Truth 38. Remarketing for results

Amazon.com is the hallmark of using metrics to drive revenue. It consistently uses data collected about its users to personalize offers and make its content more relevant. We could all learn a little lesson from Amazon.com. If you are collecting metrics on your website and email campaigns but not using the data to remarket to recipients, you could be missing out big time.

I like to think of remarketing as low-hanging fruit because so many marketers fail to do it, and making it work for you isn't that difficult. So dust off those Web analytics and email results and let me help you uncover a gold mine.

Personally, I can say that I've often received an email and, being enticed, decided to click on the link within and possibly make a purchase. But I often abandon that purchase at the last minute. The desertion can be for a variety of reasons: I'm not sure if I need it, someone knocks at my front door, I spill coffee all over an important document—you get the drift.

The key point here is that if you are the marketer who sent me the email offer and I took the initial steps toward the desired action of purchasing but didn't, wouldn't it be great if you could then remarket to me by sending another, better offer?

Even if you don't keep track of Web analytics and don't know what email subscribers are also doing on your website, you can still take advantage of remarketing. Consider looking at the way recipients are interacting with your messages and then using that information to move them along the path to conversion. Let me give you an example.

I recently worked with a long-time client, CoreNet Global, the world's leading professional association for corporate real estate and workplace executives to do just that. It wasn't the “sexiest” campaign, but it was recognized as the best email campaign by the American Marketing Association and Direct Marketing Association, so it was attractive enough to win a nice award from two prestigious groups. CoreNet Global's goal was simple enough; it was simply trying to drive attendance to its annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia. But this conference happened to be a big revenue generator, and the client came to us for advice on how to get more registrations out of the same list it had already mailed to but had not gotten the desired response from.

We started by looking at the metrics from the last campaign CoreNet Global sent to promote the event and then grouped recipients into segments based on how they interacted with that email. Prospects were segmented from customers and, within each of those, we ended up with three different groups:

 Those who clicked on any link in the email but did not register (responders)

 Those who did not open or click (nonresponders)

 Those who registered from the initial email campaign

From this point, we temporarily suppressed all these groups from the client's other email communications and began a remarketing campaign. The responders (meaning those who clicked but did not register) received targeted messaging focused solely on converting them to registrants. Additionally, any registrants were sent a thank-you email following registration that had valuable information detailing specifics about travel to Atlanta, the agenda, where to stay, and so on.

The primary messaging associated with the remarketing campaigns and the thank-you emails, designed to prompt viral forwarding, hinged upon a special, email-only incentive of an additional savings on registration that was not offered through any other marketing channel.

It worked. The remarketing email campaigns produced an average open rate of 40 percent and an average click-through rate of 21 percent. These represented a 78 percent and a 250 percent increase, respectively, over the preregistration email messages the client had sent the previous year, during the same months. In total, the creative optimization of existing templates and email strategy outlined produced 133 online registrations. At an average registration cost of $899, the revenue produced was just under $120,000. Taking into account the costs associated with the redesign and implementation of the remarketing campaign, CoreNet Global achieved a return on investment of $38 for every dollar spent, for a staggering 3,886 percent return on investment (ROI). Now, just think if they hadn't been open to a new approach. What if they hadn't maximized their existing data?

Remarketing is something that any email marketer can do. If you have an email program and are keeping up with metrics, you are likely sitting on an opportunity to get better results.