With reports of shopping cart abandonment as high as 70%, internet marketers are now looking for new ways to recapture that business potential that has been lost, which is why remarketing and retargeting on the internet is a main focus for so many online businesses.
According to a SeeWhy survey conducted in August 2010, online marketers are working harder than ever to get back potential customers who began a conversion activity but then abandoned it. They predict that over the next 12 months remarketing and retargeting these potential customers will be a main internet marketing strategy. According to the SeeWhy survey, half of online marketers do not currently have remarketing techniques in place but plan to within a year.
These marketers will use email more frequently as the focus of the remarketing and retargeting campaigns. SeeWhy’s survey noted an increase in one third of internet marketers to almost three quarters who now say they are using or plan to use email as their primary remarketing tool. This increase is larger than the increase in retargeting advertising, which will also increase, but in relatively small numbers compared to email as a retargeting tool.
Since shopping cart abandonment is so high marketers want to find ways to boost customer acquisition and retention and targeting customers who have previously expressed interest in a product is a smart and effective way to do so. Ultimately, marketers want to get consumers attention at the right times, when they are thinking of purchasing. Email is a core retention channel for online retailers, which is why it is an excellent method to accomplish these goals.
However, email is not the only method. A recent travel industry remarketing case study reported by Tnooz showed that re-targeted display ads are also effective and overall show positive results. Take the example of Intercontinental Hotels Group, which ran retargeted ads on the Google Display Network to users who had previously shown interest in one of the company’s hotel brands but had not actually completed a booking. Intercontinental Hotels was very successful in this method, as retargeting ads paid off.
Ultimately, for marketers it seems that in the past remarketing and retargeting have been the most underused advertising technologies on the internet. However, marketers are acknowledging this shortcoming and are looking to focus on improving this area by using more retargeting and remarketing strategies in the next year.