Retargeting is a hot subject. If you surf the web at all, you probably find yourself stalked by ads. If you venture onto someone’s site, or execute a search, you will be followed for weeks by the ads that want nothing more than to get you to please come back and buy. And if you are a digital marketer, you’re probably doing this, too. But are you doing much simpler things that pay off even better?
My wife Linda showed me an email that Walmart sent her, shown above. She told me that this is the first time she has ever bought something in response to an email solicitation. What did Walmart do right?
They sent her a notice that an item that she looked at recently is now back in stock.
Now, this sounds obvious, but many companies still don’t do it–even companies that do a lot of retargeted advertising. One reason that they don’t is that they don’t know who is coming to their site. Unless you have a system that recognizes return visitors and can tie them to an email address on file, this tactic isn’t open to you.
You might think that this applies only to eCommerce companies, but you’d be wrong. Personalization based on visitor behavior is critically important for any company. When you see that visitors have interest in your content, you need to remember that and use that information in the future.
Increasingly, knowing who your customer is makes more and more tactics possible. How much do you know about your website visitors?
