As business owners, you spend a lot of time thinking about attracting new customers. But what about those you’ve already engaged with at some point? The ones who are somewhere on the buying spectrum with you. That’s where Facebook remarketing ads come in.

Facebook remarketing ads might not be an everyday term we’re used to using, but these ads can end up becoming the powerful tool you’ve been looking for all your marketing life.

What are Facebook remarketing ads?

Facebook remarketing ads target customers that have been on your website in the past.

If you have an ecommerce store, you could target customers who have just browsed, or those who have put items in their cart but didn’t check out, or even those who actually made a purchase. 

A Facebook remarketing ad can get you in front of that same customer once again.

If you’ve run Facebook ads before, then hopefully you’ve installed Facebook pixel on your site. This provides detailed information to you about your audience. Info such as what pages they’re visiting, who’s putting items in their cart, what device they’re using — all sorts of amazing insights.

Now you need to know what to do with this information Facebook pixel provides.

Why do we need Facebook remarketing ads?

Customers come to ecommerce sites and leave all the time. It’s part of life when your business is online. For instance, cart abandonment rates —  which is where a customer puts items in their virtual shopping cart but don’t complete the purchase —  average around 69%. This means about 7 out of 10 people fail to complete their purchase even after putting items in their cart. Ouch!

But think about these 7 people. They were interested enough to come to your site and consider making a purchase. They were already bought into the idea of purchasing from you, but for some reason didn’t pull the trigger. 

Don’t get discouraged. Although cart abandonment is quite common among e-commerce owners, there’s data showing why customers leave their carts. Knowing this can help you address the problem. In the US, the top 3 reasons for cart abandonment are:

• Price (including shipping costs) is too high —  50%
• The site wanted me to create an account —  28%
• Too long/ too complicated of a checkout process  — 21%

So no matter why your customer didn’t complete their purchase, Facebook remarketing ads can help win them back. All you need is remarketing ad strategy and you can get more customers to complete their checkout.

If you’re still on the fence, you should know Facebook retargeting ads have shown to be up to 70% more likely to get customers to convert (complete a purchase) on your website. Imagine if you could convert a fraction of your abandoned carts to actual purchases?

Facebook remarketing ad strategies

The key with Facebook ad remarketing is to know who to target. Your pixel provides this information to you. Now you need to know how to target these potential customers.

What are real strategies you can implement to help you close the gap with these customers who’ve already been to your site? Here are several of our favorite ad strategies to win back some of these customers.

1. Take it slow

I know in the digital world, the concept of “slow” seems counterintuitive to everything we’re used to. But when it comes to brand awareness, it could be a good thing.

One strategy is to slowly re-introduce yourself to a customer. Don’t produce an ad where you’re practically yelling at the customer asking them why they didn’t purchase from you. Instead, send a gentle reminder of what’s great about your business. Almost like a note just to say hi.

You can use a message, a photo, or even a video to help tell your brand’s story during this reintroduction phase. Once you have data showing who has engaged with your video or ad, then you can send a targeted offer to them to entice them to purchase.

2. Let them know you miss them

Another strategy that’s a little more direct than the “take it slow” tactic, is to let your customers know how much you’ve missed them. This strategy works for those who came to your site to visit and now it’s been a period of time since you’ve “heard” from them. You can define this period of time too. Whether it’s a few months or almost a year, you can decide.

You can run ads targeted to these visitors who left and haven’t been back in a while. What do you say to this audience member? Let them know you miss them! Don’t be shy, you’re putting it all out there. Let them know you haven’t heard from them in months and you’d love a chance to win their business.

3. Keep reminding your customer of an item they were interested in

Another “in your face” strategy is to keep reminding a customer of an item or product they kept showing interest in. You can target this specific customer by focusing on those who looked at specific product pages, but didn’t make a purchase or even put an item in their cart.

So let’s say your customer spent quite a bit of time looking at one of your products, but that’s it, it didn’t go anywhere. You can create a retargeting ad that keeps reminding them of this item. It’ll show up in their newsfeed and let them know the item is still there, just waiting to be purchased.

You’ve probably noticed these ads yourself. You spend some time looking for new sneakers and then everyday on Facebook for the next week there are ads with the shoes you were considering.

4. Leave your ads on autopilot

Another idea for your Facebook remarketing ads is to create an evergreen campaign. This means you can use more generic messaging to entice a broad number of potential customers. Think of this as your ads on autopilot, but still targeted to customers who have been to your site before.

The messages on these ads will be broad, no matter what season you’re in or what promotions you’re running. You won’t use a specific offer but rather a more generic message.

This tactic is useful because it can capture the customer’s attention no matter what stage of the sales process they’re in — learning and browsing on your site or putting items in their cart. But simply because these ads are on autopilot doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep checking to see how people are interacting with them.

5. Remind the customer their purchase is waiting

You can use this strategy when a customer has put an item in their shopping cart and started the checkout process. Again, referring back to the cart abandonment rate, people stop short of purchasing for all sorts of reasons. This tactic doesn’t let them forget about their item!

We’ve all seen those “don’t forget your item” ads — and this is the strategy behind it. This might be the final nudge your customer needs to complete their purchase.

You can even sweeten the deal for them by offering an additional discount if they go ahead and complete their purchase. Don’t forget to make it as easy for them as possible to use the code and purchase directly from your retargeting ad.

You can set up the audience to be as specific as people who have seen your checkout pages, but haven’t made it to the order confirmation page. This ensures you’re capturing those who were well on their way to completing their purchase but abandoned at the last step.

6. Use sequencing ads

This strategy is for those customers who, despite your best efforts, won’t convert within a short amount of time. Think of these as your toughest sell. Well, they may be tough but it doesn’t mean you can’t win them over. The best approach may be a series, or sequence of ads. The goal here is to eventually wear them down and make it as easy as possible for them to purchase once you finally crack the code.

This strategy requires you to focus on several ads that are set to reach your audience at specific times — times when you know they’re likely to be using Facebook. Don’t just set up ads at random, pick these targeted times of high Facebook engagement.

Then you’ll set up a campaign for a set amount of time, say 8 days, and you will change up the offers throughout the time of the campaign.

For example, if you own a clothing boutique and are targeting these customers, you might send an ad with an entire outfit shown in the first few days of the campaign. But then, if they don’t purchase, you might change the message halfway through and only show one item, such as a pair of boots. By the last day or two of the campaign, you can offer an additional discount.

The idea here is to set up a complete campaign, not a “one and done” strategy. This requires extra effort to change up the offer, but you can end up converting them to loyal customers.

The bottom line with Facebook remarketing ads…

Who knew you could get so specific with targeted ads for customers who have already shown interest? Thanks to the insights of Facebook pixel, it takes very little effort to capture the attention of past browsers.

With Facebook remarketing ads and a bit of strategy, you can reduce those cart abandonment rates. In turn, your sales can increase and you can finally gain those customers you were so close to getting before.

If you’re interested in learning more about a complete Facebook ad strategy from start to finish, check out our Facebook Side Hustle Course.