Facebook Ads RETARGETING - 7 Best Practices

0:00Hi guys, it's Ben Heath from LeadGuru and in this video I'm going to talk about Facebook ads retargeting and specifically I'm going to give you seven best practices, seven things you want to do or not do when it comes to retargeting on Facebook ads, which is obviously a very important component of Facebook advertising and if you are retargeting, which basically everyone advertising on Facebook should be, I think these seven best practices are going to help improve your results. Now, before I get into that, I just want to very quickly ask you to smash that like button and of course subscribe to my YouTube channel if you are new and

0:30haven't done so already. Okay, so I'm going to use an example Facebook ad account and demonstrate a couple of these. I've also got some notes alongside me to make sure I get these seven points right. So, so let's get into it. So, the very first best practice when it comes to retargeting ads on Facebook is to use the conversions objective. Well, conversions objective for the vast majority of people. You could also use catalog sales if you're doing dynamic retargeting,

0:53that's absolutely fine. I'm going to have separate videos about that, but the majority of people want to be using the conversions objective or catalog sales as opposed to things like traffic, reach, etc. Now, I get this question semi-regularly where people will say, "But hang on, with retargeting you're only advertising to warm audiences. Why don't you just use reach because that's going to reduce your cost, you know, per thousand people reached? Surely that's going to result in in improved performance." And I completely understand the theory there, completely understand the logic, but it just doesn't happen in reality. If you run a retargeting campaign with a reach objective alongside a retargeting

1:29campaign with a conversions objective, the conversions campaign is going to win. We've tested this a bunch of times. And I think it's because within a conversions campaign, the structure of conversions campaign, there is so much going on sort of behind the scenes that Facebook is doing to try and get you what you want, which is conversions. With a reach campaign, obviously the setup is completely different. Facebook is just trying to get you as many eyeballs as possible. Um there are things so obviously with a conversions campaign, Facebook's trying to put your ads in front of the best people possible. And you might be thinking, "Well, with retargeting, that doesn't

2:02apply." But it does, right? If you've got a retargeting audience of 10,000 people, the person that visited your website yesterday is a much better prospect than someone that watched a video of yours on Facebook, you know, 4 weeks ago. Facebook knows that. Facebook also knows or or or at least can work out, as you run your campaign, the best placement options to use, the best um time of day to advertise, all those sort of stuff

2:24that help you get the best conversions. So, with retargeting, unless you're running an omnipresence content campaign, which I talk about in separate videos, I'll include a link um in the in the video description. That's the one that talks about all about long-term strategy, which is a different campaign structure than what the majority of Facebook advertisers is going to use. Unless you're running that, you want to be running conversions or catalog sales when it comes to um your retargeting campaigns or different retargeting structures I'm going to get to later. And you can see it I've got that in front of me right now with this retargeting campaign. You

2:52can see we've got the the conversions objective selected. So, that's best practice number one, conversions or catalog sales. Number two, in most industries, you don't want to use what I would refer to as creepy retargeting copy. So, you don't want ads that have headlines, copy, or even, you know, text in images that has things like, "You

3:12didn't complete your checkout process. Come ahead and purchase." or "I saw you signed up for my webinar, but you didn't actually go ahead and watch it." In general, people don't like that. And we know that in 2021 and going forward, we are going to see more and more crackdowns on privacy and retargeting in

3:30general and things along those lines. So, I think as that increases, as sentiment sort of shifts more and more to anti- adverti- anti-advertisers' ability and platforms' ability to sort of track what you do and and retarget super specifically, you don't want to bring attention to that highlight it in your ad copy. Now, obviously, if someone added to cart, right, and then they were about to purchase but didn't, and then you retarget them either dynamically or not with that same product, um that's absolutely fine. But just don't highlight it in your copy saying, "You almost bought this, come and buy it again." Just advertise it to them again,

4:05use your regular sales copy, it should be absolutely fine. That's more likely to get you the best results. We've tested this a few times, and just sort of regular sales copy, what you're often doing for your cold audiences in terms of ad copy can work better than sort of what can be creepy retargeting copy. There are a few exceptions, and so where the prospects in your industry are very familiar with retargeting practices, so like if I'm advertising as a Facebook advertiser, my people know that these

4:29things happen. Um if you're a tech-based business, your audience almost certainly knows that these things happen, they don't have an issue with it, so you're probably fine in those sorts of spaces, but otherwise, stay clear of what can be creepy retargeting ad copy when you're uh retargeting on Facebook. Okay, number three, when it comes to retargeting, ad fatigue is a much bigger issue than than cold audiences. Because your audiences are smaller, I mean, you might have larger warm audiences than you do cold audiences, but it's very, very unlikely, you'd have to be a an enormous brand. Because your warm audiences are often much, much smaller than your cold audiences,

5:04obviously your ads are put in front of the same people many more times, and you can run into ad fatigue issues. So it's always a good idea to be refreshing ad creative, changing up offers and things like that more often with retargeting campaigns, retargeting ad sets than it is with cold audience campaigns, okay? What that number is in terms of frequency that triggers ad fatigue really depends on your audiences, how warm the people actually are. I've seen retargeting campaigns run up into the 30s of frequency with no issues, I've seen them start to struggle around a five, six frequency, okay? So it can it can vary a lot. What I would say is,

5:38keep an eye on a drop in performance. When you see that, it's a very good chance ad fatigue is the issue, and that's when you know you need new ads, new offers, and things like that. Okay, I've got another video about ad fatigue and how to combat it. So, if you think you're having that issue, go ahead and

5:52check out the video description. There'll be a link to that video um in there. Okay. Facebook ads retargeting best practice number four is you might want to tailor your imagery to things that will speak to your specific audience. And you can do the same with ad copy as well. But imagery I think is the most striking part because that's where you're going to grab people's attention. So, this is a very separate point to the the sort of retargeting ad copy. I'm not saying things like put in your images or in your copy you've visited before, but what will they recognize and mean something to them that perhaps you couldn't use

6:30advertising to cold audiences. So, a perfect example would be if you've got any sort of personal brand or figurehead attached to your business, including a picture of them in your imagery, in your videos, in your images, will speak to your warm audiences and might give you really good results in those retargeting campaigns, whereas you couldn't do it with cold audiences. So, if I gave my example, you know, I've got a pretty large audience in the Facebook advertising space. If I run a Facebook ad campaign, I can include images of me and in the image or in the video, whatever, that's going to grab my audience's attention because they're

7:02used to watching my YouTube videos, being part of my Facebook group, and seeing me do videos there, all that sort of stuff. I couldn't do that really with cold audiences. It just wouldn't be anywhere near as effective. People that don't know me, image of me not interesting to anyone, who cares, right? But it's going to have extra

7:18impact to people that do know my face. And there are all sorts of examples of that. So, you could have, you know, if if you're at a local business and people would recognize your location, you know, you're perhaps you're on the high street, or they might not know the name of the butcher's they might not know the name of the business, it could be a butcher's, they might not know the name of the business, but perhaps they'll recognize the building. Oh, yeah, I know that I didn't know the name of that restaurant, but now you've put a photo of it in front of me, I know where that

7:40is. That's just off this street and the the the the the the that sort of thing. Okay? So, what might your warm audience really resonate with? What might grab their attention much more so than cold audiences. Okay? Try and include some of that in your imagery or your videos can help improve performance. Right. Facebook ads retargeting best practice number five is in general, you want to make your retargeting audiences as large as possible. Don't artificially constrain them. So, a classic example is people will will often just retarget

8:10people who have added to cart. Okay? I would prefer and you can get more sophisticated with retargeting and break it down to the various layers, but I would prefer that if you just have one retargeting audience and and you would go with all website visitors as opposed to just add to cart. So, you're going to see better results. We've already talked about the fact that smaller audiences leads to ad fatigue issues. So, where possible you want larger audiences. But, also when you're just retargeting add to cart, I don't think you're giving Facebook as much credit as it deserves. Facebook, unless you give them all website visitors,

8:42Facebook knows who just added to cart. They know who visited yesterday. They know who initiated checkout. They know who spent half an hour on your website versus who spent 12 seconds on your website. Um Facebook is not going to miss out on those people that have added to cart. But, by including all website visitors, you give Facebook many more people with which to advertise to, with which to work out who's going to get you best performance. So, I don't like artificial

9:06constraints on retargeting audiences. So, I don't like going with um you know, people who visited the website in the last 7 days. I like to open it right up to 180 days. Make those retargeting audiences as big as you possibly can whilst obviously still keeping to the core of who you think is going to be a good prospect

9:25um and just giving Facebook more leeway. I think is is a much better way to go. And that brings me into into point number six um is that whilst you want your audiences to be as large as possible, that are better retargeting audiences than others, ones that give you better results. So, typically, I would like to focus on off-Facebook retargeting audiences as opposed to on-Facebook retargeting audiences. So, what does that mean? You're likely to see better results with previous customers um or website visitors, um your email list. So, you know, people that have taken actions off of Facebook to get onto those lists or get into those audiences, like visited your

10:03website, like subscribed to your email list, like bought from you previously. As opposed to the on-Facebook uh retargeting audiences, things like video viewers, um people who have interacted with your Facebook page, stuff like that, okay? Um those audiences tend not to be as effective because it's just very easy for someone to just sit there and watch 20 seconds of your video. It doesn't mean they're that warmed up, you know? They could um whereas if they come through to your website or particularly if they buy or

10:32subscribe, that's a much larger action. They've shown much, much more intent there. And I think those are the people that you particularly want to to retarget and make sure you don't miss out on. So, in general, if I was sort of, you know, and obviously we tweak it for various businesses and circumstances, but if I was to take the most common scenario when it comes to retargeting, I'm going to have one retargeting ad set and that's going to include previous customers, website visitors 180 days, and my email list. Okay? That's what the

11:03three that are going to be in there. It's going to be as big as possible, but narrow down to the off-Facebook custom audiences, off-Facebook retargeting audiences. Okay? That's point number six. And then finally, um number seven, I kind of alluded to it just then, is that in an ideal scenario, most of the time, I'm not going to have a separate retargeting campaign, okay? Instead, I'm going to have, let's say, my main CBO campaign, my main campaign budget optimization campaign. Within that, I'm going to include a retargeting ad set as opposed to a retargeting campaign separately. And you can see in this sort of example, retargeting campaign we've

11:39got CBO turned on down here. Why am I going to do that? I think it's very easy, and I've seen this mistake so many times, it's very easy to overspend on retargeting. Remember, the audiences are really small. You probably can't spend a large percentage of your budget on your warm audiences just because you're going to

11:58burn them out really quickly. Now, if you include a retargeting ad set, so one ad set that's got all website visitors, email list, previous customers in in amongst your main CBO campaign with your other cold audience ad sets, what you're basically doing is you're handing the decision of how much do I spend on retargeting over to Facebook. And what Facebook will do is they will spend money on your retargeting cam- uh on your retargeting ad set according to performance. And also according to its size cuz of course you might set up a a retargeting campaign with 10,000 people in your warm audiences today. In 3 months time you might have 40,000 people

12:35in there and you need to be adjusting the budget along the way. That's really hard to do and to work out to get right. But if you just include it in a CBO campaign, Facebook will update and adjust that automatically. So they'll start with the 10,000. As you put more people into that warm audience, they'll spend more and more as um import performance increases. Perhaps, you know, you've got a new offer, Facebook will put more into your retargeting ad set because the new offer's doing really well with your warm audience. Once that starts to fatigue, they'll pull more money out of your retargeting ad set, put it more into the cold audience ad

13:05sets. That budget fluctuation and movement automatically by Facebook is definitely something you want to take advantage of. So for the most part, we're going to be including a retargeting ad set in our CBO campaign as opposed to a separate retargeting campaign. Now, there are exceptions. I've already mentioned omnipresence content campaigns. I said there'll be a link in the video description talking all about that. That strategy, which is

13:28very much a long-term strategy, that is. Um so, by all means, you can um could check that out for something that's that's different to what most Facebook advertisers are doing. But, for the vast majority of Facebook advertisers, and what you're going to be doing on a retargeting standpoint, I like the ad set within a CBO campaign as opposed to a separate campaign. Right, quick recap through those seven Facebook ads retargeting best practices. Number one, use the conversions or catalog sales objective, not reach, traffic, and things like that. Number two, don't use creepy retargeting ad copy. People don't like the idea they're being followed everything they do online. Number three,

14:04ad fatigue is much more of an issue. Uh new ads, new offers more frequently with retargeting. Number four, is there imagery that will speak to your warm audience that wouldn't speak to cold audiences? Perhaps a picture of uh a figurehead in your business or a specific location, something like that. Number five, make retargeting audiences

14:24as large as possible where possible. Number six, off-Facebook retargeting audience will produce better results than on-Facebook retargeting audiences. And number seven, including a retargeting ad set in a CBO campaign as opposed to having a separate retargeting campaign usually delivers the best results. Okay, hopefully that's been useful. Couple of free things I want to

14:44quickly mention before uh before we go. The first is a free webinar I've created called three killer Facebook ad strategies to double or more your revenue. Now, in this webinar, I break down three different strategies, three different sales funnels that we've created and that we use for our clients all the time. They're very much tried

15:01and tested to deliver fantastic results. And I break down each one of these sales funnels into their component parts. And I also explain which one or which two of the three you want to use depending on which business you have, right? You need a different sales funnel to advertise the dollar products as opposed to $10,000 services or an online business versus an in-store business versus an e-commerce business versus a an app business. There's all sorts of different things you need to do depending on on your business. So, I strongly strongly recommend you go through that webinar. It's completely free. Link is in the video description

15:32below. I think one of the biggest mistakes I see Facebook advertisers make is using the wrong strategy for their products and services. And if you do that, doesn't matter what you do, nothing's going to work. Doesn't matter how good your ads are, how good your you need the right strategy, right? So, go ahead and watch that completely free. Other um thing I want to quickly mention

15:50is our Facebook advertising services. So, my company Lead Guru is a Facebook ads agency. We create, manage, and optimize Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns for our clients. We have a minimum budget requirement to work with uh clients, which is 3K per month. Provided you meet that criteria, we'd love to talk to you. You can book a free call with one of my team members. Again,

16:08link is in the video description. That'll go through to a page on our website. You can literally just book a slot directly into their calendar. Probably in the next few days. Um and it's very informal, you know, no obligation of course. You can just find out about our service. We can let you know uh we can find out about your business, let you know if we think we can get great results for you. We may have worked with a a business like yours

16:26in the past. Um and yeah, just a 30-minute call to to find out more, really. So, if that sounds like something you want to do, go ahead and book that call. Completely free to do so, as I said. You do need to meet that 3K per month budget criteria. Um otherwise, we'd uh we'd love to speak with you and hopefully we'll work with you in the future. Okay, if this video's been useful, please comment below to let me know. Comment below if you've got any questions. I get as many comments as I can. Subscribe to my channel if you are new and haven't done so already. And of

16:50course, smash that like button. That would be much appreciated. Best of luck with your Facebook ad campaigns, guys. Go ahead and uh get your retargeting campaigns or retargeting ad sets going, and uh hopefully you see a nice improvement in performance. Thanks for now. Bye-bye.