Advertising on digital platforms like Facebook and Google can be a two-edged sword. On one hand, the targeting and tracking options enable you to really hone in on your ideal audience. But on the other hand, that same audience can eventually get tired of seeing your ads repeatedly. This is known as ad fatigue.
Ad retargeting aims to keep presenting ads to users who have previously engaged with your site or ads. The goal is to remind them of your brand and eventually convert them into customers. However, over weeks and months, you’ll naturally lose a percentage of those users’ attention. Some stop clicking, viewing, or converting from your ads altogether.
That’s where audience recovery comes in. Audience recovery focuses on specific strategies and tactics to re-engage users who have gone “cold” to your ads. Bringing their attention back to your campaigns helps retain potential long-term customers in your marketing funnel. According to industry benchmarks, advertisers can lose 10-30% of initially engaged users per month on average. So taking proactive steps to recover these audiences is crucial.
In this guide, we’ll explore why audiences disengage, how to identify them, tips to grab their attention again, and ongoing optimization needed for successful audience recovery. With the right process, you can boost engagement, clicks, and conversions from audiences you thought were already lost.
Why Audiences Disengage
Losing audience interest and engagement over time is a common challenge for many advertisers. There are a few key reasons that audiences start disengaging with ad campaigns:
Ad fatigue – If users are shown the same ads repeatedly, they start tuning them out over time. The repetition causes fatigue and makes the ads seem irrelevant. Constant retargeting without any variation can contribute to ad fatigue.
Wrong messaging – Another reason audiences disengage is if the ad messaging is not resonating or connecting with them anymore. As their interests change over time, the original ad messaging may no longer appeal to them. Failing to adapt the messaging can make users ignore the ads.
Lack of relevance – If the ads no longer feel relevant to the user’s needs and interests, they disengage as the ads provide no clear value. Factors like lifestyle changes, new goals, and different priorities can impact relevance over time.
Identifying Disengaged Users
Understanding when and why your audience is disengaging is crucial for being able to win them back. Here are some ways to identify and segment disengaged users in your ad accounts:
- Track engagement metrics over time – Look at click-through rate, cost per click, conversions, and other metrics in your ad account and analytics to spot any sharp declines. This shows you when audiences started dropping off.
- Segment users by recency – Build segments to single out users who haven’t engaged with your ads in the past week, month, etc. Analyze their behavior leading up to disengagement.
- Segment by frequency – Separate users who have only engaged once vs. loyal users to see who is repeatedly interacting with your ads. Focus on re-targeting single-touch users.
- Identify blocked ads – Check for any ads rejected or blocked and exclude those users who haven’t seen your ads lately.
- Compare segments – Build segments of engaged users vs. disengaged and analyze the differences across demographics, interests, behaviors and other characteristics.
- Leverage remarketing lists – Use your ad platform’s remarketing tools to create lists of users who previously engaged with your ads or site and target ads to re-engage them.
Regularly analyzing your audience data and segmenting based on engagement levels is key for identifying disengaged users worth targeting again. Comparison against your loyal users also gives insight into why others have dropped off.
Re-Engaging Audiences
There are a few key tactics you can use to re-engage audiences that have stopped interacting with your ads:
Refresh Your Creatives and Ad Copy
One of the most effective ways to recapture audience attention is by updating your ad creative and copy. Audiences get fatigued seeing the same ad over and over. Create new ad variations with different images, videos, and text. Test different emotional appeals in your copy as well as stronger calls-to-action. This content refresh will make your ads feel new again to audiences.
A/B test your new creatives against the old ones to see which resonate and perform best with re-engaged users. Apply the learnings across your ad campaigns.
Adjust Your Targeting
Take a fresh look at your audience targeting parameters. Look for ways to more precisely define your ideal audience segments based on demographics, interests, behaviors and more.
Broad targeting that reaches wide swaths of users may be missing the mark for re-engaging ones who previously responded. Narrow down your focus to display your ads to high-affinity users again, reducing ad fatigue.
Continuously Retest and Optimize
Don’t stop with just one round of optimization. Ad performance needs to be monitored and tweaked over time.
Keep a regular cadence of reviewing your campaign results, and making changes to underperforming elements. Run new A/B test variants, adjusting targeting, bids, placements, and so on.
The optimization process is ongoing to keep winning back audiences and driving better campaign results.
Continuous Monitoring
Monitoring your audience’s ongoing engagement is absolutely crucial for successful ad retargeting. As your campaigns and audiences evolve, so must your strategies for reaching them. Here are some tips for monitoring engagement over the long run:
Use Analytics Tools to Track Engagement
Leverage analytics tools within your ad platforms like Facebook Ads Manager and Google Analytics to identify engagement trends. Look at metrics like click-through rate, time on site, pages per session to see if they rise or fall over time. Third party tools like Google Tag Manager can also help.
Optimize Campaigns Continuously
Don’t “set and forget” your ad campaigns. Check back regularly to see if current targeting and creatives are still working. Run A/B tests of new ads and messaging. Tweak placements, formats and bidding strategies. Optimization is key for ongoing re-engagement.
Refresh Your Ads Frequently
Ad fatigue is real. Refreshing your ad visuals, videos and copy on a regular basis keeps content feeling fresh. Avoid repetition by continually testing new creative approaches. This maintains engagement as audiences see new ads.
Iterate Based on Insights
Use analytics insights to inform ongoing changes. See which audiences, demographics, placements etc are disengaging and respond accordingly. Continuously refine based on the data. Retargeting is all about staying agile as the marketing landscape shifts.