home Success stories How to set up remarketing in Google Ads - a complete guide for beginners. Setting up remarketing in Google Adwords Setting up remarketing in adwords for competitors

How to set up remarketing in Google Ads - a complete guide for beginners. Setting up remarketing in Google Adwords Setting up remarketing in adwords for competitors

How to return a visitor to the site who did not complete the target action? Launch remarketing on the Google Display Network: attractive banners will remind users of the product, and you will be able to direct your advertising budget to a “hot” audience. In this article, I will describe the setup step by step. remarketing in Google Ads.

1. Add a remarketing code to your website

To collect lists of users who visited the site, you can:

set the Google Ads remarketing tag;
use modified code Google Analytics.

1.1. How do I add a Google Ads remarketing tag?

1.1.1. Open Google Ads and navigate to the Shared Library - Audiences tab.

In the "Site visitors" subsection, click on the "Set up remarketing" link.

1.1.2. In the window that opens, click on the "Set up remarketing" button. You will need a checkmark next to the "Use dynamic ads" field only when setting up dynamic remarketing, to create a regular remarketing campaign, leave the field blank.

1.1.3. A pop-up window will appear asking you to install the Google Ads remarketing tag. You can immediately send the code and instructions for it to programmers - just enter email recipient.

To copy the remarketing code, click the View Google Ads for Website tag link.

This code must be inserted on all pages of the site between the tags .

Choosing to set up remarketing with Google Analytics gives you several benefits:

more flexible audience settings are available - you can take into account the behavior of users on the site and the goals they have achieved;
you can quickly create remarketing audiences using scripts and ready-made templates from the Solutions Gallery.

1.2.1. Go to Google Analytics and click on the gear to open the Admin panel. In the resource settings, go to the sub-item "Tracking code" - "Data collection".

1.2.2. In the remarketing settings, move the slider to the “On” position. and save your changes.

1.2.3. If Google Analytics is installed using Google Tag Manager, it is enough to activate data collection in your account settings. If the analytics code is installed directly on the site, after activating remarketing, the Analytics tag must be replaced.

In the resource settings, go to the "Tracking code" item and copy the script highlighted in the screenshot.

Paste this code on all pages of the site before the closing tag.

Users do not make a purchase when they first encounter the site. There are many reasons - from the banal "I'm just looking", to problems with the Internet connection, a complicated ordering process, a distracted phone call. The likelihood that a person will visit the site again is extremely small.

In order not to miss potential customers and, accordingly, profit, you need to set up remarketing in Google AdWords. Thanks to this feature, you will "catch up" with your site visitors with advertisements. The more often potential or existing customers see your banners, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Many website owners believe that remarketing and retargeting are two names for the same technology. This statement is partly true: remarketing is a function of Google Ads, and retargeting - developed by Yandex.Direct. The difference between the two lies in the customization options and ad formats.

Types of remarketing

Google AdWords offers website owners five types of remarketing that are suitable for any business:

standard remarketing in the Display Network;
search remarketing;
dynamic remarketing;
targeting similar audiences;
customer match.

There are other ways to bring back customers, such as those who have watched video content or downloaded an app. In this material, we will not dwell on them - we will consider the main types.

Standard remarketing

This technology allows you to display advertising materials to site visitors who, for some reason, were not converted into an order or purchase. Internet marketers advise making the most of banners. Users perceive graphic content better, and CPA - in comparison with text ads - is lower. To prevent the audience from quickly developing banner blindness, you will have to make several pictures for ads and change them periodically. Setting limits on impressions will prevent a possible surge of negativity towards the brand due to the frequent flickering of promotional materials.

It is more expedient to place banners on those Display Network sites that give the maximum conversion at the minimum cost per click. It will be possible to determine them within a month from the moment the remarketing was launched.

Search remarketing

This technology will "catch up" with your potential buyers when they turn to search engine. Search remarketing is divided into two types - Bid Only and Target&Bid. In the first case, the advertiser adjusts bids for audiences, and in the second case, the advertiser shows promotional materials in the search only to those people who are included in the remarketing list.

Dynamic Remarketing

Ideal for e-commerce resources. If the site hosts a large number of goods or services, then they can be advertised to users who have ever visited the site but did not buy anything. At correct setting a potential buyer will see your ad with the product everywhere, which is likely to encourage him to make a purchase.

This type of remarketing is based on the principle of displaying advertising materials to people with similar behavior. Internet marketers believe that this method of returning customers should be used in combination with other technologies, for example, with search remarketing.

To get the most out of showing ads, you will also have to select a list of high-converting sites, or rather set up keyword targeting.

customer match

This technology allows you to "warm up" the customers who left you a contact email. It will be a great help for email marketing. By setting up the display advertisements using email addresses, you will be able to “catch up” with a potential buyer if:

your sales letter did not convert the lead into a sale;
the chain of letters did not work properly;
the person has unsubscribed from your mailing list;
you do not want to annoy the client with letters, giving him time to think (relevant in real estate).

It is necessary to exclude the addresses of active customers from the remarketing audience so as not to waste the budget and not cause negative people.

Remarketing can be set up in Google AdWords and Google Analytics. The first option involves working with code, the second - using the capabilities of the Google Analytics service. Let's consider both options in more detail.

To set up remarketing in Google AdWords, you need to log in to the service and find the "Shared Library" item in the left menu. After clicking on this item, "Audiences" will open, in which you need to click on the "Set up remarketing" link.

After clicking on the blue button "Set up remarketing" you will see instructions for setting up. To start collecting an audience for displaying advertisements, you need to place the code generated by the system on the site pages.

If you don't want to mess with the code, set up remarketing in Google Analytics. This option is much easier and faster.

Before setting up, you need Link your Google Analytics and Google AdWords accounts . When the accounts are linked, you can proceed to the settings.

Step 1:

Setting up an audience

In the administrative panel, find the "Resource" block, select "Audience Settings" and click on "Audiences".

For those who have not set up remarketing before, the service will automatically offer to create the first audience.

After you specify the source of the audience, you need to enable remarketing. When collecting the first audience, the settings are set by default - the data of all site visitors for the month will be taken into account. Later, you can adjust the settings that were originally set.

Now you need to define the accounts in which the audience will be published. Note that you can't change accounts after you've set up remarketing.

It remains only to click on the "Enable" button and create a targeted advertising campaign.

Decide why you will set up remarketing - to lead users who interacted with your site / application to a target action (order, application, purchase) or to do additional sales existing clients.

Think about how to divide the audience into segments. For example, visits to certain pages, time spent on the site. And what to offer each segment on the landing page, what value proposition.

Let's take a look at all types of remarketing that can be set up in the Google Ads interface.

Standard remarketing

On the way to conversion, the user put the product in the cart, visited the product page, but did not complete the target action. You show him ads on other sites through the GDN (Google Display Network) and mobile applications.

Example - the user visited the webinar page, but did not register, or something distracted him. After a while, Google reminds him of this graphically:

Attracting is not enough, it is important not to overdo it and not scare the audience. Don't let your ads "burn out". For this:

For the same ad group, upload multiple images with different designs and messages to alternate between them.

Limit the number of times an individual ad is shown. You should not show the user the same banner more than 5-7 times a day.

Reduce the number of impressions to one per day if you're new to Display Networks. So you will reduce inappropriate traffic.

Do some sites bring too expensive conversions or not at all? Minus them in the "Placements" report:

Turn off sites that do not work for your goals - and get more conversions for the same budget + this is prevention.

After removal inefficient venues you can increase the frequency of impressions.

These users are similar in behavior or other features to the target audience.

Learn how to set up Lookalike Audiences in the article:

But this type of targeting is not enough for one campaign. Combine with other attributes - online behavior, demographics, geography, etc. - to only count on those who are hooked by your offer.

Another option is to target by . Google will only show ads on pages that are related to your offer.

Search remarketing

Types of search remarketing

1) Bid Only - adjust bids for different audiences from the remarketing list.

Boost them for former customers who browse your inventory. A person is more willing to buy where he has a positive experience.

Reduce the rate for those who left the site many times without results. There may be competitors among them.

2) Target&Bid - show the ad only to the audience of the remarketing list.

However, keep the following in mind:

You should not take semantics from a regular search campaign. This reduces reach, clicks, and conversions. Use broad match keywords and high-frequency phrases. Keep your list of negative keywords to a minimum. Since you are limiting the audience for impressions, you don't have to worry about attracting low-quality traffic.
Key phrase in the title and text is not enough. Offer a discount or promotion for B2C, a case with a description of the benefits of the product for B2B.
Exclude search remarketing audiences from regular search campaigns to avoid competition between different ads.

Search ad remarketing lists are only available for Search Network Only - All Features and Search Network Only - Dynamic Search Ads campaigns.

Email Remarketing (Customer Match)

You show ads to customers when they go to Google search, Gmail, or YouTube.

This type of remarketing targets users who have not been on the site for a long time.

The Customer Match type is especially appropriate if the user:

Opened a letter with an offer, but did not buy anything;
Read the chain of letters, but it didn't work for him;
Doesn't open emails
Unsubscribed from the mailing list;
Takes a long time to make decisions (for large purchases).

You don't get bored potential client letters, but at the same time unobtrusively remind you of yourself.

Addresses of “accomplished” clients should be excluded from campaigns so as not to spend the budget on them.

Dynamic Remarketing

Suitable for companies with a wide range of goods or services (tourism, real estate, recruiting) and online stores. Automatic display ads catch up with the user after they have visited the product page.

To set up dynamic remarketing, create a base feed in CSV, TSV, XLS, or XLSX format. This is a list of all products with detailed information, for example:

The Google Ads system uses this data to calculate a more effective layout for a specific user, placement, and platform.

Download the feed: Shared Library / Commercial Data / Dynamic Display Ads Feed:

How to create a feed for Google, read.

An exception - upload the product feed of online stores to .

The next step is to add a tag with custom parameters (Shared Library / Audiences) to the site pages.

To work correctly, you need the dynx_itemid identifier. It shows users in dynamic ads the products they viewed on the site.

Here is an example of a Google remarketing tag with special parameter in Google Tag Manager:

Remarketing for mobile apps

The principle is simple: visitors to your mobile site or app see ads on other mobile sites and apps.

To do this, there are two types of remarketing lists (this is a list of mobile device identifiers).

List of all application users

All you need is to link your Google Ads and Google Play accounts. The Google Play account owner approves the link - and the remarketing lists appear in the Google shared library:

They are updated automatically every time someone installs or uninstalls the app.

List of active users of the application

How to create it - in the "How to set up remarketing" section.

Video Remarketing

Similar to Display Network and Search Network: create lists of users who have watched videos on your YouTube channel. And show ads to them in other sections of the video portal, on the CCM sites, in applications, etc.

You can customize impressions for one channel or for individual videos in it to reach a specific audience.

Let's say you're promoting an online training. You can target those users who have watched the speaker's message, but have not yet seen the video advertising the training, where you offer to register for it.

The number of lists is not limited. You can also copy default lists.

How to set up remarketing

Step 1: Link your Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts

To do this, open the "Audience Manager":

Tab - "Audience sources". Click the button next to Google Analytics.

Tick the desired account and click "Continue".

Enter a name for linking accounts and click "Link accounts":

Data in accounts appear automatically a day after setting up.

Step 2: Choose Data Sources for Remarketing Audiences

We do everything the same as we did when establishing a connection with Google Analytics. Let's say we're going to link YouTube.

After clicking, add a channel:

Specify which channel to add:

Then confirm the link also in the YouTube profile:

Select the channel you want to link:

In the window that opens, select the data type:

After saving, you get a code that you need to copy and paste into the site code before the closing tag. Or choose another way - send the code to the developer or use the Tag Manager for installation:

Step 3: Create Remarketing Audiences

Since their settings may not be tailored to your goals, it's best to set up audiences with the settings you want.

Google offers these types of audiences:

Site visitors

Application Users

Recall that for this option it was necessary to establish a connection with Google Play in the second step.

Fill in the list details. Then upload the Mobile ID CSV file to your Google Ads account. Format - CSV. File size - no more than 100 MB. Each line contains only one identifier.

Download and save the list. It takes up to 3 hours - it can be tracked in the "Audiences" section. Add a list of mobile app users to the campaign.

Update your mobile device ID lists at least once a week to keep them current.

List of clients

Download the contacts file in CSV format:

Set the expiration date for the remarketing list. The system recommends 30 days, maximum - 540 days.

YouTube users

To do this, you need to establish a connection with YouTube.

All by analogy. Choose list type based on user activity, channel, membership period, etc.

Step 6. Set up a Google Ads remarketing campaign

Campaign-level settings are the same as regular display campaigns: set your budget, bidding strategy, language and location targeting.

Create an ad group and add remarketing list targeting.

The whole algorithm is described in the article.

You can exclude irrelevant audiences, such as users who spent less than 10 seconds on the site. To do this, find the "Audiences" menu, go to the "Exclusions" tab and exclude an audience at the level of a specific campaign or ad group.

Alternate setting option

If you prefer to use Google Analytics, you can set up remarketing in it. By the way, if you use both the remarketing tag and the modified Google Analytics code at the same time, you can create audiences in both systems.

Remarketing in Google Analytics allows you to:

Take into account the behavior and goals of site visitors;
Quickly build audiences with scripts and ready-made Solution Gallery templates.

Open the Admin panel in Google Analytics. From the Tracking Code menu, select Data Collection:

In your remarketing settings, enable data collection and save your changes.

If you installed Google Analytics using , enable data collection in your account settings. If directly on the site, after activating remarketing, replace the GA tag.

Go to "Tracking Code" and copy the script:

Paste it on all pages of the site before the closing tag.

To create remarketing lists in Google Analytics, you can use the data:

Visit pages;
conversions;
Demography;
Devices from which users accessed the site;
Behavior on the site;
Date of the first session;
traffic sources.

For example, we set up a list based on the user's goal.

Panel "Administrator". From the Resource menu, select Audiences.

Add a new audience:

Select the Google Analytics view from which to pull audience data. Next, select which Google account to grant access to this data.

You can select the desired condition in the "Audience Editor":

In the window that opens, enter the retention period for data about audience members. Here you can see the predicted reach.

How to create remarketing audiences in Solution Gallery

With the Gallery template, you can quickly create 20 remarketing lists at once.

To import pre-made templates:

Select the appropriate template from the list;
On the Audiences page, click the Import from Gallery button.

When importing a template, select the Google Analytics view in which you are creating your remarketing lists. Tick matching lists. Specify in which Google Ads account to create them:

So you have two ways to set up Google Remarketing to choose from. Or you can use both at once.

Now - chips on using Google remarketing.

Explore the Time to Conversion report

A tool for planning a remarketing strategy by audience and for evaluating effectiveness. Before launching remarketing, estimate the time between the first click and the conversion. This will show you how long you need to be on a specific remarketing list to “catch people” and get back to your site faster.

Look for the report in your Google Ads account: Tools / Attribution in the search network / Paths / Time to conversion:

He analyzes different types conversions separately.

You can change the "History Window" for a different level of detail. Visit this tab a couple of months after launching remarketing and see if you can speed up the conversion process.

Eliminate RLSA Listings

Usually, the idea of not targeting users who have already taken certain steps towards conversion is intimidating. However, this is an opportunity to focus on new visitors.

When registering, the user reaches a certain page. If you create a remarketing list based on this attribute and exclude it from impressions, you will not pay for clicks from users who are already familiar with the site. They can visit it through ads if they don’t remember the address, and this is additional unjustified expenses for you.

Create Remarketing Lists with Referral and Email URLs

When creating a remarketing list, you can select the "Referral URL" option to create a list of users who have redirected from other resources: VK, Facebook, Avito, etc.

Use this to track your conversion path and show users relevant ads.

Or track conversions to a specific mailing list and make remarketing lists based on them.

Test smart lists

Smart Lists are a type of remarketing list that Google Analytics creates based on your conversion data. The service calculates how likely a particular user is to convert on a repeat visit.

How does this happen? Google analyzes locations, devices, browsers, referrer URLs and other data daily and chooses whose characteristics match those of users who made a purchase / order.

This increases conversions and eliminates the need to review audiences on your own.

Consider sharing audiences with other companies

This is done, for example, Insurance companies and tour operators. Consent to share remarketing lists between Google Ads accounts is an additional strategic opportunity. Google sends both parties forms to fill out and sign.

Remember to edit your privacy policy when you do this so that users know exactly where you use their information.

Manage prices effectively

Google Ads calculates the best bid for each impression based on online user data if you choose an automatic bidding strategy. Shared Library / Batch Bid Strategies:

This allows you to win ad auctions with favorable prices. Access to auctions is free.

Automatic update of application user lists

Add event tags to provide information about user actions to Google Ads. This allows you to create lists with automatic updates. For example, users who opened the app in the last 7 days started an action, and so on.

1) From the Tools / Conversions menu, select the in-app events you want to track as conversions.

2) Make sure Google is showing ads to the target audience.

Method 1: Set up a server-to-server feed in the analytics tool mobile applications or tracking package.

Method 2: Add new conversion tracking and remarketing tags to your app.

Available remarketing lists depending on the selected tagging method:

3) Check the functionality of the tags.

You can check that tags have been added correctly using the tag checker tool in the Shared Library section. This tool shows which apps are sending remarketing data to Google Ads and the data they are sending.

Finding a tag checking tool is very simple:

General Library / Audience Manager;
Audience Sources tab;
Click "Details" to see what data the tag collects;
If it's not in the tool or the remarketing lists don't contain users, then the tag doesn't work and you won't be able to create a campaign. Follow the steps in step 2.

High conversions for you!

Setting up Google remarketing takes a few minutes. This can be done in two ways - we will analyze the simplest of them. Sit back, I will quickly tell you how in 7 minutes you will create your first audience in Google Adwords and set up ads for it.

Remarketing or Retargeting?

Yes, they are synonyms. It’s just that retargeting is used in the terminology of Yandex Metrica, and remarketing is used in Google. Therefore, these concepts are one and the same. But since we refer this article to the Google Adwords section, we will speak His language 🙂

2 Ways to Set Up Google Remarketing

Hereinafter, I will assume that you, dear reader, already have a Google Adwords account. Because otherwise you would not have wondered how to set up remarketing - after all, this is the next step in working with contextual advertising.

So, there are two options for setting up remarketing.

Using the Google Adwords tag

To do this, go to "Shared Library" (menu on the left), the "Audiences" tab and click "Set up remarketing".

Then click on the blue button "Set up remarketing" and you will see instructions for setting up. The system will offer to copy the remarketing code to all pages of the site so that it becomes possible to collect an audience.

To be honest, I have never tried setting up remarketing using the Adwords tag. Why, if it can be done using Google Analytics without installing additional code on the site 🙂

Remarketing with Google Analytics

The easiest option, because it involves setting up remarketing in the process of setting up the Analytics counter. Of course, in this option, everything starts with installing a counter on the site.

Then, in the counter settings at the Resource level, we link the Analytics and Adwords accounts. If the Analytics account is created in the same Google account on which you work with Adwords, then the setup is done in just a couple of clicks. If Analytix is on a different account, then you will have to give access to the counter. I am sure that you have everything in one account, so I will not dwell on this point.

Go to "Resource Settings" - "Connection with AdWords". Further - elementary, the beginner will understand. If you still have problems at this stage - see