'Retarget for Dummies': Our Top Tips

In this episode, Nick Boddington and Michael Harris break down the mechanics and psychology behind retargeting ad campaigns. From tracking website visits to building custom audiences and leveraging platform algorithms, they explore how brands use retargeting to guide users through the customer journey. The conversation also touches on interruption marketing, email strategies, and the challenge of standing out in an increasingly algorithm-driven landscape. If you want to get the best out of your retargeting campaigns, this is the episode for you.

Prefer to watch? You can find the video version of this episode here on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/NDjd1wWalWM

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Transcript

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I went on their website, once just to have a look. And then since then, They've been hitting me all over the shop we all hear about retargeting. I suppose I don't really know that much about it, like how it works you can build a custom audience based on pretty much any trigger you want in some way, website visitors in the last hundred and 80 days, or add to cart people but didn't purchase. if I like go off their website and then later, come back on their website, how does it know that it's still me he knows you bowled And it's like you need to see this now you going to YouTube. You need to see that effective marketing is to take someone down that journey when you've acquired a customer, take them away from the digital side and put them into email. But is that a thing that people don't on all these platforms. That is going so far against what they're trying to do. The algorithm is only going to show people that are really going to engage with that ad and should see it. I'd be surprised if I see an ad for bold. likewise I've been on the girls new website I just saw on, and I've not seen anything for calls because the algorithm is just going, there's no point. You're not going to get bagels, and I'm not going to go and buy bone head cream. Interruption marketing is like you didn't even know existed. Now you do in the next six months. You're probably some it's really clever, isn't it? He. Hello and welcome to the fate Mark to myself, Nick Boddington, Michael Harris back. We're back. James will be back on the next one. He will. He's missed out on seven subseven if you count it. I think it's about seven. Wow. And he will. And he said to me, yes, those are oh bail for the podcast. Yeah. He's got some news while we're doing this. One in the daytime on waking. And then, we'll be doing another one at the end of the day. Exciting. He's busy. Apparently. Oh, we all, but we make time, I think. So so yeah. So I think on this one, I think Michael want to do a bit of a Q&A. You've, you've been having some thoughts on some things. Well, better talk. Well I, I'd ask questions about it, I thought really but who better to ask. Yeah. And then I hope I can but I am now just after the event that we went to on Tuesday. Yeah. Oh, that was, that wasn't last night. Was that, on Thursday? Oh, my God, a whole day is gone. So what was should we, should we tell them what this event or do we get a. Oh, we probably do it on James's one. I'm not sure. Want to talk about that one. Yeah. But one of the brands that was at this event was bold. Bold bro's. Yes. And they, they did quite well. But so I was like, oh I wonder like did quite well. They won like a main thing. Okay. Start ups entrepreneur of the year. No it was an entrepreneur year. That was like business start wasn't it. Yeah yeah yeah yeah it's pretty impressive. But so after it was like, oh you know if they did that bit before they got their award, you know, the guy was going like this brand of, you know, they've done this, they've done that. So I was like, oh, I'll go, you know, see what they were looking at. So I went on their website, had a look. It actually looks decent to be fair. Like they got like cream. Like they do like a moisturizing cream that's like SPF and mattifying, which you should use. Stops you burn, you use SPF, your moisturizer stops you. These SPF in your moisturizer? Not as a rule, I do. I tend to just wear a hat. Yeah, I do it on my moisturizer, and it's about £25, though, on. Well, what for your face? Yeah, it's just like for their daily light moisturizer. About. Right. So I was looking at Clinique. One feels really nice. It's like a gel. I had a tester. My girlfriend got it for me. Not. Oh, this is this is really nice because you don't have that, like, whiteness to it. Yeah. Just so it's £50, so I haven't bought. I'm. I'm my arm. Do I like. That's a lot of money. I'm not falling into that trap. I figured if they're made specifically for bald blokes and the two guys should use it, then I thought, you know, like, if you're walking around on a day like today, we know how you go. I've got a hat with me for the back. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Have to a stand now. I'll just. But we've only had it literally. But yeah, we did it on a, there's a photo of me somewhere, like we did an event where, we went to London or whatever, and I just came back with just the way it was with, play date for an event that we like. We walked around, other the walked around. Oh, yeah. We walked around one of the parks and I was like, oh, it'll be all right. And then the sun came out or our in trouble. And then like, like a little lighthouse first away. Yeah. But the reason I brought it up was because I went on their website, once just to have a look. And then since then, I've. They've been hitting me all over the shop I've been on. There's been, feed. So that's a lot. My YouTube like discovery page, they were there of me getting pre-roll like, YouTube videos just from Mega on the website one. So I was like, my question what? Because we all I well, I don't know, obviously people listening might we'll probably have more ad experience than I do, but from my position, I mean, you just hear like, you know, we all hear about retargeting. Like we've got retargeting ads on for Rupert and stuff that we just kind of leave go in. But I suppose I don't really know that much about it, like how it works because I my understanding is like it's people go on your website and then once they've been there, then it somehow retarget you. But I don't really know how it works or anything about it. So I thought you could okay, so give me no matter which platform you're in. So if it's TikTok, if it's LinkedIn is meta Snapchat, they all follow the same principles, which is a custom audience. So a custom audience is an audience that you choose to build based on actions that are taken outside of the platform, or actions that are taken inside the platform. Yeah. So on platform, our platform, very simple. Off platform will be things like so this is, this is one of the important things of people who do bad marketing is they don't set up the pixel. So it's called a pixel meta. Now because they're a data set. Pixel stroke data set is changing. But they're all they're, they're all a pixel or something like that. Okay. They all have various ways of setting it up and that they all live on your head or of your website or in your landing pages, but you could essentially put them on anything to do with you. When someone takes an action of going to a website, that pixel then activates like it's always activated, but it fires when that person's hit page view, it fires when that person can click buttons, it fires and that people go to a landing page. It fires. Forget about the car, all these different things. So so you effectively can build a retarget campaign. Well, you can build a custom audience based on all of those pretty much any trigger you want in some way, even if it the meta pixel doesn't allow you to. You can use Google Tag Manager. You can go pretty deep into what you want to trigger. Like when this person does this, then we'll. Yeah. So you would have heard of like you would have seen ad basket campaigns, email campaigns. Oh you left this in your basket. Oh that's exactly that's your retargeting. So that's triggered when someone adds some to their basket. But it but they haven't taken action and purchased. Then your klaviyo or whatever will retarget send you an email. So there's that like that would be a thing where it's like they've hit this tag, but they've not hit the confirmation tags, you know, that they've not gone away. So if you're dealing with something like Shopify, like they're probably sitting on a Shopify account, which means the minute you set up your Shopify with meta, all of that's done for you, it's taken care of. So you could then literally go in and create custom audiences based on these actions. Then when you're going to build an ad in any of the platforms, you'll go, okay, I'm going to I'm going to set up a retargeting ad. And then when you go to the audience, the audience will go, interest or whatever, you know, you standard thing, or use a custom audience. And that custom audience then will pop up in the drop down because already made it, and it will say website visitors in the last hundred and 80 days, or add to cart people but didn't purchase. Now the difference is to a klaviyo sending an email out. So when he's left in the basket, when you move on to a platform, you actually also need to exclude purchases because even though that will fit in the custom audience, that person may have come on the next day and purchased at. Yeah. Like I've been on done things like woop I just ordered a woop. Should have been delivered today. It hasn't been they must have not you know, I just we tried to deliver it to all my girlfriends and all day so not the door. I didn't try that hard. Logic to me annoys me. Because so quick we noticed with these DPD and so on. So quick. Like do it. Oh. So annoying. But anyway, so I went back to the website multiple times now, I may have I did have in my car, I think I got I don't know, I don't think I got, I don't think I got any retargeting campaigns on anything. It was just based on my memory of me wanting to go back and get it. But effective marketing is to take someone down that journey which which brings you onto that like top of funnel is your top of funnel will say in an event, but like James said, because you do a bold he's seen the ads everywhere. Have you seen those up before? Now? I've never even heard of them. Okay, it's surprising because if James has seen them all. So this is another way this all can work from using something to a funnel. If James is seeing all these ads, he you're in his. You're in his mobile. There's a number on you. So depending on what he's doing. But I suppose you're not active with James. How did you text each other and what? So I'm not that much to you because many, unlike the Google Chat thing, isn't it? So James is not quite active with each other. WhatsApp on TikTok on things like that. So the algorithm knows that. So I'll, I'll start I would start seeing stuff. The James. So James and I usually see the same things on TikTok because TikTok knows that he shares stuff with me and I share stuff with him. So we're seeing the same things. But it also knows I'm not bold and I don't look at, well, hey, who's got my picture in my videos then? I don't look at anything to do with being bold. So it's it's really clever, isn't it? It knows to not show me. It's me and Jane, guys, if I see is there a world where I see the ads because James sees the app? Yeah, because in a world like that it does. But there's other algorithms that, like, I've just described, I'm not bold, so I'm not going to see this stuff and see, is that a thing that you use? Is that a thing that someone can set up, or is that just the thing that that's just no, that structure within there, that's just deep set data stuff. Within the mobile platforms and stuff for that. But going back to it, that's the way you're set up a middle top of funnel, middle funnel, possible funnel, which is actually one of the pocket that's going to be the next podcast, for me is at what point do you stop doing this? So like where he what what's really cool with with theirs and they're obviously doing some money. Or have some decent budget or had an investment because if you're going to be like, I could try following them, but I probably still won't get server ads because the algorithm knows that I'm not the person who's going to engage with that. Yeah. But you've obviously they've you've gone on to them. You go on the website, it's then recognized you, the pixel recognize you. It's looked at your pictures on everything you do. And he knows you bowled like it's that it's that easy. It knows you bowled it knows it. Yeah. And it's like you need to see this now you going to YouTube. You need to see that it's got you everywhere from the business point of view. They have to go and set all this up. This isn't like automatic. You can go through life silent and not do anything. But they've got this set up on their YouTube retargeting. Like where you ask me about the, the app, performance stuff for Google. That would include a bit of retargeting. So if you want to reach out on YouTube, that's through like Google ads or something. Yeah. And performance Max will do that. So you build up your YouTube up retargeting that's done in Google. So you basically grab onto if you're going to buy a Google ad, but you choose YouTube as your as your placement you so you can do it. So we've had two cars we've discussed. You've gone on to page views and then it's showing you stuff. And then depending on how they set it up you might go deeper down the funnel. So where my Omnia comes in is the fact that if someone's saying you took a photo, we go to the website, you still don't take action. You're sitting on the fence and we understand that people just don't take action straight away. It took me a week before I bought that. Woop! So I'm doing my research, all this stuff, and then, I'm not taking action yet. I was going to say, Omni I so yeah. Sorry. Yes. So it was created based on, an audience of people who've done certain actions. It's not just one website views, watched certain videos, been here, been there, done this, done that all goes into one awareness campaign. And then I use that awareness campaign just to retarget those people. It means I'm using the algorithm in a really cheap way to get ads in front of you. You might not and you might not do anything with those ads, but it's in front of you at the right time. So I when I did, I was recording some videos for my school last night and I created my, I don't think it's an analogy, it's just an example. But I was really pleased with my example. So I went through I went through, like, how you optimize an ad. And so you've got on all these platforms, you've got an awareness, you've got lead gen, so you've got awareness, engagement, traffic, sales. Okay. And my example on my video was like, when do you choose to use an awareness campaign or an engagement campaign or a traffic campaign or sales campaign? Now most people I teach because that's more of a business or whatever. We'll go out there and we'll teach them how to do always a sales campaign, because we want the algorithm to go for the the low hanging fruit person, not you, who's thinking somewhere outside. I've got bold head. I haven't got an ASPs moisturizer. Bang. I'm going to go in there. You already know the price. £25. There's a strong chance at some point you could go. I'm going to try it. If they send you an email now saying you've been looking this product. Still unsure. Here's a tester. You probably get it. Yeah. Okay, so they're taking that funnel. So it's understanding how that works. Now my analogy. Well the way I sort of described it was if I was on my phone on my video and I was going for my stories. So I'll do it now. Right. So if I'm going through this. Right. So let's open Instagram and I've got a story up here. Let's go. So going into my stories and I'm basically what am I. So you go from upstairs downstairs you have no Wi-Fi guys because you have to log in back in again. It's really annoying either way. I'm on a guy, so my laptop thinks my laptop is logged in. So you go on to Instagram, you go on to your stories. And I'm clicking. I'm just basically to go from story to story to story to story. This is awareness. So I'm falling into the awareness objective. I'm not paying much attention to stuff. I'm just flicking through awareness. Right. Get me just served me impressions. I then stop on mum because there's a guy in an ice bath or using a girl's name. Right. And I'm, I'm now falling into the I'm now engaged, so I'm falling into the engagement category, but I'm engaged. I'm just not doing anything. I'm just watching it, taking it. And you might watch it about the bowl product, watch them built in the hair. And I'm making a big video about it. You're engaging with it right. So we're in an engagement category. So we've now moved our awareness. So what are you doing an awareness campaign. All you're doing is putting impressions in someone's face. We're now engagement. So you could do engagement okay. Well we're going to get to people who like to watch things a bit longer and take things in. But I'm still not clicking anything. I'm just engaging with it. So your ad campaigns and now we're going to be just getting people to engage with videos, then we move into traffic. So you're watching the bold thing. You're engaging with it and then the little thing pops up. Now saying tester click. You've now moved into traffic. So you're now a clicker right? So you click have a look around the landing page. And I asked for part one time delivery. So you're blogging. It's free for the tester. But you want me to pay for what I non-delivery you click off. So you're now staying in that traffic campaign. Okay, if tomorrow you go back on of your own accord and you can ha! Maybe I'll do it in you to car. You have now gone into sales objective which is people are adding to car initiate check out. They're looking ahead to get that. That's when I'm teaching people how to run ads or use a sales objective, because we want people who are in the sales motion to see our ads. We don't want awareness, we don't want traffic, we don't. Engagement is to lose. When you get bigger as a bigger appetizer, Coca Cola will be doing awareness all day long. You're doing engagement ads all day long for videos. They're in a different world. When you got the budget, you can do it. Exactly. So every advertiser comes down to all these different things as to when they're going to, you know, do something or not. Yeah, I was I was wondering, is it like obviously if, if I like go off their website and then later, later down the line, come back on their website, how does it know that it's still me to get what I'm asking? Is it because of you or because of your cookies? Oh, okay. So it be like, oh, it will be able to read and be like, oh, he's been on here before or. Yeah. So they or each platform have longer. Google has a longer because usually on Google that's where you're going to take action. So that's where from an advertisers point of view. And they're trying to attribute where someone came from which did which literally pulls everyone's hair out. Give up. You're never going to really, really get to the bottom of it. Google always win because once so on. So Facebook and TikTok will. That's interruption marketing. You're sitting at home, you're on the train, you're doing whatever. You're just flicking three impressions. Bang, you get, you get bowled out, okay. That's made. Think of it. You click through, you engage with that. Maybe two days later you see another bolder idea on YouTube. You click, you engage with that stuff of that. A week later, you've been talking to your girlfriend and she goes, he's really shit. It's really hot. So what are you doing about your head? You always want to wear a hat. I actually, I've seen that. There's this bold stuff. When you get some go, £25 is going to last you two months get it? You going to Google. You go on to bold website. You bought it for £25 bold then. Yeah we've got another purchase. We want it from Google. So Google's waiting all day long. And I got Facebook has me. No not doing. It's just count in the end bit. Yeah TikTok's not doing much so that's last. Attribution, and what everyone's trying to do is find out. Well, first, attribution is last. Attribution and trying to sell to an advertiser or an agency will be selling. To an advertiser who's one. Like our agency will always be going well, we're not anymore because all our clients know the crap up new clients, but well, who want your Facebook. It doesn't make us any money. No, but if you turn some costs off, no one's going to know your product. Because if that person doesn't know bold, they're not going to Google bold. Yeah, they're going to Google cream for people who've got bald head and hope that you you hope you come up near the top. Interruption marketing is like you didn't even know existed. Now you do change your website in the next six months. You're probably some you're thinking about on you. Yeah. The more you suppose the more you see it, the more it reminds you of it. Exactly. Everyone knows about what goes on. You haven't. I'm about to buy shares in it Michael I love this thing so much I bought a door for it so I can slow cook me and bake bread. I'm all in. I love it I absolutely love this thing. You don't see my dinner the other night. This is just my own car. My girlfriend on the way away. And I was just there and I had some. I was like, all right, this is how good this thing is. Obviously I'm I'm bloody good shot. But so this this is there. I've got some lamb koftas in the freezer. Right. You know, like little minted lamb koftas. Yeah. They're in the freezer. I've got some bits and bobs left over. I've got some. Those little poppy sweet pepper things are getting a giant pizzas. Yeah, I've got some self-raising flour. I've got some yogurt. So I'll make some flat make flatbread. Put the koftas in the barbecue, turn on the gosney, get my little pickles and stuff ready. That's the end result. Well, you wouldn't really know. It looks proper. That's restaurant standard. Yeah. Thank you. I'm all over this thing, I think. I can't even describe how much I love my girl's name. I got an email saying we're going for a second round of funding. We want you. And obviously everyone else is brought up to be two of the first who have the chance to best. I mean, I'll say, I'll say it. They're going to go into barbecues, they're going to go into different types. Outdoor cooking. Yeah. And you know, if they bring on random you say they bring out a new product. It's going to be all over your everything isn't it. Oh February barbecue album I'm getting it. So I'm into it. I mean I'm going to I should open it so I don't know. Is there any, is there any sort of retail in the works like that for people who've you target, people who've already purchased to like purchase again. Yeah, of course. But is that a thing that people don't know? Yes. So do you know what I would do. And this is what I advise my clients to do. And this is where I'd say it worked really well. And some people would just say it's wrong, but there's lots of different things. As long as my clients making money, we're using different scenarios and strategies is you're paying to you're paying for eyeballs or meter, right? Or on TikTok or on LinkedIn. Google, when you've acquired a customer, take them away from the digital side and put them into email. Okay. So like all my goals and stuff I get for email, my YouTube algorithm is just now I see pieces everywhere and slow cut me. So whatever I'm now in, that's all I'm going to say. They don't need to send me any ads. I've done it. They might bring another product out and they go, let's put an ad in front of Nick. But that would be about it. So once you've acquired a customer, probably not going to see that many ads from them again, if anything, because you don't need to. Why would they spend more money on getting me in? Yeah, for they use Klaviyo or something like that. They've got the klaviyo fee. No, let's say it's a grand a month. It allows you to send 100,000 emails. Just use that. We're all sitting on our inbox and you are you own that space, then you. Yeah, I'm subscribed to it. I get all their emails, don't get into my spam. Love it. And I can put you in all the different flows of like he's purchased. He's not purchased, he's purchased this many time all that sort of stuff. Yeah. I was going to say with the, the funnel thing, I was going to ask before we go too long on retargeting is because I've, I've, you get it sometimes where I go on a website and I'm like, I've been on this website now I'm going to get hit with a thousand ads and I don't. And then you get some like that bold or more went on the website once and now I'm getting hit with like milli is the like is the like aggressiveness of the retargeting just based on budget or is it based on like, thing where they're saying, we really want to gamut of, yeah. Are you saying on meta. Well, just generally I'm talking about like because like how sometimes I'll see like the same ads over and over and over again. Is it like, are they doing some indifferent to the. A couple of things. There's a couple of things, if meta things that you're sitting on the fence, it's going to keep sending you ads. Do you see what I mean? So it's like it's less up to the brand. Clients will say this, oh, go, I think we should change the ads. Why? They're working really well, saying it too much. Yeah. Because you're you're setting things because you keep going back to your website to check a message. Just going. I'm going to keep showing you ads because I'm going to try and get you in as a sale. So you're seeing them all the time. You can exclude, can't you exclude people in your staff from like, where's that a Google you could put, you could create a custom audience of their email address and stuff like that and things. Yeah. So there are ways of doing it. Not that anyone does, or the budget. That's a great one for you. Budget. Yes. So if you've got where reach is go. So a metric these are the platforms. The reach is diminishing. So we have to keep our audience is really broad because we because the algorithm is good. Right. The algorithm is only going to show people that are really going to engage with that ad and should see it. And why not why? I'm friends with James. We're talking about it. I'd be surprised if I see an ad for bold. Yeah. And likewise we I've been on the girls new website I just saw on, and I've not seen anything for calls because the algorithm is just going, there's no point. You're not going to get bagels, and I'm not going to go and buy bone head cream. Yeah. Okay. So it's no point saying it's very clever. If you were to so that reach is diminished. If, if we were to say right, we've got a small small audience and I'm going to give it 1,000 pounds a day and my frequency is now going to everyone. So it's let's say million is a million and the audience, reaches 10,000. CPM is 10 pounds 1000, which means, it's going to cost £100 to get to show those, I'm going to thousand a day, which means that those 10,000 people are going to see my ad ten times a day, every day. So my frequency is going to go to ten. No. Good. That's not I know, I understand in the sales process it takes 6 to 9 touch points to get us to purchase. But that's not touchpoint. That's just repetitive. It's too much and metal will just penalize you. That is not that is on all these platforms. That is going so far against what they're trying to do. That you would just be kicked off. You won't be kicked off. The advert should be your turn off. So yeah, too much budget for you doing so. You have to look at that. So when I turn on a remarket campaign view of the day someone, they're only spent like £20 at top of funnel and I, I saw let's just get a fiver three times to see what happens. Now what. Why don't we just put a like the same price in a lot. Because they're all going to get retargeted too much. Yeah. And it will just work. Keep sending it, sending it, sending it. It won't just go. You won't get a little note saying no. We want to protect our users. We're not going to suffer any anymore. Reduce your budget. It would just keep on firing at them. Yeah. And then you just going to people. And we were in the opposite way and they've seen it too much. Now that I always start out again, I'm sick of comes into the world of how do you get around then getting and getting because you because you could go, well, there's a million people. It's only showing me 10,000. How do I get more? 10,000 will be show more creative, show more creative, show more creative, showing more creative. Lots of different types of creative, doing different things, different angles. Everyone's cutting an angle nowadays, so different angles. I'm not talking about the camera angle. I'm talking about like the angle of if you're a food proctor, you're going to go down, oh, bold. Are they going to go down the sunscreen? That's the angle at the moment because it's sunny outside. Yeah. When it comes to winter they might go for, you know, cold stuff. Winter light moisturizing, all these things. So there are the different angles that you might be going down. Features, problems, benefits, different angles. So then you can kind of show the same people the same answer, which is how long. Yeah. Without in vain. Like it's the same ad over and over and Omnia is retargeting so on on different aspects of that product. But it might just be that you just see some what you say all year around, and then you see the summer one and go, I mean, it's caught you at the right time. Yeah. That's it. But the algorithm using a sales objective in all these platforms gets you at the right time. That's when you're about, it knows you're actually knows everything you're doing. Know as you sit down this over 8:00 and start looking at your phone, it knows that when you've bought stuff is about 830, 9:00. It knows all this clever and then plunks the ads in front of you the right time. I love it, I love it. And then as soon as my clients come on it, like now, Big Brother isn't. It's like you're now you're going to become a loving of a big brother when it works, when it starts making money, you're all in it. What's good? Yeah, it was about all I had to. You go, great. Great little podcast. I think you answered my answered my burning questions. Good one. Yeah, I like it. Well, James will be on the back on the next one and he'll be telling us all that's going going on in his world. And there's been a lot going on in his world, business and personal, but not personal. Is it like he's in a bad place in a bad way to do with running? Yeah. And he'll be sharing his, stuff on the next podcast. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Thank you. Next one. Bye. 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