Have you thought about using remarketing in your online marketing campaign? Let’s start with understanding what remarketing is.
1. What is Remarketing?
Remarketing is a marketing tactic companies use when people visit their website but don’t buy anything or follow through on a call to action. If you visit a site and look at certain products, ads about those products can follow you as you browse the web.
This marketing tactic generates leads from people who have already visited your website. If your website is not getting traffic, you may want to start with some SEO or PPC marketing first. Remarketing ads can help generate leads so that you can follow up.
Why is Remarketing Important?
An article published by the Search Engine Journal revealed that only 2% of website visitors will buy something on their first visit to a website. This statistic focuses on commerce, but the numbers matter for child care center websites. Potential customers like to make well-informed decisions. This is even more true when it comes to parents choosing a preschool for their child.
Examples of Remarketing
Let’s say you were visiting a website for home goods and decorations like Williams and Sonoma. You look through some kitchenware but don’t feel ready to buy. As you leave their website, you may be followed by ads featuring the kitchenware you were browsing!
These ads can pop up in ad spaces on unrelated websites or even on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Whether you consciously notice it or not, the company is trying to stay in your brain to influence you to follow through on that purchase.
Looking to get your life in order with a new daily planner? One of our team members was looking for a new way to organize her days. After she visited one website with productivity planners and did not buy a product, that company and their product started to pop up on Instagram.
Competitors also started to show up in remarketing ads to get her to look at other products from competing companies.
2. Remarketing vs. Retargeting
It can start to get a little confusing when we start splitting hairs between retargeting and remarketing. These two types of marketing fall under the same umbrella of re-engaging previous website visitors. Google’s remarketing tools like the Google Analytics remarketing tags technically assist with retargeting.
If you split your approaches into these two terms, remarketing will specifically refer to re-engaging existing customers through an email campaign.
An Example of Remarketing vs. Retargeting
When we dig deeper into understanding remarketing, you may notice the above examples of remarketing now specifically fall into a retargeting category. Both of these examples focus on using ads as a path to re-engage a potential customer. If those examples are technically more retargeting, what is a good example of remarketing?
Let’s put you back on that Williams and Sonoma website, imagining what you would be cooking in your new copper cookware set. As you dream of making homemade caramels or plan your next feast, you add the cookware set to your cart. All of a sudden, something comes up and you have to abandon your online shopping spree. You leave the site without buying anything.
As you check your email later in the week, you notice a little note from Williams and Sonoma featuring that copper cookware you almost bought. This tool is called a cart abandonment email. The company is trying to make your purchase as hassle-free as possible so that they can make a sale.
3. How to Get Started with Remarketing
Remarketing requires cookies. When someone visits your child care center website, your website needs to be able to acquire data about the visitor to target them later.
Once you have at least 100 visitor cookie IDs on your remarketing list, you can make an effective remarketing campaign.
It is important to make a remarketing ad specific. Since this is trying to convert leads instead of just building awareness of your preschool, you want parents who see the ad to follow through on a specific action for a program.
4. Can I Retarget Visitors from a Competitor’s Website?
The technical answer is no since remarketing depends upon someone visiting your website first. However, you can market to visitors of competitors’ websites who may not know about your daycare center yet. As you structure your online marketing campaign for your preschool, use your paid advertising budget to target your competitor’s name, keywords, and even URLs.
This can be an expensive move since the keywords will be high competition and will have a higher bid. Talk to an online marketing company advisor to see if this is the right move for your child care center right now. An important factor to consider here is that you cannot mention your competitor in your ad. It’s also not playing nice on the internet if you appear to be badmouthing other daycare centers.
But what about the example of remarketing involving daily planners? You can do something like this to compete with other local preschools by focusing on social media. Keep in mind that young parents who are in need of child care services are a primary demographic for spending time on social media. Create an audience segment for Facebook and Instagram ads.
This segment can include people who follow, mention or visit your competitor’s page.
5. Remarketing with Local Child Care Marketing
Remarketing ads are one part of a sophisticated marketing strategy to generate leads and increase enrollment for your child care center. Learn about how to create the most effective online marketing campaign for your preschool with your budget. Local Child Care Marketing offers online marketing services from website development to business directory listing management for child care centers across the country.
Contact us today to learn more about how remarketing can increase enrollment at your child care center!