The Black Friday Remarketing Crash Course For 2020

With Black Friday right around the corner remarketing is the number one tool that all digital marketers need to start sharpening. And with remarketing being one of the most successful digital marketing strategies - with some remarketing campaigns boosting conversion rates up to 30% and ROI over 1000%, the reasons for refreshing your remarketing knowledge should be obvious. But, if not, this quick 7 minute read will help enlighten you as to the power of properly optimized remarketing campaigns. 

So what are we waiting for? We only have a few more days till Black Friday, which means we only have a few days until the ultimate eCommerce boom of the past decade. So let’s get started already! 

The Biggest Black Friday / Cyber Monday EVER

With the year-long lockdown and more work-from-home employees than ever, 2020 is gearing up to end on a big boom (eCommerce wise). Because of the unprecedented work-from-home numbers, the digital shopping spree that usually comes with the end of year holiday season is only going to be busier and crazier. 

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This means that optimizing your eCommerce campaigns is an even bigger priority than the normal holiday surge. And, it also means that there’s an even bigger opportunity for you to grow your overall following and customer base if you can properly optimize your remarketing campaigns. 

Making The Most Of The Seasonal Shopping Trend

The reason so many digital marketers trust and love remarketing is two fold: 

1. For starters - remarketing allows you to capitalize on all of those “almost conversions” in order to improve the overall ROI of your campaigns and boost success rates. 
2. But also - if done properly -- remarketing allows you to increase the actual base size of your original shopping audience in order to start off your next campaigns with a wider, and fuller funnel. 

Both of these reasons make remarketing one of the most valuable digital marketing strategies to employ whenever an eCommerce surge is around the corner. But that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. Which is why so many brands are rushing to prepare their remarketing strategies with the holiday shopping season just around the corner. 

And with so many other brands fighting for remarketing supremacy, you can’t afford to be the odd one left out. So, let’s fill you  in on some of the most popular remarketing tactics and how to work them. 

The Magic Of Remarketing (Email And Ads) 

Let’s start off with a nice straightforward definition of what remarketing is, exactly: 

“Remarketing occurs on the Google Display Network or Bing paid search network when internet users search. It involves using technology like marketing tags and tracking pixels to deliver highly personalized ads to people who have already visited your website or post-click landing page but have not converted yet.”

What makes remarketing so powerful is that it’s not just limited to the GDN or the Bing paid search network. You can also employ remarketing with email and any other platforms that allow you to employ pre-saved lists. Things like Facebook Lookalike audiences fall under this category, but we’ll cover those later. 

For starters, let’s focus on email remarketing and classic display remarketing. Below you can find an example of a traditional remarketing email. 

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There are two big facets of any strong remarketing email. First, there’s a level of personalization that is inherent to remarketing strategies. In the example above you can see how the email sender is referencing the recipient’s recent shopping behavior to personalize the email and show them products they recently had in their cart. 

But the second point to focus on may be a bit more subtle. What successful remarketing emails do that the unsuccessful fail to is solve the original pain point that stopped the user from converting in the first place. 

This is - in fact - the original intent of remarketing campaigns. Too many of us chalk up remarketing campaigns to simply a “second attempt” at reaching your potential customer. But what it really represents is the opportunity to solve that one last stop gap that was holding up that conversion from finally closing. 

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Now, in the second example above, you can see a classic remarketing ad displayed on the GDN (Google Display Network). Because they don’t have as much time or real estate as their email counterparts, remarketing ads have to be more straight to the point. But, you’ll notice that the best remarketing ads still tend to lean on that special second facet of any successful remarketing strategy. 

Remember - in even the most complex and sophisticated digital marketing campaigns, success is going to be determined by how well you can connect on a human-to-human level. 

Black Friday Remarketing Best Practices 

Now that you know the basics of what remarketing strategies tend to look like, we can dive into some of the specific tips to help optimize your campaigns for the coming Black Friday surge. Thankfully, there are a few tried and true remarketing tips that have been proven to increase your chances of success this holiday season. 

• For starters, get started a week early (that means now!) This means uploading your bids and your targeting the week before the digital flood. 
• Second, increase your budget - significantly. The larger your budget the more flexibility and adaptability you’ll have at your disposal when the clicks start coming and the CPCs start to climb.
• Thirdly, employ all the extensions you can while maintaining the integrity of your campaigns. This means call extensions, countdowns, and any promotion extensions that can help you better catch the eyes of your consumers. 

In a sea of competing advertisers, any unique value proposition that can help you stand out from the crowd is worth screaming from a megaphone. 

The ‘X’ Factor (This Holiday Season Has Just Begun)

Here’s where we get to talk about what I mentioned earlier in the blog. Remarketing isn’t just for recapturing the almost-converted sales and improving your close rate. Infused properly, remarketing can be a valuable asset to grow your initial audience base as well as upsell existing customers into higher return conversions. 

By employing what are called Lookalike Audiences, you can even take your existing email lists and create new ad targeting segments that align with all the same interests and demographics as your already converted email list. Effectively, you can find an entirely new audience that looks exactly like your converting audience (but all fresh new users). 

Lookalike audiences are one of the most effective ways to maximize the power of any remarketing email list. But they’re far from the only one. But you’ll have to stay tuned for the rest of those remarketing tips, coming soon in Xspekt’s own Master Remarketing Guide (TBD). 

Takeaways - Stuff Your Pipeline Like A Thanksgiving Turkey

So what’s the big takeaway for this year’s holiday remarketing season? Well, if anything it should be this - remarketing isn’t something that should be used as a one-and-done second attempt. It should be used consistently and aggressively to maximize the efficacy of your email lists and ad campaigns. 

More importantly, it’s something that doesn’t have to wait or end with Black Friday and the holiday season. As more and more consumers hop online for their holiday shopping, we as marketers are given more and more opportunities to convert leads, upsell new products, and grow our email lists. 

And that last one is what really matters, because these email lists can be used throughout the coming year to compile on the wins you earned this year. So start stuffing your pipeline like you stuff turkeys and stockings, and get ready for a busy 2021.