Dynamic Remarketing & Why You Should Use It

Remarketing has long been a key component in display targeting, and although dynamic remarketing has been around for years now, it isn’t as widely used as standard remarketing. Today I’m going to show you the power of dynamic remarketing, including an example and why it should be a part of your strategy.

So…. What’s Dynamic Remarketing?

Dynamic remarketing simply allows you to show your audience ads that are tailored to the page (or product) they have previously visited on your site. This means you’re giving your audience a better ad experience by showing them ads for products or services they’re already expressed interest in, rather than serving them generic brand messaging. Google Adwords makes setting up these campaigns relatively easy as well by offering data feed templates and ad templates specific to certain categories. This includes: education, flights, jobs, real-estate, and more!

Still not convinced it’s the right strategy for you? Let me show you how one of our client’s display remarketing conversion rates increased by 1083% year over year by simply switching over to dynamic remarketing.

The Story & Strategy

In 2017, we saw an opportunity for dynamic remarketing with a client in the education vertical. This particular client offers nearly 300 programs across a wide variety of categories.
For the 2016-2017 academic year, we ran a standard remarketing campaign with three creative variations to cover programs in three broad categories. The problem with this basic setup was the programs within the three basic categories differed so much that the one generic messaging did not truly resonate with the various website visitors in the audience lists. Additionally, a user would land on the generic program list landing page and would then need to navigate the site to find the information they came looking for, which was not an ideal user experience.

This year, we utilized the Adwords Dynamic Remarketing Education data feed and input a line for each program offered. This way, a website visitor was served an ad with messaging specific to the program(s) they previously viewed on the site. In this case, the banner read: ‘Interested in *insert name of program*’ and the visitor is taken directly to that program’s page on the site. This was a much more targeted approach, and the results speak for themselves.

The Results

Now let’s get into the fun stuff! Due to seasonality in the academic year, we pulled the same November to January date range to compare apples to apples. Additionally, the main conversion for this campaign remained constant year-over-year. Overall, this change in strategy has been a tremendous success for this client. The below table summarizes the year-over-year results.

Yes we see a drop in click-through rate with the dynamic strategy, but just look at that cost/conversion! As a results focused agency, we optimize our campaigns to on-site engagements, which in this case were the clicks on the ‘learn more and register’ buttons. Our clients love this approach because we are producing meaningful results for their businesses, not just inflated ad metrics. So, shifting our attention to the right-hand side of the table, you’ll see that overall conversions increased by 1,571% while the cost per conversion dropped by 78%, and the conversion rate increased by 1,083%.

The Insight

So, what is the key takeaway from these incredible year over year results? Plainly put, increased relevancy = increased performance. Messaging tailored to your audience will resonate with them, and will ultimately help move them through the conversion funnel and toward your business objective.

Although we saw a significantly higher click-through rate last year, visitors were not completing the desired action once they came to the site. The generic messaging likely brought in a number of people who were simply interested in the client’s brand and used the ad click as a way to get to their site. While the raw traffic is still somewhat beneficial to the site, this is not an efficient use of ad dollars as the campaign’s main goal was to drive program registrations.

This year, we paid over twice as much per click, but it was definitely worth it as we drove a significantly more qualified audience to the site. With Dynamic in play, we know which programs they’ve already looked at, so serving them an ad with the program name in the copy that leads them directly to that program’s page delivers a seamless user experience.

Closing Remarks

Dynamic Remarketing is extremely powerful for delivering highly tailored messaging to the specific website audiences. It may not always make sense for all campaigns, but is always worth a look. If resources allow, Dynamic Remarketing is a strategy you will want to test in your next campaign!