Google Analytics Remarketing Code Ideas

Some website owners (and developers!) haven’t realised that there is a new(ish) Google Analytics code that should “ideally” replace your current Google Analtyics code called Double Click.

To generate the new code simply log into your Google Analytics account, click ADMIN, and then navigate to the tracking tab.

Here you will see your existing Google Analytics code, with two “tick” boxes to the right hand side. Tick the Double Click box to generate the new code and ask your developer to replace your existing code with this one. Ensure that the code is placed in the correct part of your web pages i.e. immediately before the tag.

Without these changes being made to your existing Google Analytics code you won’t be able to do the next part – Google Remarketing.

Google Remarketing Code IN Google Analytics

Previously for those sites already using Google Remarketing, it could be a “little bit of a pain” to add tracking code to the appropriate sections of your website. It wasn’t difficult, but each code had to be generated in Google AdWords, emailed across to your web developer, who would add it to the pages you wanted to track and remarket to.

Well NO MORE!

With the new Double Click code it is now possible to set up ALL your remarketing code from within Google Analytics, and then use these lists to remarket your offer / promotion / event / brand etc to.

The various options of the remarketing lists include:

Site Wide Remarketing List

Now, instead of pestering your web developer, the code will automatically be added to the Double Click tracking code on your website. You are able to choose a list name and a cookie length (how long you would like for the “anonymous” cookie to remain active on the users browser). This can range from 1 day through to 540 days.

Page Specific Remarketing List

The next choice of remarketing list is to place different tracking codes onto different pages of your website. This could be a specific landing page, your shopping cart page or simply your home page.

Where this gets VERY interesting is that (for example), if you were the owner of an ecommerce site, you might want different remarketing codes on different branded product pages. This would then allow you to “remarket” to specific people who you KNOW have looked at your branded “item” page and not bought. Often people “browse” before they buy, and remarketing provides web owners the opportunity to remarket to the 95%+ web visitors who don’t complete a purchase.

Without getting too technical, anyone familiar with Regular Expression codes would also be able to enter these at this point to generate a specific remarketing audience.

Completed Goal Remarketing List

Any goal you set up in Google Analytics will show in this part of the remarketing code set up. This could be URL goals (such as thank you pages after an enquiry has been made), a download goal (such as a download page people have reached), or a completed purchase goal on E-Commerce websites.

These have now given you a much more specific audience to target as you already know these people have performed a “positive action” on your website. They still might only be making an enquiry at this stage and therefore “remarketing” to these people might just keep you in mind over your competitors who they have also asked to quote for their custom.

There is also a final option whereby you can set up a remarketing list based on Visitor segmentation. This could include custom filters such as people who spent over £100 and who are from France. Alternatively you might want to create custom filters and create a list of people who followed a specific process through your website e.g. home page > product page > shopping cart page > checkout page.

4 Quick Google Remarketing Ideas

1. Target people who abandoned your shopping cart. One of the most frustrating issues any e-commerce owner comes across is the dreaded “abandoned” cart. Nothing makes them pull their hair out like a “customer” that doesn’t complete the purchase. This could be down to trust, the customer not being ready to “buy, or them just using the cart to “add” items together and create a wishlist they can come back to at a later date. Having a remarketing list (or several with different cookie lengths) will allow the web owner to remarket specific messages to these people. For example, adverts showing positive signs of trust such as “accredited <industry> seller or snippets of client testimonials. Alternatively, you might have added several cookies with different expiration lengths (e.g. 7 days, 14 days, 30 days) which you can then combine and send out a different message. E.G. Remarket a discount code to people who have the 14 day cookie but exclude those with a 7 day cookie.
2. Promote Your Events – If you have regular events, or have a hotel / restaurant website, creating a 540 day remarketing list can be a great way to generate interest in any future events you might run. For example, hotels & restaurants often have valentine’s day meals, mother’s day & father’s day meals, Easter Sunday meals, summer barbecues, Halloween / bonfire nights specials, Christmas party nights & festive meals such as Christmas eve, Christmas day, boxing day and new years eve. Throughout the year they may also have wedding fayres and other events. Creating display ads gives them the opportunity to maximise the advertising for these events by targeting every visitor that has been to their website over the last 18 months. They can choose to pay per click or pay per 1000 impressions, therefore they can get huge exposure for very little cost.
3. Target people who looked at a product page. People often like to browse around several websites before buying a product or making an enquiry about a service. Depending on the product or service there may also be a lead time before they make their decision. Remarketing specifically to people who have visited a page with a very specific Ad related to that page, can be a great way to convert them into a client.
4. Target people who looked at a specific page AND THEN looked at your customer testimonials page. Using the visitor segmentation section of the remarketing list creation, you could target people looking at your product / services page who then go on to look at your testimonial page. By looking at the testimonial page, this is sending a signal to you that they may be doing more than “just browsing”. Remarketing a specfic message to these visitors could get them to convert to a customer quicker.

There are many more ways to get very creative with your remarketing lists, and combining lists together can give you very specific targets. Using more advanced Google Analytics options such as User Defined Variables, you could also create campaigns around people who bought specific items and remarketing other items that relate to that product.

Please let us know if you have had success with your Google Remarketing campaigns as we love a good case study!