All-Weather B2B Lead Gen with Google Remarketing

Many of our B2B clients run search and display campaigns for demand generation. They all have set budgets and goals to hit every quarter. They also want to see improvements in performance on a monthly basis; thus, we are always optimizing our campaigns to generate more leads at a lower cost month-over-month.

Remarketing campaigns are a great resource for marketers to have in their toolbox. Here are the reasons why I recommend remarketing campaigns to my clients:

• Remarketing generates leads at a lower cost-per-lead (CPL) than non-brand campaigns
• Remarketing allows you to nurture your targeted audience and push users down the sales funnel - you can target users in any stage of the funnel
• Returning users show higher CVR than new users

Remarketing strategies vary by client and they are usually based on volume of website traffic, engagement of users on website, and assets available to offer to the target audience. However, there are two remarketing strategies that always perform well:

1. RLSA (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) campaigns for non-brand keywords

RLSA campaigns allow you to refine traffic and target the audience that is most likely to convert or generate leads. Sometimes we have keywords that are too broad to target by themselves since we don’t want to get irrelevant traffic. In this case,  we recommend combining keywords with highly relevant audiences – your website visitors. You’re safe with this approach because this audience already knows about you, so they are more likely to be a relevant click. We have seen great success with this strategy. Below is an example of performance before, and after, launching the RLSA for a non-brand campaign. We saw a 47% increase in leads and 53% decrease in CPL.

2. Target past converters with remarketing

Targeting non-converters may seem like the obvious remarketing strategy but you should not forget about your converter audience. Do you have an audience that downloaded your most recent whitepaper but has not signed up for a demo and has not bought from you yet? Here is your remarketing opportunity!

You probably know that B2B sales cycles are longer; users need multiple touch points before making a business decision. Therefore, you should see remarketing as your opportunity to be present and nurture your audience. With that said, if you have users who downloaded an asset, consider whether they are ready for a demo or if they need to download another relevant asset before reaching that point. Put yourself in their shoes and help them move down the funnel.

We recently launched a remarketing campaign and the converters audience showed a higher CVR and lower CPL than non-converters. As expected, you will see a higher volume of leads coming from non-converters, but converters are a highly relevant audience that has not yet become a sale which represents a business opportunity for you. Besides, their CPL is very low compared to non-brand search. I have seen instances where their CPL is 1/8 of the non-brand CPL!

What to do next?

Look for your expensive keywords and your relevant audiences and see if there is opportunity to create an RLSA campaign to increase your relevancy and volume of leads.

Additionally, go to your analytics account, review your converters audience and if they are not your customers yet, think about where they could be in the sales funnel and what they need to see from you before making a purchase decision. Your remarketing ad and landing page should answer that question.

Want to learn more? Check out our other B2B focused blog posts here.