Google Ads Remarketing – Best Practices

Retargeting, also known as Google Remarketing, provides advertisers with comprehensive options to bring back former website visitors and potential customers to the shop and page if they have once left without closing a purchase or corresponding conversion/lead.

This is because users often do not convert to buyers immediately on their first visit to the online shop. The "Customer Journey" can span several touchpoints until the purchase decision is finally made. An effective way to re-engage shoppers on this journey is through Remarketing or Retargeting with Google Ads. If you are a small business, we also have an article on our blog about maximum efficiency with low Google Ads costs.

Our Remarketing Best Practices for Google Ads

To help you soon use the Google Remarketing tool even more efficiently – for a higher conversion rate and more revenue – here are our top tips:

• Use multiple time clusters: People who visited your site just yesterday are likely closer to a purchase decision than those whose visit was as long as 30 days ago. For this reason, your campaigns should include multiple remarketing lists with different cookie durations. That way, you can place differentiated bids for the different target groups and address them with tailored ad texts. We recommend at least three time cohorts: The last visit was up to 30 days / up to 90 days / up to 180 days ago. However, there are also advertisers whose products require setting a particularly long list duration. This is often the case with many B2B providers, as decision-making processes are more complex up to the final purchase.

• Dynamic Remarketing: Unlike standard remarketing, dynamic remarketing shows the visitor tailored offers related to the last products they viewed on your site – or related products from the same category. If your product portfolio is already registered in the Google Merchant Center, the path to dynamic remarketing isn’t far. The remarketing code on your site just needs to be updated and some variables integrated. Since 2019, dynamic remarketing can only be played out via responsive display ads. This means additional images, the logo, and ad titles along with descriptions are required.

• No placement on sites without value and 'Below the Fold': Google allows the exclusion of various web content. Examples include pages with obscene or crude language as well as pages that are sexually suggestive. Even if one should not over-tightly restrict here, we recommend excluding reserved domains, error pages, and gambling pages. In our experience, pages of these categories usually generate only useless impressions.

Additionally, placements 'Below the Fold' can be excluded – in the area that is visible to the visitor only by scrolling.

• Google Remarketing for brand building: The benefit of remarketing for brand building is not undisputed. If you consistently penetrate your customers with high frequency through retargeting and show them the same product over a long period, it might even harm your brand. The user might feel harassed and annoyed in the long run. Nonetheless, you should set up at least one remarketing group with a long cookie duration between a maximum of 360 and 540 days. To avoid the harassment effect, you should address this group rather in intervals with longer pauses and a low frequency cap – for example during special promotions such as end-of-summer sales or the start of the booking season, with tailored offers and wording. It has also been shown that remarketing can have a positive influence on your direct traffic and time-on-site.

• Former buyers and similar audiences: You should always set up a separate remarketing group exclusively for customers who have already placed an order in your shop. The cookie duration can indeed be a year or longer. This group should also be targeted again at longer intervals and for special promotions. Additionally, we recommend testing the "Similar Audiences" tool for this group. Google will find users for you who share the same characteristics and the same surfing and searching behavior as your customers. This feature can prove very useful for acquiring new customers.

• Use RLSA campaigns: Remarketing lists for search ads allow you to adjust campaigns in the search network for users who have already visited your website. This way, you can address users again with tailored text ads, e.g., Google Display Network, and increased bids. Here you can distinguish between new customers and existing customers/users in terms of address or through special discounts, and optimally control advertising content such as promotions.

• Run Remarketing in the Display Network: Remarketing in the Google Display Network is particularly promising. Messages from advertising banners are significantly better perceived by previous users for retargeting and recognized more quickly than text ads. Visual memories represent an important touchpoint in the Customer Life Journey and often offer better conversion rates than for new customers.

• Use customer lists: A powerful tool is the use of Customer Match, i.e., lists of known customers (e.g., newsletter subscribers). You must implement these in your Google Ads account. However, this feature is no longer available by default in all accounts. In order to have this unlocked, you must meet some criteria, such as at least €50,000 in lifetime spend through your account.

Conclusion

Google Remarketing is the perfect way to increase conversions and conversion rates. You can use retargeting to place new offers for known customers. Get your products and yourself back into conversation and refresh the willingness to buy in your prospects and customers.

What We Can Do for You

Do you want to use Google Ads Remarketing efficiently and need support in setting up or managing campaigns? contact internetwarriors GmbH. Our certified Google Ads specialists are happy to assist you.