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What is Link Retargeting? Increase Your Top of Funnel Traffic by 500%+

 

With the use of content curation and link retargeting, you can build your retargeting pixels faster. As a marketer, you may have heard of this cool thing that you can do called retargeting…

It allows you to “pixel” your audience and serve them ads at a later time.

Back in my agency days, when a startup or small business came in to me, setting up a retargeting ad campaign was almost always the easiest way that I could immediately make them more money.

I mean, we spend all this time getting users to our site, only to let 75%+ leave forever.

If only there was some way to get them back…

Some way to reconnect them with our content, our offer, our business…

Please Come Back To Me Squirrel Meme

Said every website owner ever…

Well, obviously, that’s where the genius of retargeting comes into play.

And the best part?

Retargeting ads are easier to manage than regular ads and don’t cost as much in terms of advertising spend.

[Tweet “Retargeting ads are almost always the easiest way to grow your business. @SixPeppers”]

This is because your audience is going to be smaller — only people that visit your site, not the entire world — and “warmer” — only people that have heard of you via visiting your site.

Now, I will tell you more about link retargeting in just a second, but first I want to talk about just why this is so powerful.

Returning Visitors Make Up Most of Your Conversions

But why are retargeting ads such a good idea?

To give you an idea of the power of getting someone back to your site (and therefore the power of retargeting), let me pull some stats for you from one of my own sites.

This site doesn’t get a ton of traffic by any means… It’s currently sitting at just about 4,000 monthly unique visitors.

77% of the traffic is completely new to the business, blog, etc.:

New Vs Returning Users in Google Analytics

And out of all first-time visitors, it only gets .5% of them to opt-in to my list:

New Users signup SplashOPM

Now there are ways to optimize and improve this metric on its own, which are important, but let’s pretend I’ve done my best, and .5% is going to be my going opt-in rate for new visitors.

Sounds like I’m screwed right?

That’s not a great conversion rate at all, and I’m going to have to work my butt off to get all sorts of traffic…

But, what about returning visitors?

If you dig into the details a little further, you will find that anyone that visits the site 2 or more times, opts in at a rate of 9.6%, or 1912% more often.

Returning Users Conversion Rate SplashOPM

Now that’s a conversion rate I can deal with…

Are you starting to get the importance of getting people back to your site?

Why are Returning Visitors More Likely to Convert?

The answer is pretty simple:

  • They recognized you from before.
  • They’ve enjoyed your content for an extended period of time.
  • They chose to come back, which implies they like you.

You’ve built enough trust to break the “trust barrier,” and now they are ready to become a fan and give you their email.

And some underlying factors about why they didn’t convert the first time:

  • They could have been busy.
  • They read a post but didn’t have a reason to drop down an email address.
  • They were warming up to you.
  • They were just reading a piece of content and didn’t look into your business at all.

People don’t like giving strangers their email address. There is a psychologically minimal amount of time we prefer to wait before dropping it in there.

You know. You’ve felt it.

Think of a networking event, don’t you hate when someone tries to give you their card before you’ve said 10 words to each other…

Yet, the person who you’ve made a deep connection with and is sounding like a promising business connection… You’re thrilled to get a card from them.

Such is real life, and online. You have to provide them with comfort, tremendous value, and a strong reason to continue the conversation.

Link Retargeting: Pixeling People That Have Never Been to Your Site Before

What?!?

Retargeting is supposed to be for people that have been to your site…

But there’s a new workaround out that allows you to retarget anyone that clicks a link that you control. Meaning you can retarget anyone that clicks on any piece of content (especially curated content) that you provide.

What is Link Retargeting?

Link retargeting is when you put your retargeting pixel code – be it Facebook, Google, Twitter, or otherwise – inside of a short link so that anyone that clicks on the link is added to your retargeting pixel.

This allows you to pixel people that are going from your social post to someone else’s site (and there are a few similar applications). It’s perfectly legal and allowable, and honestly, it actually serves additional value to your audience (assuming you continue to serve them well and not just relentlessly spam them).

 

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Who’s Link Retargeting For?

This is totally for you if you:

  • Are already serving retargeting ads
  • Are already using content curation as part of your strategy
  • Have great blog content to send people to
  • Have a clear action that you want people to take on your site

This is totally NOT for you if you:

  • Don’t have an inbound marketing funnel set up
  • Don’t have any content on your site to send people to
  • Have never run ads on GDN or Facebook before

So if you fit the criteria, keep reading…

Why Do Link Retargeting?

With link retargeting, you can build out your audience 500%+ faster, capture anyone who you’ve influenced online, and expand the awareness portion of your funnel to redirect people to your site at a later time.

Let me give you an example. You’re a local restaurant that just got on the local paper’s “Top 25 Best New Restaurants” list.

San Diegos top 25 new restaurants example

Naturally, you are going to promote the crap out of this on your Facebook page, Twitter, Snapchat, whatever…

But every person that reads this post that is showcasing your business will go to that site and then be lost in the woods forever.

Not with link retargeting

OK, I”m Down! How Do I Actually Do Link Retargeting?

We’ve added link retargeting as an option for all Rebrandly Pro and Power users [updated 21/11/17].

Watch this video or keep reading to find out:

Open up your Rebrandly dashboard or extension and paste in your URL, then click the gear wheel and retargeting:

Hit the Retargeting Button After Adding a New Link

 

For Facebook Custom Audience Pixel:

Now you need to go grab your retargeting pixel. For Facebook you go to your business manager account and navigate to All Tools -> Pixels (this link might work for you):

Facebook Business Manager All Tools Pixels

Then click “Actions” and “View Pixel” to see your code:

Actions View Pixel Code

For Google Remarketing Pixel:

To get your remarketing tag code from Google, login to your AdWords account and go to Shared library -> Audiences -> Tag Details:

Shared Library Audiences Tag Details Remarketing Tag

From here click “Setup” and “View AdWords tag for websites:”

Google Remarketing Tag Code

And copy and paste this code into the Rebrandly Retargeting script box, name it, and save it.

Save Your New Retargeting Pixel

Now you don’t have to understand coding to get this done, just copy and paste your code script directly into your Rebrandly retargeting script box, and add a name:

Pasting Facebook Pixel Code Into Rebrandly Link Retargeting Feature

Save the retargeting code and the link and you are ready to roll.

From here simply share this link in any Tweet or message that you would like to send out and you will tag anyone that clicks it and automatically start serving them ads at a later time.

Remember: This doesn’t work if you aren’t running retargeting ads.

Remember part 2: If you aren’t running retargeting ads, you are leaving money on the table.

link retargeting

Brand and Retarget links

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Final Thoughts

In the right hands, this little tool could make you $1,000s easy, maybe more.

I truly think this is like bringing a bazooka to a tea party. It will blow up your business!

[Tweet “Just learned how to grow my audience 500% faster with link retargeting.”]

Emerging technology is allowing us to enlarge our retargeting audiences and run highly targeted ads to “warm” traffic.

While there are many different types of retargeting ads that you can run to boost your business, the most important thing you can do is set up your Facebook custom audience pixel and/or Google’s remarketing pixel, and just start building your audience.

Not doing this is leaving mad amounts of money on the table and preventing you from hitting your maximum potential conversion rate for your on-site traffic.

People that are slightly aware of your brand, due to clicking on a link of yours from social media (or somewhere else) are far more likely to be your customers than cold traffic on Facebook or Google.

Get them to take the first step onto your site with highly targeted ads for dirt cheap.

Set up this simple retargeting process and plug a huge leak in your online marketing strategy.

So what do you think? Are you ready to grow your business with the power of link retargeting? Not sure if this will really work for you? Need help? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

 

Further Reading:

This Article is About:

  • Link Retargeting
  • What is Link Retargeting?
  • Advertising
  • Ad Retargeting

Originally published: June 29th, 2017.
Updated: October 11th, 2018.

 

 

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author-image
Maurizio Tiberi
COO at Rebrandly. Directing, administering, and coordinating internal operational activities of the organization in accordance with policies, goals, and objectives established by the CEO.