There is one phrase that should become your marketing mantra heading into 2015: If at first you don’t succeed with a customer conversion, try, try again.
This is the fundamental concept behind retargeted advertising, which 90 percent of marketers now believe is as good or better than search advertisements and email marketing for generating leads and sales.
But what is retargeted, or behavioral, advertising and how can it be integrated with your existing content marketing strategy?
Just as the name suggests, retargeted advertising is used to convert a customer once that individual bounces away from your website. Here’s how the process works:
1. A customer finds your website, either through a search engine or by clicking on a targeted advertisement.
2. Once the customer clicks on your website, a “cookie,” or an embedded object, is placed on their browser and can be used for retargeting if the customer leaves for any reason before a conversion, or sale, can be made.
3. The customer sees an advertisement for your company again, while browsing on the Internet. He or she clicks on the link, and is brought back to your website. Here’s where the fun begins: Based on how deep your link is, that customer can be brought to any part of your website, including an incomplete order form, meaning he or she can resume the order where they left off and proceed with checkout.
This is where content marketing comes in handy as the perfect complement to a retargeted advertising strategy. The key is to figure out, based on the behavioral data that you collect throughout the process, why the customer abandoned your website and/or shopping cart in the first place. Once you’ve gathered this information you can tackle this problem head-on with your content, working to convince the customer to believe in your brand the second time around. You may, however, actually want to steer clear of linking directly back to your shopping cart unless the customer has indicated strong purchasing desire based on the time they spent on your website or their buying history with your company.
If you still have more work to do converting the customer into a sale, try linking to a related but unbiased news article about the subject on your blog. Or you could link the customer to a white paper that he or she may have been unable to find from the initial search.
Content marketing, in other words, can be your ninth inning strategy for closing the door on a potential sale once the customer comes back to your site. By linking to relevant or useful information from a retargeted advertisement, you can seal a deal that previously slipped away.
We here at Content Boost want to be your closer. Click here to learn more about how we can work with you to provide the custom content you need to drive home more sales and increase your bottom line.
