How To Successfully Retarget And Remarket For Your Ecommerce Store

It is important to note that although some marketers use “remarketing” and “retargeting” interchangeably, they do not mean the same thing. We would like to reiterate that with emphasis. This is very important: They are two completely different animals. You will understand our point clearly when you are done reading.

Let’s start the in-depth explanation

Remarketing” is generally used for reaching your previous customers. (Previous is with emphasis there.) The #1 goal of remarketing is to re-engage your former customers to continue doing business with you or your brand. This could be carried out via SMS and email.

Your emails offer exclusives, reminders, incentives, etc. Maintaining top-of-mind awareness is key to increasing the lifetime value of your customers.

Now about the other marketing concept:” Retargeting,” on the other hand, is designed to reach individuals who may have interacted with your eCommerce store in one way or the other. But this set of people did not purchase anything.

Maybe all they did was go through your eCommerce store, create wish lists, or add some items to their carts. But they left without completing the purchase. You’re at liberty to customize what qualifies visitors for retargeting.

But the primary goal of retargeting is unmistakable: get interested online visitors back to complete their purchases.

With that out of the way. Here are --

Analyze Your Customer’s Behavior

First of all, you need to understand precisely why your customer ended up not completing their purchase. Reasons for this vary from one person to the other, but here are the most common ones:

• A better alternative showed up: You need to stay on top of your competitors' value-adding remarketing strategies at all times. This helps you maintain your awareness of the trends in your industry to plan your remarketing strategies accordingly.
• They no longer need your product: If this happens, use email to promote complementary offers.
• Your competitor offered the product at a lower price: You may consider adding value to your products or lower/match your prices accordingly.

Always Personalize Your Emails

Effective engagement with your customers will only occur when you personalize your emails. Personalization starts right from the subject line to the body of the email copy. The fact of the matter is, you should spend more time crafting your subject line. If it doesn’t look appetizing enough, your audience will not open your emails. And, it doesn’t stop there--the body of your email copy should carry within itself content that they need to know. Or, something that they have been trying to look for for a long time.

Use the following tips:

• Always Address Your Customers by Name: Open rates can suddenly increase from 40 percent to 100 percent just by using the receiver's first name. This could look superficial, but trust us on this. Just try it, and you will realize, we are absolutely right.
• Personalize Organically: Let your email tone sound more conversational, lest someone adds you to their spam list. If you have been reading blog posts here, you could have observed that we always present things to you conversationally. We always make a point to write like we are there in a face-to-face encounter and engaging you in person.
• Inject Your Offer within the Subject Line: Give your customers a reason to open your email by placing your offer in the subject line. This is obvious, but droves of online store owners neglect to do this. However, once they apply this principle, they realize that their marketing numbers suddenly shoot up. This means, their engagement records show greater numbers, and therefore, their chances of having conversions increase significantly. This is the experience of many of the store owners we had coffee meetings with.
• Cross-sell and Upsell: Customers that have purchased from your eCommerce store will likely do so again. But that is only if they had an enjoyable buying experience. So, cross-sell by offering complementary products. Say, you were able to sell the shirts. It’s just natural that you should sell them pairs of pants that would go together well with their shirts, next. 
• After that, your best move would be to upsell them by offering the most desirable items that will compliment their last purchases (shirts and pants.) As an example, they have shirts and pants already. Now, what’s missing? You’re right--accessories! That’s obvious.
• So, your next move should be to upsell them with irresistible items that will complete or complement their latest ensemble. Items like belts, bracelets, hats, bonnets, and suspenders. Also, gloves, muffs, necklaces, watches, eyewear, sashes, shawls, scarves, lanyards, socks, pins, piercings, rings, and stockings could be added.
• That’s common sense, don’t you think? But many eCommerce store owners, especially beginners, miss doing this.
• Always Test Your Email: What do we mean? Always experiment with subject lines, types of email copy, personalization, and other stuff you could try every now and then. Do not stop until you find the exact kind of subject lines that work with your audience like magic.   

Use Retargeting To Minimize Cart Abandonment

Many studies and researches show that shoppers forsake an estimated $4 trillion on eCommerce stores, meaning they never reached the checkout point. But you can use retargeting to significantly minimize cart abandonment rates.

You can start by making use of a custom audience in order to target those visitors who visit your eCommerce store.

If any of them fill up their carts without ending up at the checkout section, get them back right into the fold with a subtle reminder. Now, by saying subtle here, we are dead serious about it.

But first, we want to mention that writing them great-sounding emails will do the trick. Yes, one of the best ways to remind them about their abandoned carts is by sending them an email.

Although, you must make sure that when you shoot them an email reminder you will be subtle. Remember, if you were in their shoes, you will not appreciate it if you are sent one that sounds careless, or unstudied. Or even worse, crude!

When you finally send an email reminder to a prospective buyer who abandoned a cart, choose your words carefully, and study your lines meticulously, and conscientiously. The best way to describe the tone of your email is--we will say it again, just to be sure it goes deep in your consciousness: “Subtle.

By doing so, you can coax them to finish their checkout or draw their attention to other related products they may be interested in.

Reinforce Retargeting Ads With Product Page Reviews

Did you know that over 90 percent of customers go through reviews before making a buying decision? Yes, 90 percent. We are not exaggerating here. This proves that consumers have learned their lessons. When they want to buy something, they do their assignment first. They don’t want to end up with a substandard product that makes them feel miserable when they go to bed at night.

So, what do they do? They peruse the reviews featured on all those review sites and read them until they are certain they have zeroed in on the product they want to spend their hard-earned cash with. That’s why, when you add reviews to your retargeted ads, you are indirectly providing social proof for your brand or eCommerce store.

Therefore, start including reviews in every retargeting ad you run. This would give your prospective customers that extra nudge towards completing their purchases or making one. This is a strategy that works for both first-time visitors as well as long-term customers.