The idea behind this is that the people who see these ads to were once interested in your product or service – or at the very least know who you are – yet did not convert, as they may have been distracted and had to leave the computer, or intended to come back to your site later, but forgot.

How does Facebook remarketing work?

Facebook remarketing is possible thanks to the Facebook Exchange platform, by adding a site tracking tag to your website code, which is completely invisible to the visitor. This unique tag or cookie allows the visitor to be anonymously identified as having been on your website. This cookie therefore identifies your retargeting audience.

Once this group has been created you can create ad campaigns on Facebook that will follow them and serve them ads either in their news feed or on the sidebar on the right-hand side of their feed.

As they’ve already been on your site and viewed the specific product or service which the ad is currently showing them, they are reminded of your brand and services and will hopefully return to convert on your website.

What are the benefits?

The general consensus is that remarketing on Facebook is much cheaper than traditional remarketing on AdWords, lowering the overall cost per customer acquisition, and that it yields a much higher conversion rate as you are targeting an audience that is already aware of your products and services. Facebook remarketing is cheaper than remarketing on search engines because your audience is supposedly being targeted while they are doing something else. They’re thus less likely to convert.

On a practical note, Facebook ads are much easier to create than banner ads on other platforms. Targeting with Facebook is also much easier as you can take a very granular approach by choosing your audience’s age, gender, topics they are interested in or, in this case, users who previously visited your site but did not convert.

How do I set it up?

This guide aims to show you how to set up Facebook remarketing with Adroll, one of the most popular third party tools used by marketers. It is a paid tool that has been proven to boost ROI.

1. Add the SmartPixel tag to your site

First of all, you will need to tag your site: when you have paid for and created you Adroll login, go to the dashboard and click “smart pixel inactive”. This will generate some JavaScript code that you need to copy and then place it before the </body> tag on all pages of your website. Alternatively, copy the code and ask your web developer to do this.

24 hours later, you will need to verify that the SmartPixel is working properly on the site by checking the “Total Visitors” section in the “Visitor Segments” table in Adroll.

The Total Visitors tab represents the number of unique people that have visited your site since the SmartPixel was placed. When the SmartPixel is active, the button on the right sidebar of your Adroll dashboard will read “SmartPixel Active” and display a green checkmark.

2. Segment your audience

Now that your tag is up and active you will need to identify and segment your targets – those who will be shown the remarketing ads. These could be visitors who added items to the basket and left without buying, or people who visited a certain product page on your site.

To create these targets, go to “Segment visitors”, create a new segment, and name it according to the action completed by the user. For example, if the user has added items to the basket, name it “basket”.

3. Set up conversion tracking

You now need to track conversions, in the “track conversions” tab in the dashboard. These could be a purchase, a newsletter sign up, or an enquiry form completion. You need to do this so as to be able to measure the effectiveness of your remarketing campaigns, so it is an essential step!

The process is very straightforward: click on create a goal, give it a name, and copy & paste in the URL that you would like to track.

4. Launch your new campaign

Create your new campaign, and add all relevant information – campaign name, budget, start and end date, which visitors to target, and locations.

At this point, you will be able to create new ads, upload old ones or choose existing ones from the Adroll library.

You campaign is now set! As always with digital marketing, keep an eye on it to monitor which ads are converting versus those that aren’t and keep tweaking them so as to ensure that they are effective.