Google Re-marketing - Adwords Audience Feature

Google Re Marketing... what is it?

You've recently noticed that the same adverts keep popping up in front of you (on YouTube or other websites that serve Google's display adverts) from a website you may (or may not) remember visiting while doing some retail research?

Intrusive or otherwise, it would seem that it is an effective marketing strategy delivering good incremental convertions for advertisers. The "ReMarketing" concept is being delivered by Google as an advertising innovation within its Adwords Display advertising Service.

How does it work?

Firstly you must have the new "Audience" feature enabled and set-up within your Google Adwords account. Then, when a visitor lands on your website, Google writes a cookie onto that person’s machine, tagging it as a visitor to your website. When the same machine is used to visit another website that is signed up to the Google display advertising network, your advert appears, "reminding" the visitor about your great service or offering them a special offer which might entice them back.

The effectiveness of this strategy leverages the knowledge that your tagged "Audience" is a pool of more qualified potential customers and also the obvious psychological benefits of repeat exposure and allows the manipulation of semi-consious decision making influences.

Notes on Google's "Audience" or "Re Marketing" feature

• The Re Marketing capability is geared at higher traffic websites in that at least 500 unique visitors need to be tagged with the re-marketing cookie before Google will show your re-marketing adverts.
  
• As Google allows you to set visit time frames, you can adjust your bidding appropriately. Prior visitors who visited your website in a more recent time frame may be worth bidding more for than those who are up to 180 days since their last visit. (180 days is the current highest time frame within which "Remarketing" is activated)
  
• Re-marketing Adverts should be brand consistant to remind the visitor of your brand/ website instantly and can also be tailired as a special offer or further inducement to the prior visitor to close that conversion. (Ensure an appropriate landing page is prepared.)
  
• Segmenting your re-marketing advertising is advisable if you have a lot of product. Only show adverts for relevant products/services to those viewed by the visitor on their previous visit to your website.
  
• Because re-marketing targets recent visitors, your adverts will potentially be shown on websites sites that your user may use regularly for other reasons, such as entertainment, family etc. It might be worth considering using the exclusions feature to remove those sites that do not align closely with your brand/product/service to avoid over exposure and claims of intrusion and annoyance to a potential customer.