Engage Lost Prospects With Facebook Retargeting Ads

Do you notice how we are more likely to respond to people we’re already familiar with? This is even more pronounced when we re-engage with familiar people. It’s less awkward, and the interaction tends to be more fruitful. Facebook retargeting ads leverage this facet of human behavior and turn it into a way to revive dying marketing campaigns.

This article will explain retargeting ads and why they are vital to any marketer’s toolkit. 

What Are Facebook Retargeting Ads?

Facebook retargeting ads are ads that allow businesses to reconnect with users they’ve interacted with previously. This applies to users who:

• Followed or interacted with your Facebook Page or Instagram profile.
• Shared their contact information with you.
• Interacted with your Facebook Event.
• Watched a significant amount of your content.
• Use your app.
• Visited your website.

The primary idea behind retargeting ads is that people who’ve shown interest in your brand will likely convert or re-engage with you. 

Remarketing Vs. Retargeting

Many people use these terms interchangeably. They share similar goals, and they seem to serve the same purpose. However, while they are similar, remarketing and retargeting differ in strategy and target audience.

A remarketing campaign focuses on reconnecting with previous customers through email. (i.e., people who’ve purchased your products and services before, 

On the other hand, retargeting specifically focuses on retargeting users who have yet to become customers. (i.e., people who’ve started the first steps toward making a purchase but somehow stopped.)

It’s necessary to differentiate these two approaches because the strategies needed to successfully re-engage their target audience differ.

For one, previous customers are more likely to re-engage because they already know the brand and product. Businesses don’t need to persuade them to purchase a product. They only need to suggest other products that they might also need.

On the other hand, retargeting efforts are meant to encourage a prospect to make a purchase. Marketers use ads as reminders for prospects to finalize their purchases.

Why Is Retargeting Ads Important?

The primary purpose of using a retargeting ad is to help prospects complete the conversion journey. There are many reasons prospects fail to complete a purchase and leave their items in their cart.

Retargeting ads serve as gentle reminders to those looking at your products to finish what they started. 

For example, a prospect views your products and adds them to the checkout cart, only to realize he doesn’t have his credit card ready. He ends up forgetting about the purchase. 

The item is left in his cart, and the conversion is incomplete. The social media marketer then decides to run a retargeting ad campaign.

Facebook advertises unfinished purchases by presenting personalized ads. The ad reminds the prospect of the product he meant to purchase a few days ago, and he decides to buy the item.

When he finishes the purchase, the retargeting ad is successful. 

Besides this, there are many other reasons to run a retargeting campaign. These include:

• Reduced cart abandonment rates.
• Retargeting is the most effective ad placement strategy.
• Raises brand awareness.
• Increase numbers of qualified leads.
• Creates more compelling ads
• Automate upsells and back-end sales.

How to Set up Facebook Retargeting Ads

This section will outline the steps for setting up retargeting ads on Facebook.

• Open the Facebook ads manager and click on Audiences.
• Click on create audience and select custom audiences.
• Under custom audiences, select website traffic. (this is the main option to use to retarget prospects)
• Next, select your target audience from the dropdown menu. You can target custom audiences such as:

• Website visitors.
• People who visit specific pages.
• Users who visit particular pages but exclude: 
• People who haven’t visited in a certain amount of time.
• Custom combination

5. Get your Facebookpixel code and paste it onto your website.

Once you paste your pixel code on your website, it will start tracking visitors. Pixel codes place a 1×1 transparent pixel on your website. It tracks visitors who have seen the pixel when they visit a particular part of your page or take action.

After launching a retargeting ad campaign, make sure to track performance through:

• Conversion rates
• Lead generation
• Sales
• Traffic volume

The Bottom Line

Advertising is a complex process that includes many different stages. Retargeting ads are a feature that every marketer needs to know. It’s a great way to get your conversion rates higher, and they help drive more sales.

If you’re already investing money into promoting your products and services to cold audiences, it makes only perfect sense to invest in retargeting.

Retargeted prospects are more likely to return to your brand and complete their journey to becoming customers. This works for many platforms, which means businesses can extend their reach.

You can add many tools to your sales funnel, and retargeting is one of the most effective strategies at your disposal. Take the time to build your experience with the tool.