Burn pixels, frequency caps and improved customer experiences  

Remarketing is a useful tool for digital marketers, but the success of your campaign relies on the set up. Get it wrong, and you’ll drive customers away rather than drive sales.

Remarketing – also called retargeting – is one of the most common tools used in online advertising. We’ve all experienced remarketing: browse an eCommerce site, look at a few specific items, and then leave without purchasing. Later, ads for those items pop up on your website or social media feed.

Effective or annoying?

Done well, remarketing keeps your brand and your product top-of-mind for customers. Instead of forgetting what store a pair of shoes comes from, they’ll see them frequently, along with your branding and call-to-action. If they change their minds, it’s a matter of a few clicks to make a purchase. You can even increase the odds of conversion by offering a discount or sale on the item.

The annoyance factor comes in when remarketing is used as a blunt instrument. If you don’t control your display ads, the same item will repeatedly appear, even if the customer shows no further interest. After a certain period, this is annoying to the customer and detrimental to your brand. Even worse, ads might continue to pop up after a customer purchases the item. This repetition makes you look unprofessional and disorganised.

Limiting the ad load

Frequency caps are a simple way to prevent oversaturation and in turn customer aggravation. You choose a maximum number of views for individual users during a set period. The most common cap is 15-20 views,  but limits vary depending on the product.

Adding a frequency cap means that when browsers look at a particular product, they’ll see 15-20 display ads for that product in the following month – but no more. It strikes a balance between the customer keeping your product in mind and feeling overwhelmed or annoyed. You can also set timeframe limits, stopping ads from appearing if the customer doesn’t buy during a specified period.

Responsive advertising

These days, customers know they’re being tracked online and expect a personalised advertising experience that responds to their browsing behaviour. They’re likely to be irritated if inundated with ads for irrelevant products. Similarly, if they’ve already purchased a specific product, they won’t want to see that product appearing again and again.

That’s where burn pixels come in—these codes on your purchase pages track purchases against tagged users. When a user buys from your website, the burn pixel stops ads from being displayed to that person. You can still target them with other content, but you won’t be wasting ad space on a product they’ve already purchased.

After a purchase, you can target customers with related products, new products and promotions as they arise. It’s about driving further engagement rather than pushing the same product when it’s no longer relevant.

Fine-tune your remarketing efforts

Effective remarketing is all about balance. Draw in interested browsers without flooding them with ads and putting them off. Track customer behaviour and adjust targeting without making people feel like they’re being watched or followed around the internet.

While remarketing can be complicated, frequency caps and burn pixels are two handy tools to keep it running smoothly.

Ready to rework your remarketing? Get in touch for expert advice.