Remarketing is the ability to retarget people who have visited your website, but not converted, with tags on specific pages of your site. Essentially it is interest-based advertising on the Google AdWords content network.

You can set your remarketing to target different lists of audiences who visit your site. AdWords even gives you the option to choose from a list of categories, or gives you the chance to be your own strategy master and define your own lists.

If people contacted you for more information, or downloaded a brochure but did not make a booking, you can target them a few days after they have visited with a new image or text ad saying something like “Don’t forget to make that booking!”. You do this by inserting a tag that AdWords gives you on the required page; for example, the successful contact form submission. Visitors then get tagged with a cookie - and they’re it!

To set this up you need to insert code to specific areas of your site that you want people to visit – you want to promote that part of your site. You could even use it during times of promotions as well.

Even if it does make Google more money (and they are definitely pushing remarketing out there!) it really is a good way to get people to notice your site. Don’t abuse it.

What you will need:

• Clear business goals and a strategy - this is the most important thing to consider.
• Very targeted content and search network campaigns.
• AdWords conversion targeting. You will need this if you want to target people who have submitted a contact form but not bought anything, and thus not completed your most important campaign goal.
• The remarketing tag: AdWords gives this to you during the set up of your remarketing strategy. It’s easy to insert and works similarly to the AdWords conversion code.
• Something in your site’s privacy policy letting people know that you have this tagging enabled on your site.
• The motivation to play around!

You will need to test keywords in each ad group, or you can go without the keywords and just try specific placements (or vice versa).

Why remarketing is good:

• You can reconnect with the people who are worth being connected with and have expressed interest in your site already.
• You can increase conversions.
• You can use both text and image ads.
• You can add negative audiences, keywords and placements to control where you want your ads to appear and who you want to remarket to.
• You can use predefined lists or create your own customised lists of audiences.
• You decide how long you want the cookie to last. Google’s default is 30 days.
• You can select how many times a day you want your remarketing ads to be shown to your selected audiences. This  is done under the "frequency capping" section of your campaign's settings.

Why remarketing is bad:

It’s not necessarily bad, you just have to be careful about how you use it. It’s up to you as to whether you are OK with infiltrating people this way, as it is their privacy you are dealing with. This is why it’s important to have something on your site letting people know you will be tagging them. Coincidentally, this is also in Google’s policy for remarketing.

You can only use remarketing on the content network and  that’s why it is important to keep this as targeted as possible. You will also probably only have the best results if your audience network coverage is big enough. This may be a problem for some people who have niche areas – but then again, it may work even better!

Why use remarketing?

To try and get people to convert. By using the more relevant users from your search campaigns, you can target people on the content network when they are reading articles that contain terms you are bidding on. You reach people who have already shown interest in your site.

Just be careful not to go crazy with the frequency at which you target people. Remember that they are exactly that – people – and may not react well to what is effectively spamming. You have the power, be responsible with it.

But how do you do it?

1. Create a content network campaign.
2. Put in your ad groups.
3. Click on the campaign on the AdWords Web interface  -  there is a tab called “Audiences".
4. Create your lists on this tab.
5. Done!

I'm interested to know how this is working for you. Feel like sharing any experiences?

Also check out:

• What's a Good Conversion Rate for my Website?
• How to be an AdWords Machine: Accurate Conversion Tracking