How to Optimize Your Landing Pages for Retargeting Ads

Retargeting PPC ads are one of the most effective types of ads for ROI. When people have already visited your website, they are essentially a warm lead. So targeting this group with well-designed ads has a much better conversion rate than regular display PPC ads. 

Where many brands go wrong is the initial landing page users land on after clicking the ad. 

If your ad retargeting landing page is poorly designed or confusing, all the effort you’ve put into ad retargeting audiences will be for nothing. 

In this post, we’ll walk through how to design an optimized ad retargeting landing page to increase your conversion rates and get more customers. 

But before you begin with your next PPC campaign, remember to do a competitive research analysis. 

What Is Ad Retargeting?

Retargeting is a specific type of PPC online advertising that is shown to users who have already visited certain pages of your website. 

To give you an idea of how effective retargeting can be, the average click-through rate (CTR) for display ads is 0.07%, whereas the average for retargeting ads is 0.7%

In the world of PPC, this is a significant boost that you should be taking advantage of, for both B2B companies and B2C companies. 

How Does Ad Retargeting Work?

Building an ad retargeting platform is really simple, all you need is to install a tag on your website to track website visits. 

This tag varies depending on the PPC ad format you’re using:

• Facebook ads have a Pixel
• LinkedIn ads have an Insight Tag
• Google ads require a code snippet

Once you have this installed on your website, you can create specific rules that target visitors. 

For example, you might want to target your LinkedIn ads to users who visit your landing page but don’t fill out your form. 

Or maybe you have a Facebook ad for people who visit a product page on your online store but don’t make a purchase. 

The idea is that once your remarketing audiences see this ad, they are reminded of the benefits of your product or service, and are more likely to come back and become a customer. 

The Advantages of Ad Retargeting Campaigns

1. Conversion rate optimization

The main advantage of Google retargeting ads is an increased conversion goal. In fact, visitors who are shown retargeting ads are 70% more likely to become a customer than those who are not. 

2. Lower content marketing spend

Google retargeting ads are one of the most budget-friendly types of ad spend. Because you are showing your ads to warm leads, they are more likely to click and make a purchase, bringing the cost down. 

Not to mention you are targeting a specific group of people, and fewer eyeballs on your ad mean a lower PPC spend for your sales funnel. 

3. More positive response

Most people are blind to online ads because they are bombarded with them every day. Retargeting ads not only get noticed more, they are much more well received. 

Three out of four users say they notice retargeted ads, while an impressive 89% of users say they have a positive or neutral reaction to ad retargeting, as opposed to a negative impression. 

4. More Sales

Perhaps the most important benefit of retargeting ads is adding to your bottom line. On average, when companies incorporate retargeting ads into their marketing campaigns, sales increase by up to 50%.

What Is A Landing Page?

A landing page is just a web page users land on when they click a link. It could be any type of web page, but it’s usually a dedicated lead capture page to get more sales or sign-ups. 

In marketing terms, a homepage or a blog doesn’t qualify as a landing page. The page has to have one clear goal with no other distractions or links to distract potential customers. 

Landing Page Objectives

Although landing pages have one clear goal, there are many different objectives you might be aiming for:

• Buy a product
• Book a call with your sales team
• Message you via live chat
• Subscribe to your newsletter
• Register for your event
• Book a consultation

Why You Need Landing Pages When Retargeting Ads

Landing pages are vital for your retargeting ads tactic because you need somewhere to send your potential customers. A landing page eliminates all other distractions and encourages the user to take that final action they didn’t make the first time they visited. 

It’s crucial that your landing page has the same messaging as your ad with the right keywords to relate it to your search ads. 

Match your retargeting ad quality

High-quality retargeting ads and professional quality landing pages go hand in hand. You need to optimize both parts of this partnership to get the best possible conversions. 

If you’re struggling to get clicks on your retargeting ads, Bant is going to be a lifesaver. Bant helps you create high-converting ads to show to your bounced traffic. 

Aimed specifically at B2B businesses, Bant’s retargeting ads campaigns are easy to set up and help ensure you get enough clicks to your now well-designed landing page.  

Strategies for Ad Retargeting Landing Pages

Ad retargeting landing pages have the same anatomy as any regular landing page:

• A clear, concise headline that immediately jogs their memory of their original visit
• A subtitle that explains the benefit of your product or service
• Professional, eye-catching imagery that has a clear connection to your ad
• A bold CTA button in a contrasting color to draw the eye
• A simple sign-up form, check-out, or booking system with as few steps as possible
• A clutter-free design with only necessary elements
• Copy that reflects the ad copy and reinforces your message

Retargeting ads are only as good as the landing page you send potential buyers to. If this is poorly designed, they’ll click away quickly and may even ignore future Google retargeting ads. 

Retargeting Ads Landing Pages: Mistakes to Avoid

There are a few common mistakes that brands make when creating retargeting landing pages. Make sure you avoid these to see the best results:

1. No clear message

Your offer should be identifiable in under five seconds. That may seem short, but the attention spans of internet users are incredibly short.

If it’s unclear what you’re offering your landing page visitors, you won’t make a sale. 

2. No Easy CTA

Forget about branding and style when it comes to the CTA. Make it bold, bright, and big. This makes it incredibly clear what you want visitors to click on. 

Make sure your CTA button has action words and is as enticing as possible. “Click here” just isn’t exciting enough to inspire action, so here are some examples to work from:

• Join for free now
• Claim your discount
• Book a free consultation
• Start your plan now
• Watch the free demo

3. Not A/B Testing

You’ll be shocked at the difference the smallest design choices can make on the effectiveness of your post-click landing page. 

From the color of your CTA to the wording of your headline, you won’t know what converts best without A/B testing. 

Create different versions of your landing page with just one key design difference. Here are some examples of what you might want to A/B test and track in Google analytics:

• Background color
• Headline wording
• Offer text
• Call-to-action text
• Images and visuals

Over 60% of companies report that A/B testing is highly valuable in optimizing landing pages for conversions, so this isn’t a process you can afford to skip. 

4. No segmentation for ad retargeting

It’s not enough to have a retargeting ad that is shown to everyone who visits your website. Some people who visit your website might have never heard of your before and need to find out more, others might have visited several times and be on the brink of a purchase. 

Retargeting is a great opportunity to set up specific rules for different actions taken on your website. Your potential customers will all be at different stages of the buying process, so having different ads for those stages will optimize your sales funnel and nurture process. 

Retargeting Ads Landing Pages Best Practices 

When it comes to ad retargeting, we want to avoid ad fatigue and brand blindness. You’ve probably experienced this before – you visit a new website and then all you see are ads for them for the next month. By the third or fourth time you see their ads you begin to ignore them completely. 

Fortunately, there are some easy practices to ensure your retargeting ads are converting and not putting your potential customers off buying from you:

1. Set a frequency cap

This is crucial to stop customers from seeing your ads over and over again, creating ad fatigue. 

The frequency of your ad will depend on your product or service, but we suggest aiming for no more than 20 times in a 30-day period. 

After this, decrease the ad frequency so those who haven’t visited your website in a long time won’t be bombarded with your ads. This will just leave them with a bad impression. 

2. Rotate your ads

Another way to combat ad fatigue is to rotate your ads so your customers don’t see the same one day after day. 

Create three to five versions of your ad with slightly different copy and graphics to help your ads appear fresh and new, even after a couple of weeks. 

3. Don’t forget cross-selling and upselling

A great way to keep your customers engaged is to retarget them with different products or services after they’ve got what they needed from your website. 

Whether this is a complementary product or service or perhaps something they need now they have one of your products, ad retargeting will encourage customers to become a regular customer. 

This is also a good option for customers who visited your website and didn’t make a purchase. Perhaps they didn’t find exactly what they were looking for but a different product is perfect for them.

It All Starts With Click-Worthy Ads…

Now you have optimized landing pages that convert potential customers into loyal customers, don’t get let down by your ad design and copy. 

This is another crucial piece of the PPC game that can either make or break your campaigns. 

In order to increase conversions, you need to create ads that stand out and are click-worthy. 
Take a look at our guide on Ad‌ ‌Copy‌ ‌and‌ ‌Design‌ ‌That‌ ‌Convert‌s‌ to get this piece of the puzzle in place.