Sequential Retargeting for Google Adwords

You’ve Heard it Before. Remarketing 301.

You’ve read a few articles like this one saying, “Most people aren’t ready to buy the first time they see a product.” Perhaps they say, “You’re going to need to gently remind your visitors of your amazing brand.”

The bottom line is almost always: “...retargeting is vital to the success of your business.”

Truth is, typically, only 2% of visitors make a purchase on your site. So, we’ll need to dig into the visitor actions to retarget them appropriately. Luckily for us, we found Shoelace perfectly described retargeting for us.

We came from the world of mobile apps, our instincts pushed us to search for thought leaders in Shopify Retention. This is how we discovered Shoelace.

Our Outline of the Shoelace Shopify Article

Here is an outline of what the Shoelace article covers:

How to Improve Your Facebook Advertising Funnel with Sequential Retargeting

3 Types of Retargeting Strategies
  • Generic Retargeting ( beginner )
    • All Past Visitors, not very targeted ads
  • Behavioural Retargeting ( intermediate )
    • Segmented Visitors based on actions performed on the website
    • Hyper-relevant ads based on what stage in the eCommerce Funnel they are
      • eCommerce Funnel
        • Visit homepage
        • Browse Category
        • View product
        • Add to cart
        • Buy
  • Sequential Retargeting ( advanced )
    • A sequence of ads to avoid ad fatigue (different ad each time/day)
      • Fights Ad fatigue
      • Nurture prospects
      • Stands out by blending in
Layering Audiences to Create Retargeting Sequences
  • Day 1 - an image of creating a Day 1 Audience
  • Day 2 - an image of creating a Day 2 Audience
  • Day 3 - an image of creating a Day 3 Audience
What Sequential Retargeting Looks Like In Action
  • Day 1: Blog Post Ad - an example of a Day 1 Ad
  • Day 2: Best Sellers Ad - an example of a Day 2 Ad
  • Day 3: Refreshed Skin Set Ad - an example of a Day 3 Ad
Measuring Success with Sequential Retargeting
  • Visit homepage, Browse category, View product
    • Success Metrics
      • Engagement
      • Return to website
      • View a product
  • Add to Cart
    • Success Metrics
      • ROAS ( Return on Ad Spend )
Use Sequential Retargeting to Improve Your Funnel
  • Key Points
    • Past Visitors are going to leave at different stages of the funnel, so communicate with them accordingly
    • People hate repeatedly seeing the same content in their social feeds—use sequences to keep your ads fresh.
    • The success of a funnel-driven retargeting sequence isn’t always measured in ROAS - keep that in mind as you assess the performance of your campaigns

If anything past this point in the article is confusing we recommend reading the Shoelace Article for context and a more solid foundation.

Over a year of Research, our relationship with Shoelace became Special

For the past year, we’ve worked with Shoelace for a group of our Google Adwords and growth clients.

We were immediately impressed with the Shoelace Philosophy of Sequential Retargeting and creating stories similar to drip emails.

We were able to learn from Shoelace’s systems and slowly apply their concepts that were foreign to Google Adwords.

One of our core team members at Bamboo Digital came from the traditional Google Adwords techniques of Remarketing to users who perform a specific event at these windows:

  • 7 days
  • 14 days
  • 30 days
  • 60 days
  • 180 days

Our research on Shoelace became our opportunity to learn from the most popular Shopify App dedicated to retargeting on Shopify. They taught us how to tell stories using sequential retargeting while growing our clients with Facebook Ads.

Sequential Retargeting isn’t straightforward on Google Adwords if you wanted an experience similar to Shoelace.

Shoelace labels their sequential retargeting ads as journeys. We make it easy on our clients by using the same terminology as Shoelaces. We keep ad journeys in mind as part of the user experience. UX is more than a website and it is a core part of what makes growth hacking exciting.

Sequential retargeting requires campaigns to be constructed using a specific format which is difficult to find in a Google search.

Campaigns require audiences to get segmented by actions performed in a specific time frame.

Targeting Audiences could include:

  • 6 Days after seeing a product
  • 14 Days after purchasing a product
  • 90 Days after adding to cart.

These audiences are excluded from one another to capture someone who has been to the website 2- 4 days in the past.

Examples of Layering Audiences in Google Adwords

As explained by Shoelace, when they describe Layering Audiences to Create Retargeting Sequences, the Google Adwords version is a different experience.

Here is our example of how you can begin Layering Audiences to Create Retargeting Sequences in Google Adwords:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Examples of Sequential Retargeting using Google Adwords

Shoelace explains What Sequential Retargeting Looks Like In Action, and the Google Adwords version is a different experience.

Here is our example of What Sequential Retargeting Looks Like In Action:

Day 1 : Dynamic Ad

Day 2 : Lifestyle Ad

Day 3 : Review Banner

Creating Audiences that Mirror Shoelace

Creating audiences similar to what Shoelace creates for you on FB would take between 2 - 4 manual hours, to outline the audiences you need, build each audience out correctly, and test if the audiences are working accurately.

We recommend you find teammates or resources with both Development and Adwords backgrounds.

We have a Gift For You - FREE Google Adwords Audiences

Our mission at Bamboo Digital is to turn Shopify Plus websites into engaging web app experiences.

Shopify Plus companies should tell their stories sequentially to be engaging. We see Shoelace as the best solution and we encourage others to apply the principles from Shoelace on Google Adwords.

We believe your current audience segmentation is the ONE thing preventing your team from capitalizing on your Google Adwords retargeting experience.

We are happy to announce our gift to the Shopify Community: Pre-segmented Audiences uploaded to your Google Analytics for FREE.

Our only request is you reach out to use and show us the new experiences you are delivering to your customers through Journeys on Adwords.

FREE Sequential Retargeting Audiences