- Remarketing to customers who have previously interacted with your brand can lead to new purchases.
- Share content that gives customers more information about your business for successful remarketing.
- Don't be afraid to tailor your ad to specific audiences and adjust based on performance.
- This article is part of the Small Business Marketing series, covering the basics of an SBO marketing strategy to attract new customers and grow your business.
When sisters Lindsay and Courtney Glasser founded clothing brand Gray Bandit in 2017, they relied on influencer marketing to attract new customers. But as influencer marketing became more popular, the increase in costs was harder to explain, especially since they weren't turning into sales.
Glass began as a remarketing experiment to maximize the impact of existing followers by serving Instagram ads to people who had previously interacted with their posts or visited their page.
"Remarketing is really important because you already know that person wants something," Lindsey Glasser told Insider. You don't need to spend $10,000 to make a profit.
Joe Karasin, owner and chief marketing officer of Karasin PPC, agrees that remarketing can be a gold mine that many businesses overlook.
"Most consumers today are not 'one-click ponies,'" he told Insider, noting that customers typically need multiple touch points with a brand before deciding to make a purchase.
"What this means for companies is that they need to be more present and take a layered approach to how they present themselves," Karasin said. By using cheaper channels for initial purchases and investing more in remarketing, you can achieve higher conversion rates, he explains.
Insider spoke with Glassers and Karas to learn remarketing strategies for small businesses on a budget.
Think creatively about audiences and platforms
Glassers has found that the most effective remarketing occurs when targeting high-interest customers, such as shoppers who have abandoned shopping carts. But for new brands, that audience may be too small to make a significant impact.
According to Courtney Glasser, the best place to start is audience targeting and engagement. "When we first started doing ads, I was redirecting people to our website and then I started getting better because we had a lot of visitors," he said.
"If your Instagram posts are getting more views and people are interacting with them, you might want to send your ads to people who message you or like your posts," he added.
To keep costs down, it's worth looking at lesser-known platforms like Pinterest that appeal to your target audience. "Pinterest is where we see the highest ROI at the lowest cost," he said.
Find ways to get more people talking about your brand
According to Karasin, not all customer touch points are the same. According to him, sending the same message about your brand everywhere on the Internet is not a good approach, because it does not deepen the relationship with the customer.
"Now that consumers are more aware of online shopping, they think, 'It doesn't matter if I see this brand in 20 different places, that means they're spending more money.'
Instead, he recommends finding ways to educate customers or gain more trust through remarketing.
For example, while working with a real estate client, Karasin launched a remarketing campaign using YouTube and TikTok videos to show an agent how to sell a nearby property and at what price. According to Karasin, the agent managed to win back 19 clients in six months, earning an additional $400,000 in commissions. The campaign cost $1,500.
The Glassers agree that showing customers new aspects of their brand is an effective remarketing strategy. For example, when a shopper abandons their cart, they're not shown an ad for the same product they're currently viewing, but an ad for a new trending item.
Monitor performance data and make adjustments
Lindsay Glasser Successful remarketing is a process of trial and error.
"If you want to run remarketing ads, create different types of content and different types of audiences and see what works and what doesn't," he explains. According to Courtney Glasser, these ads can cost $5 a day.
"If you see something going well, you can take a little risk and add a little money," Lindsay Glasser said.
To effectively track ad performance, Karasin advises non-technical business owners to set up pixels and understand tracking features.
"Don't mess up your profile presentation: you'll either end up with bad data and then not see the value of what you do, or you'll overestimate what you do," he says.
Correction: November 9, 2023 - An earlier version of this story misspelled Lindsey Glasser's name.
