Spending money on ad campaigns without getting conversions can be the nail in the coffin for any affiliate. If you’re spending money without getting a return, then the chances are you can’t keep that up for long. If you want to get more from your marketing budget then re-targeting could be the answer to take your promotions to the next level.
What is re-targeting?
Re-targeting allows you to take users that have expressed an interest in your product and then put your message in front of them all over again. They might have clicked on an ad, subscribed or otherwise engaged with your brand but have not fully converted. This is a common occurrence, we’re easily distracted online and even an ad that interests us can be ignored after a click.
Why should affiliates re-target customers?
This form of advertising is massively helpful for affiliates as it helps to bring the user’s attention back to you in a crowded market. They’ve interacted with you once and have some idea of your brand, so it’s time to bring them back again.
They might be the perfect user that would tend to convert with your brand, but they got distracted and forgot about you. This is your chance to get back in front of their screens and remind them of what you have to offer.
This is a much more cost effective solution than marketing to the great unknown and it can also bring you in better results. If you have a smaller budget and want to market to those who have already shown an interest, then re-targeting offers you this solution.
This is really common in retail, as we get served up vouchers just about every time we leave something in our basket. This is something that iGaming affiliates can really learn from, as it isn’t being utilised fully in our industry.
How to re-target
There are two main ways that you can re-target to these consumers, either with a list or through cookies. As you would expect, there are pros and cons to using each of these. With list based re-targeting, you use a list of email addresses, which could be your subscriber list for example. Then, these are matched up to follow this person across the internet, through their profiles.
This means that Facebook, Google and other accounts can be used to target this person. As long as their email address matches one of these profiles, you’ll be able to use it. However, this can wipe out a lot of your data for re-targeting if they don’t use this email address elsewhere.
Many consumers worry that casino and sportsbook brands will spam them if they use a legitimate email, so they may keep one aside just for gaming. This means their email won’t match up elsewhere and you can’t target them through this method.
If you opt to go with cookie retargeting, then you’ll find that this is an instant system. It’s much faster and you don’t have to have a data list to start with. On the downside, you’ll need to add in more information for your users about how you use their data. They can also clear their cookies, which will stop these ads from being served up.
No matter which route you choose to go down to re-target these potential consumers, you don’t want to bother them. Cap the amount of ads that you serve to a user in any given month across all platforms. Seeing the same ad over and over across many platforms can become irritating to the user, and negatively impact your brand, so use this powerful tool with caution.
Finally, you also want to have a way to track those that have converted. This could be tracking the event of visiting an operator. It’s harder for affiliates to track these events, as once your visitor has left your site it’s difficult to assign conversions to users. Tracking an event like a site visit will allow you to remove these users from your re-targeting lists, at least for a set period.
Re-targeting is a helpful tool for affiliates to understand data and customer metrics a lot better, though it can be time consuming to set up properly. Invest your time in the initial stages to ensure that your re-targeting goes to plan.
