The WebMechanix Guide to
Retargeting Advertising
The Awesome Marketer’s Guide to
Winning Back Lost Leads the Dirt-Cheap Way
Table of Contents
Welcome, Friend
2
Retargeting is Badass
3
Here’s Exactly How It Works
4
The Psychology of Retargeting
6
There’s a Science to the Strategy
7
Retargeting Recipes for Ninjas
11
Conclusion
13
About WebMechanix
14
Welcome, Friend
If you’re searching for a cheap, effective way to get more leads, retargeting
is probably just the right solution. We know this well. We’ve created and
experimented with thousands of campaigns at hundreds of clients that
generated buckets of additional revenue using this tactic.
We’ve got it down to a science here at WebMechanix and now do it more
efficiently than anyone. And we’ve been remarketing since the early days, so
we’ve learned plenty of lessons over the years, too. Now we’re saving you a
bunch of time and money learning on your own the hard way.
If you are already doing it, there’s a good chance you may be doing it wrong.
Almost every time a new client who has used retargeting joins our cult hires
us, we find at least five opportunities for improvement—yes, at least five.
Want to know how we do it? Keep reading…
2
Retargeting is Badass
Chances Are, Your Website Converts Less
Than 5%
That’s not great news, but it’s probably true. In fact, the first thing we do
with new clients is to look for the low-hanging fruit to wrench up site-wide
conversion.
Here’s the reality: It’s six times easier to make a sale with a current customer.
Similarly, it’s substantially easier to convert visitors who have already been to
your site because you’re nudging someone over the edge rather than starting
from scratch. And that’s why retargeting is one of our favorite Badass Tactics.
Retargeting (also commonly called remarketing, used interchangeably in
this eBook) presents digital marketers with a unique opportunity to stay top
of mind with buyers by serving up ads to site users after they complete their
visit.
Strictly speaking, retargeting is dead simple. A user hits your site. They take
some desirable action or indicate a buying signal. This action can be as
straightforward as a single page view, but you can layer in nearly limitless
other possibilities (more ideas and strategy a little later). For one reason or
another, the user either doesn’t become a lead or doesn’t move further down
the funnel. They leave your site, and the visit ends.
Then the user begins seeing ad messaging connected to their visit. Done
correctly, they re-engage with your brand... BOOM. You save the sale.
Smart marketers love remarketing because it delivers a high return on
investment (ROI). Done correctly, these ads are typically cheap and highly
effective. By focusing on a smaller audience that you know is already
interested and actively looking, you can offer very specific, highly-targeted
messaging that connects directly with their buying signals.
Setting a barebones campaign up is relatively low effort and will keep
you top-of-mind while your prospects are checking the boxes with your
competitors before returning to you for the sale. We will show you how
it works. We will give you some advice that you can use whether you’re
just getting started or looking to go next-level. We will also cover practical
considerations that will help you pick who to target and what to offer.
First, let’s talk about what retargeting is.
3
Here’s Exactly How It Works
...and Why You Should Absolutely Be
Doing It
Retargeting is pretty much like digital magic. You can set up a campaign that
“listens” for some specific action, say, a view of a certain page or a click on a
certain element. This is called a “trigger”.
When that trigger fires, the user gets “cookied” (i.e. remembered) and added
to a retargeting list (also called an “audience”). Then you can serve up ads to
that audience however your heart desires. You can also now create audiences
based on information in Google Analytics, which is relatively new, superpowerful, and still largely underutilized.
For instance, you can create retargeting audiences based on a bunch of
stuff like:
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•
•
•
•
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Age and gender
Geography
Device and browser type
New vs. returning visitors
Page(s) viewed (or not viewed)
Number of pages viewed
Time spent on the site
Source and medium of traffic
A high-performing referral source
The possibilities are endless! For example, WebMechanix gets a lot of
high-quality traffic from a website called clutch.co which ranks marketing
companies based on customer reviews. Since our customers absolutely adore
us (their words, not ours), WebMechanix is ranked as the #1 digital marketing
agency in the region. Needless to say, they send us a lot of traffic.
Roughly 10% of visitors from Clutch.co convert on our website, and they’re
very high-quality leads. But what about the other 90%? Wouldn’t it be great
if there was a way to get back in front of that high-value audience with a
specific message that we knew would be relevant to them?
Well, now we can. We could set up an audience that says:
• Traffic source = Clutch.co AND
• Goal completions = 0 AND
• Country = United States
4
And voila! There’s our list.
Then create an ad and landing page to the tune of “Find Out Exactly Why
Clutch.co [Reviewer] Loves Us!” and offer a case study highlighting how
we move the needle for that client. That’s just one example of a golden
opportunity, and you can find several other “recipes” throughout the book.
But remarketing is almost always the top source of the highest quality leads
at the lowest price. So if your remarketing game’s not on point, you’re leaving
a pile of money on the table.
Pro Tip
Email can both trigger ads and work in conjunction with them. Moreover,
email is very commonly used as a standalone medium for retargeting. Think
of that time when you bought those shoes and a few days later you got an
email suggesting other shoes you would love based on your last purchase.
For our purposes, however, we will stay focused on retargeting strategies that
rely primarily on ads.
5
The Psychology of Retargeting
But Don’t People Hate Those Ads?
Yeah, some do. But actually, WordStream recently found that conversion rates
increase by 230% when a user sees a retargeting ad six times versus seeing a
retargeting ad only once.
So retargeting ads are doing two things. First, they promote conversion.
Second, they reinforce your brand. Let’s talk a little more about each of these
and why they are important…
In the Digital Landscape, Content is King
Blank space, especially in the virtual world, is rapidly becoming a thing of
the past. The average American sees anywhere from 2,000 - 10,000 ads a day.
Think about that for a second. Let it really sink in.
It is mission-critical that you find a way to cut through all that noise as an
advertiser. With retargeting, we can serve up a very specific offer, connected
to previous user behavior which we can also be confident will entice the
prospect to convert.
But Ad Impressions Matter. A lot.
Retargeting gets your brand back in front of a prospective buyer passively
while they are doing other things during the research phase. That ups the
impression count and strengthens brand awareness.
A campaign can work subtly or not so subtly depending on when and how
you set your ads to appear. Possibilities for placement are nearly limitless.
You can buy ads on other websites, social networks, YouTube, search engines,
and mobile apps.
Pro Tip
Be very careful though… too many impressions can be annoying and is likely
to reduce buyer intent. Retargeting is usually best when subtle and useful.
AdWords has a feature we love called Impression Caps which enables
advertisers to limit the number of ads served, either by user, ad, or campaign.
6
There’s a Science to the Strategy
The Sharper the Blade, the Easier the Cut
Retargeting can be one of the most useful tools in the digital marketer’s
toolbox. Though it is cheap and effective when implemented properly, it is a
nuanced beast that needs thoughtful planning.
Consider Retargeting Its Own Channel
A typical marketing funnel contains stages that mark specified interactions
a prospect takes to initiate and deepen the connection with your brand. The
beauty of retargeting is that is it smarter than other tactics.
You are able to “listen” for behaviors taken along the prospect journey and
effectively make the prospect an offer they can’t refuse. Plus, you can serve
this type of ad to nearly anyone who has interacted with your brand digitally.
Retargeting can perform exponentially better than traditional PPC ads. This,
coupled with the fact that the two types of ads behave very differently, means
that retargeting really lives in its own land and should be treated as a wholly
separate channel.
And on that note…
Approach It a Bit Differently
Know Your Goal
Different companies retarget for different reasons. Some companies want
more likes on Facebook. Some companies want a non-converting visitor to
simply fill out a form, any form. Some companies want a very specific, highvalue or high-intent conversion and use retargeting to cherry-pick leads.
Defining business goals early goes a long way toward ensuring success later.
7
Pro Tip
Retargeting can be used at any point in the buying cycle. So you can also
leverage it to upsell or cross-sell existing customers. Let’s say you are a multiproduct B2B software company who just closed a single product deal. After a
few weeks, you could retarget new customers to position other products they
might find useful.
CRM powerhouse Salesforce does this a ton to cross-sell products like
Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud to existing Sales Cloud users. They do this
so much that there’s a good chance you’re saying to yourself ‘Yeah, they do!’
Make Unique Creative
Arguably, creativity is the most important ingredient in any successful campaign.
Write copy that is clever but immediately understandable and does not
require thought. Choose imagery that clearly connects to the headline and is
relevant to your ideal buyer. If you are selling educational services to brickand-mortar college students, your ads probably shouldn’t have an image of a
busy mom.
As Chris Mechanic puts it, marketing should never be boring. You can elicit
nearly any emotional reaction known to humankind; but the minute you
cause boredom, you may as well go to the marketing graveyard and die.
Explore Different Types of Messaging
At WebMechanix, we divide marketing messaging broadly into four
categories:

Love-Based
Spreads some cheer and reminds people
just how awesome you think they are.
}
E.g. “You’re Awesome”
q
Fear-Based
points out what happens if a prospect
doesn’t take an action.
E.g. “Don’t Get Left in the Dust by Your
Competitors”
Duty-Based
Obligates a prospect to do something
time-oriented.
E.g. “Find Out What All the Buzz is About
Today at 4”

Greed-Based
Conveys something that’s new and is a
must-have.
E.g. “Say Hello to the Future of Snuggies”
8
Pro Tip
Don’t be stingy with messaging :)
Load one campaign up with 3-5 offers to the same list.
You will get a sense of what actually converts within the segment pretty
quickly.
Make Relevant Landing Pages
Don’t send prospects to your homepage. Just… don’t. And definitely don’t
send them back to the same page they didn’t convert on, either. We call these
“bus driver” ads because you’re basically dropping people you want to become
customers off at a bus stop that is probably nowhere near their destination.
On the other hand, if your ad is promoting an amazing ebook about
retargeting (heh… wink, wink) but your landing page is actually a newsletter
signup, you’ve just eroded trust. Instead, invest the time to make landing
pages that connect to your ad creative.
It would be even better if you create ads and landing pages that connect
holistically to the action that triggers the ad in the first place. If a user
browses content on webmechanix.com about PPC management, then they
are probably interested in learning more about retargeting. And rightly so;
it’s a pretty hot topic right now that we have been knocking out of the park
for nearly a decade.
So you can see where we are going with this. Serve up an ad that delivers
topically-relevant content and positions your brand as a subject matter
expert. Instead of being a bus driver, chauffeur users to a landing page that
briefly goes into more detail. Then watch those conversions roll right in, baby!
Constantly Test and Improve
That which gets measured gets improved. Pull levers. Tweak messaging.
Test colors. Try different images. Evenly rotate ads. Examine landing page
behavior. Just always be sure to test, measure, and iterate.
That’s how you arrive at campaigns that are so effective, you can no
longer figure out how to beat them. Marketing is a blend of art and
science. Reach beyond the story your data tells today to deepen insight
and drive strategy tomorrow.
9
The Content Can Get Complicated
Retargeting requires work to set up. Segmenting your audience for specific
campaigns most likely means you’ll need additional content for those campaigns.
That awesome retargeting ebook probably won’t entice someone who
browsed content about usability. Relevancy, relevancy, relevancy. That’s
what remarketing is really all about anyway.
r
Friendly Disclaimer:
As with most tactics in the digital marketing landscape, there are many
opportunities for success and many possibilities for failure. Nowhere is this
truer than with retargeting.
We will give you guidance based on our vast experience, but we advise that
you keep a very watchful eye on your campaigns. Ad networks really want
all of your money. So they build a lot of what we call “gotchas” into their
platforms. These are little settings, enabled by default, that can cost you
thousands of dollars.
Good news: the system can be gamed if you know all the “gotchas” to look for
like we do. BUT… we can’t cover them all in an ebook. We just can’t. We are
too busy knocking the socks off of our clients. So we will split the difference.
If you’re stuck at any point or have questions, drop us a line and ask for Chris
Mechanic. He loves to talk about this stuff. Be warned, he will probably try to
give you something for free. We ALL keep asking him to stop offering free stuff
to strangers. He never listens…
10
Retargeting Recipes for Ninjas
Here Are Some Vanilla Basics You Should
Set up ASAP
1. Start Retargeting From the Bottom
Since you are aiming for more conversions, start by going to Google Analytics
and segmenting out the users who have already converted (again, contact us
if you need help with that).
Use this data as a benchmark to set up some general retargeting such as:
• Users with Pages / Session at or above that of converting visitors
• Users with Avg. Session Duration at or above that of converting visitors
• Users with visits to the highest converting page who did not convert
2. Capture Service and Product Page Visitors
Another awesomely simple tactic is to serve up ads to users who have visited
product or services pages but did not convert. They probably wandered off to
check out your competitors, too, so make sure to strike while that iron is hot.
3. Retarget to cross-sell and upsell
Do you have multiple product or service lines? You are leaving money on
the table if you aren’t doing everything in your power to capture additional
revenue from your existing customers.
Remember that it’s a whopping six times easier to close a sale with an
existing customer. Layer in the effectiveness of retargeting, and you’ll be
looking at your best year ever. Someone get the hockey stick!
4. Promote the sh*t out of your upcoming webinar.
You can start by promoting a related content piece. Then promote your
webinar once prospects are all warm and fuzzy with your brand after they
are overwhelmed with joy by your awesome content. You can even use
retargeting to generate ideas for your next webinar.
Do you have a case study that’s flying off the shelf in your campaigns? Build
out a webinar around that hot lead magnet.
11
Badass Tactics That Worked with Our
Clients
Here are a couple of next-level, badass tactics we’ve used with great success
for our lovely clients.
1. Use Retargeting Ads with Email
Combining the two effectively is a one-two punch to reinforce messaging and
advance funnel stage.
Let’s say a user becomes a lead via your newsletter. They are broadly indicating
interest in your company, but now you have their email address. LinkedIn
allows you to upload email lists, match their users, and then serve up ads.
Imagine serving up ads about a new product and then putting out a special
edition of your newsletter a day or two later with a subject line and copy that
is connected to your ads.
Relatedly, we have an online university client whose top goal is student
retention (which means keeping students enrolling from semester-tosemester). It’s pretty tough in their key demographic (busy, busy professionals).
So we retarget students with ads that use dynamic date voodoo to populate
the headlines (we’ve been having incredible, raving success with dynamic ads,
BTW). Think along the lines of “Just 9 Days Left Until Class Starts!”
The other really cool part is that we automatically trigger an email series
to students who visit the site but don’t register. What’s the messaging? You
guessed it: “Just 9 Days Left Until Class Starts!”
Student retention SKYROCKETED.
2. Retarget Form Abandonment
This is remarkably effective. It’s probably one of those secrets we shouldn’t
give away because it’s so simple and the ROI is crazy. Actually, sorry… Just
give us a shout if you want to learn more. We will gladly tell you all about it in
a less public forum.
3. Retarget by Funnel Stage
This is just showing off. You can use your thank you pages (the content that
shows after a form is completed) to segment users based on funnel stage.
Map out your gated marketing assets by stages in your funnel. Then build
lists based on users who visit the corresponding thank you page. Remarket
accordingly to get them to the next step. The beauty here is that you are
hyper-personalizing their prospect journey. Everyone benefits.
12
Conclusion
Okay, we’ve said enough, so we will keep this part really brief. We love
remarketing. We truly do see a ton of success using it for our clients. The
possibilities are as limitless as your imagination. It takes work, but it’s a labor
of love.
If you want your boss to adore you (even more), start remarketing today. If
you need any help setting it up or concocting a genius, high-ROI campaign for
your company, know that we are happy to talk shop and give out free advice.
Case in point, we just gave out a bunch of it :)
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About WebMechanix
WebMechanix is a performance-based digital marketing firm on a mission to
help middle-market companies move needles faster, more meaningfully and
more sustainably than any comparable solution on the market. Founded in
2009 by Chris Mechanic and Arsham Mirshah, the company is headquartered
in the Baltimore-Washington region.
Today, WebMechanix is one of the fastest-growing digital forces on the scene.
This exponential growth is fueled by its Partner & Promise approach, where
WebMechanix focuses on deeply understanding and exceeding unique client
needs to measurably impact business results.
Earlier this year, the company earned the top spot regionally on clutch.
co for digital marketing. WebMechanix is also a Google Premier Partner,
HubSpot Platinum Certified Agency Partner and consistently ranked on the
Inc. 5000 list.
1.888.932.6861
https://www.webmechanix.com/
14
Contact Us
or visit
webmechanix.com
for more information