{"id":11607,"date":"2018-12-07T12:12:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T18:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/article\/\/"},"modified":"2018-12-07T12:12:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T18:12:20","slug":"let-data-do-the-lifting-smart-strategies-for-retargeting-with-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkerventures.com\/let-data-do-the-lifting-smart-strategies-for-retargeting-with-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"Let data do the lifting: smart strategies for retargeting with Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

For some time now, marketers have been using inbound marketing to convert sales prospects into brand loyalists, a technique almost wholly enabled by the digital age and the dawn of the social-media era.<\/p>\n

Long gone are the days when a business could afford to have zero web presence, not to mention a robust rotation of creative, captivating content to draw in potential purchasers and tickle the fancy (not to mention incite the engagement) of its existing customer base. Earning that sale or a new client is much easier when a person has already expressed an in interest in\u2014or interacted with\u2014your content.<\/p>\n

While having a website and social media accounts has become the norm, the savviest strategy for really putting your web properties to work for you is making use of the rich data those platforms provide to create a clear picture of your current and potential customers, hyper-focusing on those with the greatest likelihood of clicking \u201cbuy\u201d or \u201csign up to learn more.\u201d
\nIn short: think of Facebook retargeting as the next logical step on your organization\u2019s path to digital marketing optimization. Take a look at your analytics, and let the data do the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n

First of all: what is retargeting?<\/h3>\n

At its core, retargeting is a very simple concept. It\u2019s taking an individual (or audience segment, if you\u2019ve done your analytics homework) who has visited your website (or another one of your sites) and focusing an ad or piece of content specifically on them, in another place. It\u2019s much more precise than traditional marketing, because instead of spending precious dollars on shouting out your message to a large, noisy crowd of largely uninterested people, it\u2019s more like whispering in the ear of someone with whom you\u2019re already having an in-depth conversation.<\/p>\n

It goes something like this: imagine you run a specialty cheese shop with a large e-commerce component. One of your major holiday promotions is to offer exquisitely curated cheese trays and ship them anywhere in the country; another is to offer \u201ccheese of the month\u201d subscriptions, both of which you actively promote across your website and social media channels. You do see a flurry of activity on your website around the holidays, but one of your business goals is have more sustained sales numbers throughout the year.<\/p>\n

This is where retargeting can be very, very useful. By using a simple piece of code (Facebook Pixel), you can \u201ccapture\u201d those people who were visiting your site\u2014maybe they sought you out specifically because a friend recommended you; maybe they found you after reading one of your clever blog posts about curating the perfect holiday cheese board; maybe they were simply googling \u201ccheese of the month clubs\u201d in search of last-minute gift ideas\u2014and serve up advertising aimed directly at them, on Facebook.<\/p>\n

While your previous Facebook ads might have employed an audience segmented by demographics, the retargeted ad features the added layer of finding people who\u2019ve visited your website in a new place\u2014in their own Facebook feeds.<\/p>\n

Why Facebook?<\/h3>\n

As of 2018, Facebook objectively still dominates the social media landscape with some 2.2 billion active monthly users; it also now owns the sixth-ranked (in terms of users) platform, Instagram, making retargeting between the two even more fluid.<\/p>\n

Also, Facebook makes it relatively easy for even a small business owner or novice online advertiser to segment its audiences and retarget those who have engaged, in part because they\u2019ve been in the social media advertising game longer than anyone.\u00a0Additionally, their back-end interface is user-friendly, so while we have some tips on how to best deploy these retargeting tactics and build your strategy, it helps that the platform is streamlined and un-busy.<\/p>\n

Facebook Retargeting Tactics<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

First things first\u2014before you get started with retargeting, it would be useful to make sure you have a general facility with Facebook\u2019s Ads Manager.<\/p>\n

With that under your belt, the next step in retargeting is adding the Pixel code to your website, which will use cookies to track your site\u2019s visitors, and retarget them on Facebook with your selected ads. You can learn about setting up Facebook Pixel on your website here, but if you\u2019re using a web developer to manage your site, it might behoove you to get them involved for that step.<\/p>\n

Once Pixel is in place, it\u2019s time to start developing your retargeting campaign, essentially by creating audiences in your Facebook ad campaigns, with the addition of adding specific URLs from your site into the relevant segmentation fields.
\nNeed some ideas to get you started?<\/p>\n