A successful email marketing campaign can help your business in many different ways. For example, it can improve conversion rates and boost sales while also helping strengthen the relationship you have with your customers.
One of the most effective forms of email marketing is known as email retargeting.
What is email retargeting?
Email retargeting is a common marketing technique used by thousands of businesses worldwide. As a result, you’ve likely encountered this tactic many times in your personal life.
For example, if you spent some time searching through a website or added something to your car but never bought anything – and later received an email that featured the product – this is an example of a remarketing email.
It’s simply a way for businesses to push sales by reintroducing customers to products they’ve shown an interest in previously.
How do retargeting email campaigns work?
Like many digital marketing strategies, email marketing campaigns work by using pre-existing consumer data (such as those gathered by website cookies) to ensure relevant ads appear in the emails you send out.
As such, email retargeting campaigns are a great way to boost sales, especially when you consider the fact that “people who see retargeted ads are up to 70% more likely to convert.”
When should you use a remarketing email?
The sooner you can send out a remarketing email, the better. This is because it provides you with the opportunity to quickly recapture your customer’s attention at a time when they are already considering buying something.
How to start your email retargeting strategy
Build your customer list
The first step towards building an effective email retargeting strategy is to build your customer/mailing list. After all, without obtaining your customer’s email address, you have no other way to reach out to them.
As such, you need to encourage as many customers (or potential customers) as possible to sign up for your mailing list – perhaps by offering incentives such as exclusive discounts.
Follow up on abandoned carts
There are many different types of customers you may want to ‘retarget’. For example, this could include casual browsers who spent time on your site but never added anything to the basket. However, focusing your efforts on abandoned baskets and shopping carts is likely the most effective strategy to deploy here.
This is because these consumers are already more likely than others to make a purchase – they may just need another push. However, it may be that you have to send multiple follow-up emails to these customers. For example, one study found that “email campaigns with three cart abandonment emails generate the most revenue—$24.9 million compared to $3.8 million for those who only sent one email.”
Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly
Did you know that 81% of all emails are now opened and read on mobiles? This alone speaks for the need to ensure that your emails are not only visually appealing but mobile-optimised too. After all, if your retargeting email is inaccessible or hard to navigate, consumers are more likely to click away than they are to follow through with a purchase. It could also mean they’re less likely to open further emails from your brand, too.
Improve your CTA
Companies should always be on the lookout for ways to write better marketing emails to improve their ROI or conversion rates. However, one of the easiest ways to achieve this goal is to ensure that you curate a stunning CTA that draws in your audience.
Email retargeting best practices
There are many best practices that you should take into consideration when launching an email retargeting campaign. Doing so will give you the best chance of success.
Follow up quickly
Studies have shown that the quicker you follow up when clients leave your website or abandon a shopping cart, the better your end results will be. As such, you should use the relevant software to ensure that retargeting emails are sent out as quickly as possible.
Send more than one retargeting email
As discussed above, it sometimes takes multiple retargeting emails in order to achieve the results you desire. Of course, this does not mean that you should flood your customers’ inboxes with email after email (as this will only lead to unsubscribing). Instead, you should:
- Send one email right email
- Send one email a few days after
- Send one email the following week
Personalise emails
Ensuring that your remarketing emails are as personalised as possible will also come in handy. For example, not only should they feature the products that your customers were looking at/thinking about buying, but they should also greet them by name. This is because it makes the interaction feel more personal, which “creates recognition and gives room for appreciation and value among customers.”
The easiest way to ensure your retargeting emails are personalised is by leveraging CRM tools for success.
Track your success
It’s often not enough to send out retargeting emails and hope for the best. After all, without analysing your results, it’d be hard for you to determine whether or not your efforts are paying off or if you need to further tweak your emails and strategy.
As such, you should regularly assess your retargeting strategy – paying attention to important metrics such as ROI, conversion and even open rates (The average email open rate is 19.7%). This data will provide you with invaluable insight to use to your advantage moving forward, ensuring that every penny invested into your marketing budget is well-spent.
Final thoughts
If you’re looking to launch an email remarketing strategy and boost conversions, we’re here to help. Our email marketing platform and team can help you through every step of the process, whether you want to further personalise your emails or send out automated retargeting messages when consumers abandon a cart.
To find out more, please do not hesitate to get in touch!