7 Tips for Successful Facebook Retargeting

No digital advertising strategy is complete without a retargeting plan.

Serving as a tool for both acquisition and retention, retargeting is really a must for any Facebook advertiser. Whether your product is an app, game or e-commerce site, retargeting can get you more customers, a lower churn rate, and a higher LTV – what’s bad about that?

Read on to learn some tips that will get you started with Facebook retargeting.

1.  Know your funnel

Does your game have a tutorial level? Are users leaving your app from the registration page? Which steps does a user need to take on your website before making a purchase? Understanding your funnel in its entirety is crucial. The journey to conversion and/or deposits is not always a linear one, and knowing exactly where you are losing potential clients provides insights both on potential issues with the product and on how you can approach different users in your retargeting campaigns.

2.  Make sure you have a Facebook Pixel and\or SDK implemented

Retargeting requires precise tracking. You need to know exactly what your users did and where, as well as what they didn’t do. Make sure you implement a Facebook pixel on your website or the Facebook SDK on your app; the more information you have – the better.  This will allow you to learn of any potential weak links in your funnel and, even more importantly, to create (dynamic) audience segments.

3. It’s all about segmenting

Segmentation is the core of a good retargeting campaign. Your users are different from one another. When looking at both potential and lapsed consumers of your product, it is important to differentiate between their levels of intent, LTVs, or even consumption patterns. A user who used the “add to cart” option but did not make a purchase should be a higher priority than one who just visited your landing page. A user who completed the first level of your game should be a higher priority than one who just installed it. Most importantly, the higher the LTV of your lapsed user, the higher should the priority be. Create different, precise audiences for these different types of users, and you will then be able to approach them with different messaging, creatives and incentives, as well as bid on them differently (based on their value to you).

4. Use dynamic audiences

This is simple. Dynamic Facebook audiences refresh automatically, keeping your audience up-to-date, your ads relevant, and your money well-spent. If you upload a static customer list of lapsed users from your app and target them for a month, you are most likely spending money on reaching users who you already convinced to come back the first or second time they saw your ad. This will increase all your costs, hurting the campaign’s ROI. Use dynamic audiences to make sure you are continuously reaching fresh, new users who haven’t been exposed to your ads yet.

5. Get smart and personal with your messaging

Retargeting is about having a dialogue with your potential and current consumers. Imagine that you’re at a dinner party, and you want to convince people to do something through individual conversations. Each person is different; will you use the exact same rhetoric and messages with every single person in the room? Obviously, you’ll have a higher chance of succeeding in your goal if you understand the differences between each person, and try to cater to his or her specific needs. Retargeting is very much like this, on a grander scale. You have different audience segments, so address them differently. Are you targeting lapsed, high-LTV users? Make them feel special, remind them that you appreciate their contribution to your product and would love for them to return. Are you targeting users who visited a specific type of product on your website? Provide them with more information or added value regarding that specific product or field of interest. Are you targeting active users who have never made a deposit? Try to illustrate what value they might receive by making a deposit. Your creatives should, obviously, align with these personalized messages as much as possible. Show your users images or videos of products they showed interest in, or characters they like, or a service they used. Use something familiar to grab their attention!

6. Incentivize

This relates to the previous tip. The more incentives you use in your retargeting campaign, the higher your chance of convincing your target audiences to perform a desired action. If you want someone back in your product, tell them what’s new, what they’ve been missing out on, or even better – give them a personal offer, gift or even discount. A retargeting campaign without an incentive is like a hook without bait.

7. Measure the bottom line

So how do you know if your retargeting campaign had a real impact? Maybe you got 10% of your audience back to your app, or got 5% of your audience to reconsider and make a purchase on your website, but there’s always a chance that would have happened even if these users were not exposed to your campaign. In order to test this, I would recommend a lift test. Take 10-20% out of your total audience to use as a control group, making sure these users are not exposed to any of your ads. Target the other 80-90% for at least a month, and then compare the results. If you see a significant lift in the targeted group – congratulations, your campaign was successful.

If there is one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that retargeting is about having a dialogue with potential and existing customers. The more you understand who you are talking to, and the better you fit your messaging and creatives to the right audiences – the more likely you are to succeed.