instead of an actual product. Consider your goals for each campaign and monitor your progress accordingly.

If you follow the advice we mentioned above, you will get good results from your retargeting campaigns. The only thing left is to decide which strategy you will choose.

Where will you begin?

Let us know in the comments below.