Facebook Retargeting

You’re not marketing on Facebook, unless you’re also running Facebook retargeting Ads.

A retargeting Ad on Facebook, is a 2nd Ad that will ONLY show to the same people who have seen your 1st Ad.

Make sense?

When YOU are on Facebook, scrolling through your newsfeed to see what’s new in your world, you see the Ads of other people.

What happens if you scroll straight past the Ad and don’t click on it? Or if you don’t see more than 1 second of the video? Usually nothing, right? I imagine you just keep on scrolling through and go on with your day.

But what happens when you’re on Facebook and you see something that you like, or that interests you. And that thing turns out to be an Ad!

Now you’ve clicked on an Ad on Facebook, you’ve read or watched more of what they were talking about and then you saw what these people were ultimately selling, but you closed that window and went to make Dinner. What happens then?

If this company knows what they are doing, later that day and in the coming days – you will start to see more of their material and other Ads on Facebook – and likely other websites and Apps too!

This is “retargeting”. And if it’s happening on Facebook, it’s “Facebook retargeting“.

Why Should I Run Facebook Retargeting Campaigns?

That’s a fair question. Let’s break it down together. And let’s use some easy numbers so we can both stay on the same page here.

Imagine that you’re selling / offering my Free Book on Facebook Marketing (that you should be able to find on this website somewhere if you’re interested – if it’s still available).

You spend $1,000 on the marketing campaign to sell this free book.

After this $1,000 has been spent, your results look like this:

• 25,000 people SAW the Ad.
• 500 people CLICKED on the Ad.
• 40 people ORDERED the book. (“sales”).

But let’s break this down one step further, and it will help me explain how Facebook retargeting works.

• 25,000 SAW the Ad. 
  • These people were just casually scrolling through and checking out what’s new on Facebook. They weren’t looking for what you were advertising. They might not of even read it, or noticed it. It might of been a blur as they swiped through.
    • This group of people would not be the ones you would tell Facebook to target, with your retargeting Ad.

• 500 people CLICKED the Ad. 
  • Out of the 25,000 people who saw your ad, 500 people READ it, and CLICKED on it. They were obviously somewhat or very interested in the book.
  • This does NOT mean they all bought it. In fact, we already know that only 40 people bought the book (yes, they all come from this group of 500).
    • This group of 500 people would be the perfect group to retarget!

• 40 people ORDERED the book. 
  • Self explanatory.
    • This group could also be retargeted with other, bigger and better services or products. Because they already purchased one thing form you, so they are likely to be willing to do it again.

How to Retarget The 500 Clickers

If you haven’t read the first half of this article, you’re going to miss the point of this. So read all the above first.

Now you have 500 people who have both SEEN and CLICKED on your Ad. These are “very warm” potential customers.

And yes, we know 40 people ordered the book so technically we are only talking about 460.

These 460 people are some of the easiest “sales” that you could make over the next 24 hours – 7 days. Instead of only advertising to an entire new lot of 25,000 people tomorrow, you should also run a seperate campaign that’s only purpose is to reach back out to these 460 people and say something as simple as:

“hey there, don’t miss out on this. Get your free copy of this book now.”

What I suggest you DON’T DO with your retargeting (also called “remarketing“) campaign is:

• Show these 460 people the same Ad, they first saw and clicked on.
• Write an essay to convince them.
• Ignore and forget about them.

Because you know they have already shown interest in what you’re advertising, very often just a simple reminder and putting it back under their nose again, is enough to swing some of these customers.

Unless your a magician, you won’t get all 460 people to come back and buy the book that your marketing.

But you should get some, and they will be the “cheapest” sales you make.

All Sales Cost Money

When you are marketing, advertising or just standing out the front of your shop (or house) trying to sell something, it is costing you money. Even if it’s just in your hourly labour costs, that you could be using somewhere else.

Still running with this example, when you made 40 sales in the first run of your campaign, you spent $1,000.

So, you spent $1,000 to get 40 sales. That works out to be a cost of $25 to make 1 sale. Or you should say: “to get 1 buyer” – because a paying customer is more likely to buy something from you again in the future.

But when you’re retargeting, you should find that your costs to get 1 sale is less than $25. That’s why it’s so important not to just ignore these 460 lookers, and go advertise to a 100% new group of people.

Your Facebook retargeting Ads, should be some of your best results. 

But they will never be the majority of your sales.

The majority of people will buy right then and there. Whenever you’re marketing anything for a quick sale. The 40 customers who bought the book will be the bulk of sales that you make for this campaign, and you can win over some more with your facebook retargeting, or any retargeting campaign (you can also retarget on Google, and other Ad Networks).

Your Facebook Retargeting Results

Whenever you are marketing on Facebook, I encourage you to combine your results. If you’re marketing a product on Facebook, Google, Radio, and your local newspaper – I encourage you to combine your results.

Put all the costs and customer numbers together and work out the average cost it took to get one paying customer. Here’s an example of what I mean:

• Facebook Ad = 40 customers at $25 each. (this cost you $1000 = $25 x 40)
• Facebook Retargeting Ad = 5 customers at $15 each (this cost you $75 = $15 x 5)
  • Combined and averaged you achieved:  $23.80 per paying customer.

The different between $25 and $23.80 might not make you jump up and down, and to start dreaming about your new Ferrari, but that is a 4.5% reduction in costs. Any business owner should like to shave off 4.5% from any area of their costs. 4.5% to a big corporation like any Bank you know or McDonalds would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Also, I’ve kept the numbers simple – and this is just an example. I’ve had much better results than this and when you start testing different things to see what works for you, you might find more than 4.5%.

You might spend $2,000 on a national radio campaign which might beat the price per paying customer of both your original Facebook marketing campaign and your Facebook Retargeting campaign. In this case, when you combine all the results, your cost will reduce further down from $23.80.

What’s The Best Way to Retarget Customers on Facebook?

You first need to separate your target audience into a minimum of three different groups. These are:

1. People who haven’t clicked on your Ad to learn more.
2. People who HAVE clicked on your Ad to learn more.
3. People who have already PURCHASED.

Inside of Facebook, creating different groups of people like this is called “audiences“. And in this example, you will be creating “custom audiences”. I wrote all about customer audiences here.

So simply read that post on this same website to learn how to separate these different groups of people into custom audiences.

The only way to retarget customers on Facebook is set up a second marketing campaign in Facebook and tell them:

“Show this retargeting Ad to THESE people, but not to THOSE people.”

And what you write in this retargeting Ad would likely be different also. Usually something shorter and straight to the point like: “Did life get in the way before? Come back here and claim your free copy of this book now.” – and you could include the link in your Ad – put it right under their nose again.

Facebook Retargeting Truth

Not everyone wants to be your customer. This is not true about people on Facebook, this is true about all people. So, you’re never going to get everyone to buy your book. With your retargeting Ads, you can have a good long think about what the most likely 3 or so reasons are that someone would NOT want to be your customer. And address those concerns in your follow up (retargeting) Ads.

Here’s What I’m Talking About:

• Maybe they don’t like giving their credit card details over the internet.
• Not sure if it’s what they need.
• The process was confusing.
• Are looking for a cheaper deal.
• etc.

There are 1,001 ways you could word your retargeting Ads to address these concerns. Have a good long hard think about what the main ones are, write a few Ads for each and test them out.

No matter what you’re doing, the only way to know for sure is to test out some theories. I could tell you 4 things to try right here, but can I guarantee that they will work? No. No one can. 

But I can guarantee a way that you can find out what works, that is to test and try everything.

The beauty with marketing is that, something will work. Sometimes it’s easy and obvious to find, sometimes it’s not.

If you have a question about Facebook Retargeting, write your question in the comments below. My team and I will then be alerted when a new question comes in, and we’ll get back to you asap with some more details to help explain it.

If you’d like a FREE book that goes into this deeper you can claim your copy here.