You do a lot of work to drive traffic to your website.  Blogging, social media, SEO optimization, pay per click ads, postcard campaigns, drip messaging… It’s overwhelming and probably costs you a fair chunk of your income.  Yet for all that, how many visitors land on your site once and for whatever reason, never come back?  Well, now there is a way where you can follow up with your site visitors to remind them of your services, and even qualify those leads as you do so!  The amazing thing is it’s very easy to do and costs far less than you think…

How Retargeting Works

Humans are creatures of habit.  We seek information using certain guidelines or parameters. And, when there is something we are interested or curious in, we tend to notice things that relate to that item more readily. So, let’s say you are considering buying a house, you will search for information on the internet using some term like “buying a home in ______” (fill in the blank with a geographic location).  You get a list of real estate websites, and will probably click on the first 3 or 4 before wondering what other resources you can find and try a different search, perhaps ending up on say, Realtor.com.

Now, consider this… You are starting to search around there, when you see an ad offering a custom luxury tour of a neighborhood you were just considering, or perhaps the ability to get greater details on a house you were interested in.  Coincidence? Nope!  Retargeting.

Because of your cookies, search engines can track every single place you visit on the internet. Google also has a vast network of advertisers, and they only get paid when someone clicks on one of those ads.  So by combining these two pieces of information, Google has the ability to present specific ads to select people who have already shown an interest in that particular service or product, thus increase the likelihood the audience will click through.

You can leverage this for your site and business by developing targeted ads presenting tempting offers to entice the lead to return and engage with you.

Implementing a Retargeting Campaign

Firstly, you need to understand there are two different ways you can garner an audience for retargeting.  The strongest by far is building your own list – which happens over time as people visit your site and are naturally tracked by their cookies – because you will already know that not only are they interested in real estate, but possibility even what specific kind of real estate.  The second way is to use a “preset audience” which goes by established preferences based on browsing history, for example internet users who like horses, in a certain geographic region, and expressed an interest in real estate.  This second method is not quite as accurate as the first, but allows you to get started right away.

Next step is to develop your ads.  You must have a variety of them, because think about it… If you see the same thing getting shoved in your face over and over, are you really going to say yes the 10^th time you see it when you’ve already said no 9 times before?  Don’t think so!  A templated ad builder is available, or you can have a designer customize and upload them.  By the way, ever notice that ads are different sizes at different places on web pages?  Some are a banner across the page, some a little box to the corner, some long up and down the side.  You will need to have your ads created in all these sizes because Google will select ones that fit the available space.

You can control all aspects of your ads including budget, number of impressions, termination point, etc.  You can set your ads to display according to certain keywords, or even specific websites.  You can even control what they see when they get to your site, which means you can drop them right in the entrance to your click funnel.  For example, here is Progressive Insurance’s general site at www.progressive.com:

Obviously, you see navigation, multiple offers, all kinds of access to all kinds of information.  Now, look at what we get after clicking on a retargeted ad:

No navigation, no offers.  One purpose, and one purpose only – follow the three easy steps.  Note also that the box she is holding says “Auto” on it, because I searched using the keywords “car insurance.”  I repeated this exercise using “house insurance”, and in the image she was holding two stacked boxes, you guessed it – one labeled “Homeowners” and the second “Auto.” So you can very simply drop your retargeted lead directly on the landing page for the offer you present, don’t make them think about it.

After launching, you will want the ads to run a couple of months until you saturate your market, then swap them out.  It can still be the same offer, mind you – just a different way of presenting it.  For example, you may start out with an ad offering a “No Committment CMA,” then go to “See Recent Sales in Your Neighborhood,” then swap to “Check Out Detailed Market Data.”

How Much Does Retargeting Cost?

So, I’m telling you that you can follow up with warm leads on a consistent basis over a long period of time with a single effort of setting up a couple ads.  You’re saying, this has got to be yet another major expense to undertake, right?  Actually, it costs less than standard pay per click.

To determine the cost of an ad, you have to balance out the per click payment versus its quality score.  On the basic level, Google determines the quality score by the number of times a given ad is displayed (an impression) and the number of people who respond to it.  If the ad has too low of a quality score, Google will shut it down because the ad is not making money.  On the other hand, if you are getting people clicking through but still not engaging, it is not worth any money you are paying and you need to revise the ad.

Now, let’s look at a return on investment.  Studies show it takes an average of 7 touches for someone to engage with a site. If you are paying $4 per click to get a visitor to your site using pay per click, but out of 100 visitors only 2 engage, that’s $392 lost.  Now, if you can pay a fraction of that to retarget those other 98 visitors over a period of weeks or months, you vastly increase your exposure and the chances of those warm leads returning, thereby increasing your return on the initial investment.

In the end, retargeting comes out less expensive than standard pay per click.  PPC is triggered by keyword searches, which although gives you a “best guess” does not necessarily identify any specific need.  On the other hand, retargeting is based in the actual content the user elects to view, which is a far more accurate gauge.  So Google charges less based on the likelihood being much higher of someone clicking on a retargeted ad versus a generalized pay per click ad.

Best Practices for Successful Retargeted Ads

As always, there are a few guidelines you should follow when creating and launching your campaign:

• Make sure your ad shows on related sites.  A guy shopping for lingerie for his wife on Victoria’s Secret is NOT thinking about real estate.  Do not waste your time and money displaying your ad to him.  Be sure your keywords are specific enough that only sites related to real estate are used.
• Don’t make it easy for your competition.  Don’t show paid ads on your blog or site.  You cannot control what ads Google shows on your site, and it would be mighty embarrassing to have a competitor stealing your leads.
• Follow good marketing practices. As always, your ads should focus on benefits first and foremost, have big headlines and a strong call to action.
• Give ‘em what they want. Few things are more frustrating to a visitor than having to search for the promised information.  If your ad offers a specific product or service, make sure the link takes them directly there, not to your home page landing.  The whole point of this is to channel them into your click funnel.

Although some companies have been using retargeting for quite some time, it is becoming more and more prevalent.  To find out more about actually implementing retargeting, you can go here: http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/remarketing.html

When used strategically and judiciously – there is a huge difference between retargeting and cyberstalking – this long-term method of marketing to potential online clients has shown itself to have tremendous success.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.OnlineDominance.com and Facebook page at Facebook.com/OnlineDominance

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the December 2011 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2011. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.