Digital Retargeting Is NOT the Best Way to Bring Back Website Visitors After They Leave
Digital Retargeting is NOT the best way to bring back website visitors after they leave.
But I understand why you may think that it is.
Digital retargeting has the unique ability to focus your ad spend on higher-value prospects that know you and have even taken the initiative to visit your site. That’s big. And digital retargeting has multiple strategies to fit your needs, and delivers a good ROI. That’s even bigger.
This has led most brands to spend 10%, 30%, even 50% or more of their online ad budget on digital retargeting – and this may include you.
But does this mean that ALL businesses that use digital retargeting have it perform as the BEST way to bring back visitors to their site?
You don’t think there are any businesses using other retargeting strategies that bring back more?
What about strategies that are NOT impacted by ad blockers, ad blindness and digital ad-hating visitors – factors that a study by Infolinks showed prevent 86% of online browsers from seeing your digital retargeting ads?
What about using Direct Mail Retargeting?
Direct Mail Retargeting users are getting 5% – 25% of website visitors back to their site using physical Postcards – a Return-to-Site performance that’s on average 14X MORE than the 0.7% achieved with digital retargeting.
It’s been featured in recent major publications including Forbes and by technology platforms like HubSpot. So it’s a channel that has earned its way into mainstream marketing – because it works. Consider adding it to your mix before your competitor does.
Direct Mail Retargeting works very similarly to digital retargeting. But instead of displaying digital ads, it sends customized Postcards by First-Class Mail to those visitors who leave your site without converting or opting in.
It automatically matches 50% of prior website visitors to mailable addresses in a privacy compliant way, and mails out those Postcards each day to deliver a timely reminder from you – a personal, real-world touch in response to your visitor’s online activity.
What most digitally focused marketers miss is that consumers hold onto advertising Direct Mail for 17 DAYS on average. So if your message is delivered by Direct Mail Retargeting, it can have a MUCH longer impact – one that no digital retargeting program can approach, and drives the higher response rates.
Direct Mail Retargeting isn’t a replacement for digital retargeting – it’s a complement to it. Each tool has its role. Direct Mail Retargeting complements digital by filling the reach gaps that digital retargeting can’t access. And that’s all due to how we behave online.
Today, 38% of us have installed ad blockers. Add to that, web browsing eye tracking studies show we rarely look at the right sidebar anymore, and we jump right over in-line ads with the ease of a gazelle because we’ve been trained that there are – gasp! – ads lurking in those areas.
Bottom-line, digital retargeting just doesn’t get seen by the majority of past website visitors.
Direct Mail Retargeting burst on the scene about five years ago, attracting brands from Walmart to Wally’s Walnut Farm – but not only because they could fill the gaps left by their digital retargeting. It’s also to take advantage of the “superpower of print marketing” to bring back more vanished website visitors to their site than by using digital retargeting alone.
The United States Postal Service tested this “superpower of print” in a neuromarketing study with Temple University – comparing the effectiveness of Physical/Print Advertising vs Digital Advertising. And they discovered some things that shocked successful digital retargeters…
Shoppers spent more time with the Physical Ads…had stronger emotional response and engagement than with Digital Ads… and had higher recall with the Physical Ads – in fact, 70% higher.
And the kicker of this study was that it included Millennials, who are the first generation of digital natives… consumers who are supposed to prefer everything digital. The study revealed that if you want to reach and convert more lost website visitors – including the massive buying power of the Millennials – then you must include some print marketing.
And what more cost-effective way to include print than with Direct Mail Retargeting – which only mails to the potential buyers that have already demonstrated high intent by visiting your site.
So how does a successful retargeter motivate more website visitors to return to their site by employing a Direct Mail Retargeting program?
First, determine if your brand and website fit the profile of successful programs. What does that look like? We’ve found that a brand needs three key elements order to be successful – an Average Order Value of $70+, a Customer Lifetime Value of $300+, and a minimum of 3,000 monthly unique website visitors. These aren’t absolute – but definitely covers the 80/20 of successful Direct Mail Retargeting programs.
Also make sure you deploy a 1st-party, cookie-based Direct Mail Retargeting approach. This ensures it is privacy compliant and has the highest Address match rates possible – so you can safely connect with more of your prior website visitors.
Be careful with IP-based matching, which has less accurate matching. Plus, it uses rooftop coordinates for addresses… which will be rendered useless in any city where multi-unit dwellings have a presence.
Before you launch your program, refine the targeting to focus on the visitors with the intent you want. Review your page-specific traffic and number of mailable addresses to determine the best strategy.
Set filters to identify visitors who abandoned carts, visited top-converting pages, visited two or more pages, or even who live in the geographic areas you want to focus on – and it can raise your program’s results dramatically.
It should go without saying, but create the most effective Direct Mail Postcard possible. Follow the creative process for Direct Mail Retargeting – which is different than any other channel, including regular Direct Mail.
Remember these prospects already visited your site, so focus on getting them to take action – this is NOT a branding touch. Tell your story, highlight why you’re different (and better), and give them an offer they can’t refuse – REMEMBER, you’re acquiring a new customer here.
Also don’t forget to create different Postcards for the different pages you want to retarget – so your visitor receives the most relevant message to what they were checking out on your site.
Last, optimize for best performance. Perform regular reviews to your make sure your program is delivering on your goals. But first you need to ensure you’re measuring all the conversions your program is delivering. That can be tricky if your funnel doesn’t end in a “Thank You” page or other Conversion URL to directly track your results.
To get the most accurate ROAS in those situations, perform a Matchback Analysis at 45 and 90 days. By comparing your list of recently converted customers to the list of website visitors who received your Direct Mail Retargeting mailer, you’ll get the best analysis of the conversions your Direct Mail Retargeting program is generating.
THAT’S how you supercharge your retargeting program – by adding Direct Mail Retargeting to your advertising mix.
And did you know that you get multi-rewarded for creating this omnichannel mix? A recent USPS study found that the vast majority of marketers reported both higher website traffic and ROI when combining Direct Mail with digital marketing:
Our Modern iO Direct Mail Retargeting program has all these foundational elements and benefits – and much more.
You have a choice. You can limit your online retargeting tools to digital, and keep getting the 0.5% – 1.0% of your lost visitors back to your site.
In fact, this is what most retargeters do since they haven’t vetted all the retargeting options available to them. And they lose valuable conversion and branding opportunities every day.
Or, you can be the aware retargeting pro who motivates 5% – 25% of unconverted visitors to return to your site with Direct Mail Retargeting — and supercharge your efforts.
You fill in the wide gaps that digital retargeting misses and put the superior conversion power of print on your side.
If you’re a successful retargeter who wants to expand on your digital retargeting to make the most of the traffic you’ve already paid for, and get rewarded with increased return-to-site traffic and conversions, then Direct Mail Retargeting is the right tool for the job.
Download our eBook “How to Turn a Leaky Website into a Customer-Generating Machine Using Direct Mail Retargeting” to learn more about our Modern iO Direct Mail Retargeting program — and take your next step to more return website visitors and conversions.
