Ever come across a product you liked but weren’t quite ready to buy?
Maybe you got distracted or wanted to sleep on it. Whatever the reason, you moved on – until that product kept popping up in your social feeds.
That’s list-based retargeting in action!
This powerful marketing tactic allows you to stay top-of-mind with potential customers who have shown interest but haven’t converted yet. By uploading a list of these prospects to ad platforms like Facebook and Google, you can surgically target them with tailored ads designed to reignite their interest and drive purchases.
In this post, we’ll walk through creating an effective list-based retargeting campaign from start to finish. Let’s dive in!
Building Your Retargeting List
The first step is identifying the prospects you want to retarget. There are a few key sources to pull from: website visitors, email subscribers, and past customers.
Website Visitors: Install a tracking pixel or utilize Google Analytics to capture information on users who visit specific product pages, add items to their cart, start the checkout process, etc. These are all high-intent prospects to retarget.
Email Subscribers: Your email list is a goldmine of warm leads. Segment it based on engagement levels, product interests, and more to create hyper-targeted retargeting lists.
Past Customers: Just because someone has purchased from you before doesn’t mean they’ll buy again. Retarget past customers with your latest offerings or promotions.
Once you’ve identified your audience sources, consolidate the data into a single list containing the details ad platforms require (email addresses, phone numbers, etc). Be sure to respect all privacy regulations.
Setting Up Your List-Based Retargeting Campaigns
With your list ready, it’s time to set up your retargeting campaigns on platforms like Facebook and Google. Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough:
- Import your list as a “Custom Audience” (Facebook) or “Customer Match” audience (Google).
- Create a new campaign with the goal of driving traffic or conversions.
- Target your custom audience in the ad set (Facebook) or campaign (Google) level.
- Design thumb-stopping creative tailored to your audience’s interests and buyer stage.
- Set a healthy daily budget to maximize exposure and conversions.
- Launch and closely monitor performance!
A few pro tips: Exclude existing customers from your audience to avoid wasted ad spend. Rotate creative regularly to keep your ads fresh and minimize fatigue. Take advantage of dynamic product ad formats to auto-populate your offerings. Set up campaign asset audiences to retarget folks who engaged with your ads.
Optimizing for Continued Success
Like any campaign, list-based retargeting requires diligent optimization based on performance data. Some key areas to focus on:
- Audience Segmentation: Split out your audiences by behaviors, interests, purchase cycles, etc. This allows you to create hyper-relevant ads and creative for each micro-segment.
- Creative Testing: Continuously test new ad creative, copy, offers, and CTAs. Identify your top performers and reallocate budgets accordingly.
- Conversion Tracking: Ensure your conversion pixels/events are properly configured to accurately measure sales data and ROAS. Use this to double down on your most profitable audiences.
- Bid Strategies: Leverage platform bidding capabilities like target ROAS and value optimization to drive efficient acquisition costs.
By diligently building out your audiences, creating tailored creative, and optimizing based on data, you’ll be able to squeeze maximum value from your list-based retargeting efforts.
Key Takeaways
- List-based retargeting allows you to keep your brand top-of-mind for high-intent prospects.
- Consolidate data sources like website visitors, email lists, and past customers to build your audience lists.
- Set up retargeting campaigns on Facebook and Google to reach your custom audiences.
- Continuously test creative and optimize based on audience segmentation and performance data.
- Prioritize profitable micro-segments to drive maximum ROAS from your campaigns.
With a strategic, data-driven approach to list-based retargeting, you’ll be able to effectively nurture prospects through the marketing funnel and drive more sales for your business.
By staying top-of-mind and delivering highly relevant ads, you’ll convert more of those window shoppers into paying customers.
FAQs
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How do you build a retargeting list?
Common sources include website visitors, email subscribers, and past customers. Consolidate this data into a single list with required user details. -
What are good sources for building retargeting lists?
Great sources include website visitors who showed purchase intent, engaged email subscribers, and past customers to re-engage. -
How do you set up list-based retargeting campaigns?
Import your list as a custom audience, create a campaign targeting that audience, design tailored creative, set a budget, and launch. -
What ad platforms support list-based retargeting?
Facebook and Google are the two major platforms that allow you to upload custom audiences for retargeting. -
How can you optimize list-based retargeting campaigns?
Segment audiences, continuously test creative, ensure accurate conversion tracking, and leverage automated bid strategies. -
What are the benefits of list-based retargeting?
It allows you to stay top-of-mind with warm leads, drive conversions from high-intent prospects, and maximize ad spend efficiency. -
How do you measure list-based retargeting performance?
Track metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, cost per acquisition, and return on ad spend to identify top-performing audiences. -
When should you use list-based retargeting?
It works great for re-engaging website visitors who didn’t convert, lapsed customers, and nurturing engaged subscribers. -
What are some best practices for list-based retargeting?
Segment audiences, rotate fresh creative, leverage dynamic ad formats, and continuously optimize based on performance data.