In past articles we have talked about remarketing, but because we are continually evolving and learning from data that comes through our security dealers nationwide, from time to time we like to revisit one of our past articles or give advanced insight into how to use some marketing techniques like a pro.

If you’re not familiar with remarketing, think of the last time you looked for a golf club, a car part or a gift for your wife, and that product seemed to follow you around everywhere: Facebook, in your emails, on particular websites, even on your phone. Well, that’s remarketing, and you can do it with Google and Facebook (and others, but we find these two work the best within the security industry). It can all be done by inserting a little piece of code onto your website, and once a Web user lands on your site or a particular page, ads you created follow them around. But, as we have been learning, lots of security dealers are using this marketing tool incorrectly, and herewith are some insights into how to improve your remarketing efforts.

When we complete marketing audits for our customers, we find that when they use remarketing as a channel they are simply taking the remarketing code, putting it onto the website and creating multiple ads with the company logo and a click button to revisit the website. And although this is a great start and it will keep your company top of mind when someone is in the “research mode,” it doesn’t really give any reason for someone to revisit your website after they’ve visited it already.

So here’s how we handle our remarketing accounts for our clients.

First, on a piece of paper from left to right draw a circle for each type of marketing channel you are using to advertise your company — i.e., Facebook, Pay Per Click, Direct Mail, etc. Now, under each circle write down the marketing offer you are offering under each channel — i.e., $99.00 install, free install, every door/window secured for $300, etc.

Now underneath each of the channels and offers draw rectangles for each page you are sending your marketing ads to and write the name of the page that you are directing each offer to.

If you’re taking all of your traffic to your homepage, don’t! Your bounce-rate will be relatively high because you’re making your visitors work for what they are looking for. People are lazy; they want it now and they want it easy. If you advertised a free system and install, create a landing page that talks about that offer.

Great, so now you have a visual reference that will help you understand how many new landing pages you should have and what the remarketing ads should be reiterating. If you are offering a free home security camera in Facebook and are taking them to a landing page with that offer, your ads that follow them around should be doing exactly the same. Also you should be creating general ads for all your website’s pages depending on if they are residential, commercial or service oriented. Nobody wants to see a basic home security system follow them around when they visited your website for a DVR system — don’t be lazy. Create the specific ads, and you’ll see the fruits of your labor — we promise.

So it’s important to create relative landing pages according to your marketing message and offerings, but let’s take it a step further.

Make a duplicate of all those pages that you wrote down in the rectangles. Now we’re going to sweeten the deal and create the urgency for your Web visitors. Make sure to add a “do not follow” tag so your site doesn’t get penalized from Google for multiple content. And on these duplicate pages sweeten up your offer. If you’re offering a $99 system with install, offer a limited time offer of a $49.99 system with install and create your remarketing ads to reflect this on each page you decide to duplicate. We find that sweetening your ads that follow Web visitors around will entice them enough to revisit your company’s site and seal the deal — cha-ching!

Some quick tips: Colors like red and bright green in your background work best. Also, give your ads bright borders in the same colors as mentioned above. Ads that use white will blend in to the background of most sites because the background is white. Stand out; be different, just like that big, fat, juicy purple cow!