These two terms are used to cover the way in which cookies can be used to track people who have shown some interest in your property agency website but haven't yet converted into an actual enquiry. The cookies allow you to target ads at them when they have left and gone to visit another site. This gentle nudge can often be all it takes to remind the person to return to your site and fill in a contact form.
In practice, most agencies who are using retargeting outsource this work to a marketing agency which understands their sector and is able to set the process up efficiently. Nethouseprices.com provides retargeting services for many property agents who want to implement it as part of their marketing strategy.
So how does retargeting work?
Let’s take the example of a potential client visiting your website. The agency providing your retargeting will provide a cookie that will be dropped onto the visitor’s mobile, PC or other device. The cookie doesn’t store any personal details about the visitor.
Now the visitor goes to another website. The cookie will let your retargeting agency know which site the person is currently on. The agency checks whether there is space available for an ad on the site. When it receives confirmation that there is, it will bid to place your ad in the space, and if it is the highest bidder, your ad will appear next to whatever content your visitor is now looking at. The whole thing takes fractions of a second - it happens before the page loads fully.
What kinds of retargeting are there?
We’ve looked at how your property business can retarget people who have browsed your website, then moved on. But there are several other types of retargeting:
- In Search retargeting, you specify certain keywords. When a user with the retargeting cookie in place, types those keywords into a search engine such as Google, your ad can be displayed next to the search results.
- Audience retargeting is when you use what you know about your potential audience to target them when they are in various different web contexts.
- Email retargeting follows the same process as other types of retargeting, starting when someone opens an email from you. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) databases can use email addresses to retarget potential customers.
- Someone who has visited your website but is now on Facebook can be retargeted in the same way as someone on any other website.
- Dynamic retargeting is more specific, displaying ads for particular items depending on what sites the user has been looking at.
How to use retargeting with your ads
For property agencies, the best kind of ads will be those that help the user along to the next stage of the process, travelling from awareness, to interest, to that all-important engagement with you. Use the ad to offer them something to get their interest - such as a free valuation. People using the internet are often doing it while watching TV, talking to friends, travelling or dealing with children. They may intend to click on your ad but get distracted. The retargeting cookie will allow you to show potential clients the ad again, as they travel around the web.
A marketing agency will be able to set the cookies so they “burn out” after a time if the user doesn’t respond. A specialist marketing agency such as nethouseprices.com will be able to advise on this and can help you to get retargeting working for your business.
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