While digital marketing for large companies is well advanced, smaller businesses can sometimes struggle to keep up as they can lack bandwidth and big-budget spending power. However, there are a number of techniques for driving increased website performance that are proven to drive sales within small budgets and skillsets.
Generating traffic has often been considered the major challenge for SME retailers online but in fact, turning online “window shoppers” into customers once they’ve visited your site is an even greater challenge.
A staggering 98% of site visitors fail to convert and even amongst visitors who put items in their shopping cart, up to 80% won’t go on to purchase. With the cost of traffic rising all the time, the economics of optimisation are becoming ever more important.
Most site owners will be used to the ‘standard’ approaches to generating additional traffic such as search marketing or banner advertising. However, there is now a new generation of online marketing approaches that focus not just on driving traffic, but on maximising the value of that traffic once it’s arrived on site.
One increasingly popular technique driving significant conversion rates for SMEs is retargeting.
What’s it all about?
Retargeting technology enables businesses to serve ads to customers who have previously expressed an interest in their website and is proven to increase conversions by up to 85%. “Intent signals” from on-site behaviour, such as pages viewed or referral source can be used to understand customer behaviour and subsequently serve them with relevant messaging as they continue browsing other web pages.
Keeping the massive 98% conversion failure rate in mind, finding a method of understanding visitor behaviour and how to formulate relevant targeted messaging is undeniably something of value to your business.
Personalise, Personalise, Personalise – The value of behavioural data
Personalisation has become a huge trend within the ecommerce space and in a world where only a tiny percentage of shoppers make a purchase on the first visit, it is vital for retailers to take advantage of the insights provided by customer behaviour to deliver a tailored experience.
Using “intent” data, retargeting allows you to deliver personalised, relevant content to customers. Advertisements can offer discounts, targeted merchandising or additional product information and help keep customers engaged with your brand or business for longer.
A visitor who has previously abandoned a shopping cart might be enticed back to your site by “free shipping” for example. Urgency messaging such as “low in stock” can also prompt a timely purchase as the sense of scarcity pushes customers to make a final decision.
Maintaining engagement on and off-site
Using “intent” data, retargeting allows you to deliver personalised, relevant content to customers.
Reaching out to customers before or after they’ve visited a website is a powerful option for online businesses. Retargeting is one answer to the eternal question facing every business: How can I convert customers while driving Return on Investment? The key to driving increased value from site visitors is essentially in some level of personalisation – giving customers an experience that is tailored to their needs and preferences.
By delivering the right content to customers at the right time, you can ensure increased conversions, sales and brand loyalty for your business.
What is most interesting and valuable about retargeting is that it is a real-time marketing activity, meaning site owners can reach their customers when they’re most engaged. Traditional analytics tools collect intent signals but require internal analytics teams to sift through the data to identify how a site can be optimised.
Retargeting is a real-time translation of customer data into effective advertising campaigns which reach customers at a time when their propensity to purchase is at its highest.
