Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Behavioral Remarketing

Behavior remarketing takes the practice to its most sophisticated — and potentially creepy — heights. Now you target your ads based on visitors' behaviors on your site. For example, what if you could identify everyone who visited your site, shopped, selected a product and added it to their cart, and then left without buying. You could remarket to them using a coupon code as an added incentive to return and complete the purchase. Your visitor might see your ad on their favorite blog and think, “Hey, what a nice coincidence! I almost bought something from them. Lemme grab this coupon code and complete the purchase.”

On the other hand, suppose your ad said something like, “Hey, you forgot to check out. Come back and I'll give you 15% off.” Now that feels like digital stalking, and is likely to give your prospect what we online marketing professionals refer to as the “heebie-jeebies.”

Yes, remarketing is a bit sneaky, and no, most people have no clue that it's happening to them. The marketing they experience changes based on things they've done that they're not aware anybody else knows about. So you have to be very sensitive in your remarketing ad copy not to spook your prospects into thinking that you're somehow spying on them. (You're not; Google is.)

Setting up behavioral remarketing

Behavioral remarketing requires creating multiple audiences and then combining them to create the rule you want. In the case of cart abandoners, you need the following audiences: ...