Retargeting in Acquire

Summary

Acquire builds audiences using advanced targeting techniques, so that only the most relevant, and likely to convert, users see your ads. This is done in order to maximize your marketing spend and make the most of your budget. One important type of targeting is called retargeting- targeting people who have already engaged with your dealership in the past. This type of targeting can be used in Social and Display Ads. 

What is Retargeting?

Retargeting is when an audience is built of users who have had some type of engagement with your brand in the past. Ads built for this type of audience can be even more specific and tailored, because of the extra data that Acquire has about each user. The ads are not built only based on targeting/ keywords that exist in the different platforms, but instead about the users' actions on your website or in your store. 

How Acquire Uses Retargeting

Acquire builds audiences and targeting on the Ad Bundle level. Inside of each Channel, there are several Objectives. Within an Objective, each Ad Bundle has its own targeting in order to determine which audiences will see the Templates contained within it. Each Objective, therefore, has specific Ad Bundles that utilize Retargeting in order to show relevant ads to the appropriate audiences. Remember that this is only relevant for Display and Social Ad Bundles. 

How to View Retargeting Bundles and Templates

Inside of the Ads or Templates pages in Acquire, you can simply search the word "retargeting", and you will see only those Ad Bundles that use Retargeting. There are two different types of retargeting that Acquire uses: Website Retargeting and CRM Retargeting.

Website Retargeting

Acquire website retargeting leverages the code snippet on the dealer website in order re-engage with shoppers who’ve left their websites before converting. Unlike banner ads, retargeting ads are served to people who’ve already stopped by your website.

Acquire retargeting ads anonymously follow your shoppers throughout their online journey to later target them with personalized offers. Acquire for Google serves these ads inside the Display Network and Acquire for Social serves them inside Facebook and Instagram in order to drive shoppers back to your website .

These ads are hyper-targeted, as Acquire knows even more about the person's interests and intent based on their previously observed website activity. It is important to note that the geo-targeting set on the account level is used for all campaigns which include retargeting bundles. Therefore, the limitations set for geo-targeting ads are also applied for retargeting website visitors and cannot, at this time, be separated.

How to Enable Website Retargeting

In order to enable Website Retargeting, you will need to make sure the AutoLeadStar's code snippet is inserted onto your website. This enables it for both Social and Display ads- no need to add any other pixels of any type. 

Examples of Ad Bundles Using Website Retargeting

Website retargeting is used to create Ad Bundles in both Social and Display Objectives. In new and used inventory, for example, it is common for Acquire to create Ad Bundles that target previous website visitors with ads relating to top incentives, aged inventory, and top models. In Social, website retargeting is also used to target customers interested in Service, Trade-In, and other brand-related services.  

CRM Retargeting

CRM retargeting leverages the first-party data stored in your Dealership CRM to serve more personalized remarketing content to your shoppers. Acquire leverages CRM retargeting to serve highly-targeted ads to CRM lists that have been segmented by online behavior, offline interactions with your Dealership, and other data that we've collected.

Acquire for Google serves these ads inside the Display Network and Acquire for Social serves them inside Facebook and Instagram in order to drive shoppers back to your website .

How to Enable CRM Retargeting

To enable CRM Retargeting, you must connect your CRM in your AutoLeadStar dashboard by using CRM Link. This will give Acquire access to your leads and sales from which the system creates the audience lists. 

Examples of Ad Bundles Using CRM Retargeting

When enabled, Acquire will create Ad Bundles using CRM retargeting. Some examples include:

• Leads Interested in Model: Using the vehicle of interest listed in the CRM, leads interested in a specific model will see ads promoting that models and its incentives
• Lease and Finance Renewal: Using information about a customer's lease or finance deal, Acquire will target them with ads when they are predicted to be in the market for a new vehicle. 
• Leads interested in Used: Knowing that a lead is interested in purchasing a used vehicle, Acquire will ensure that they see ads relating to your used inventory and deals. 
• Service: Service leads will be targeted with ads relating to the type of service they were interested in. 
• Trade-In: Using trade-in information listed with your leads, Acquire will target relevant shoppers with ads relating to trade-in. 
  
  

Examples of CRM Retargeting by Objective (with Display and Social)

These lists are comprised of people who match the criteria inside the CRM anywhere from 30 days to 1 year from the current date. The reason why we have this broad timespan is because oftentimes the CRM lists are too small for Google or Facebook to actually use them. We want to make sure our lists are utilized across the platform so we pull list that are are broad as possible while still specific enough to target unsold leads with relevant ads. 

Lookalike Audiences

In addition to creating audiences of your leads and sales, Acquire can also use CRM retargeting to create audiences that include users similar to your shoppers. This means that the different channels (Google, Facebook, etc.) will use data to create audiences that have similar characteristics to your customers. This expands your ability to target relevant audiences, using your data to more effectively identify those who have not yet converted. This is especially used in creating Ad Bundles in the Brand Objective. 

Understanding Retargeting Bundles

Because of the unique nature of Retargeting ads, they work somewhat differently than other Ad Bundles in Acquire. 

Delay in Impressions- Because Retargeting Bundles use data taken from your website or CRM, it can take some time to actually build the Audience and run the ads. This may result in a delay in metrics, so do not be surprised if the Bundle is enabled but you do not see Impressions as quickly as you usually do in Acquire. 

Audience too Small- It is possible that a certain audience is too small to be used. Each platform has privacy restrictions which prevent accounts from targeting lists of users that are too small. Therefore, it is possible that Retargeting Bundles will be enabled but will not actually run. These will be identifiable by the fact that even after some time, there are still no impressions and no budget spent on it. The larger your dealership, the more Bundles will be permitted to run, based on the size of your lists.