Perhaps though, it isn’t quite as simple as it initially seems. Of those users who have previously visited your site, some are much more valuable to you than others. That’s where audience segmentation & creation becomes invaluable. Some of those site visitors might be part of an age or gender demographic that are more likely to convert, live in a geographical area which has a higher conversion rate, have spent longer interacting with your site or displayed certain behaviour visiting particular pages of the site. The name of the game is testing different messaging to these different segments and retargeting them with engaging, relevant ads to entice these people back.
With this in mind, here are just a few examples of great Google Analytics Audiences every search marketer should have in their arsenal.
1. Past converters
This is perhaps one of the most important retargeting lists to create because allows you target customers who have already converted through the website and have connected with the brand. You can set the lookback period of the audience – in the example screenshot we have created one list for converters in the last 30 days and another for converters in the last 90 days. This list can be used as part of a GDN display campaign looking to re-engage users with ads on the Google Display Network (GDN), perhaps drawing attention to a new product range. As well as this, one can apply the audience to search campaigns (retargeting lists for search ads – RLSAs) with a bid modifier to bid more aggressively for these past converters should they trigger a PPC ad with a relevant query.
2. Users who have spent more than X seconds on site
Users who have spent more time on your site are more likely to convert than users that have spent just a couple of seconds before bouncing, and are therefore more valuable to you. These users are certainly worth segmenting with GA audience.
For one of our clients we created a list of non-converters whose session duration exceeded 172 seconds. This was based on GA insight indicating that average session duration for the client’s site was 2 minutes 52 seconds, and thus any user who exceeded this time has shown a more qualified interest in the products on site than say someone who has spent 10 seconds and bounced. Perhaps a special offer in the ads can entice these engaged non-converting users?
3. Users from geographical areas with high conversion rates
In the Audience-Location section of GA, you can toggle City as the primary dimension to see which national or international cities have the highest volume of conversions and highest conversion rates on your website. With this information at your disposal you can go about creating an audience targeting non-converters in these cities. For one client of ours we noticed Southampton, Cardiff and Bristol had significantly higher conversion rates than other UK cities so we created audience lists targeting users in these cities from the demographics section of GA audience builder. These lists were then applied to specific individual city non-converters ad groups in our remarketing campaign with tailored ad copy relevant to that city. Engagement rates with ads were noticeably stronger for these audiences than our more generic audiences.
4. Users who fit into a valuable demographic
Google Analytics can also show you which age ranges and genders are most profitable for you with high conversion rates by going to Audiences-Demographics. It’s definitely worth creating one or more audiences based around these valuable demographics and applying that list to your retargeting campaign. Make sure to exclude past converters from these audiences and perhaps even qualify the audience more by combining the demographic targeting with time on site, low bounce rate or pages visited to ensure the audience is really honing in on the right users. Again, demographic audiences might be worth testing as an RLSA – for example, female users 18-24 drive a lion’s share of transactions on your website, therefore you may want to bid +35% more when this audience triggers a PPC ad, as you know that cost per sale is lowest and conversion rate is highest.
5. Users who have visited specific site pages
These lists allow you to create more relevant messaging at users depending on what pages of your site they have visited. Here are a few possible audiences:
- Users who looked at a specific product page could be targeted with ads giving them more information about the product and possibly shouting about free delivery or customer testimonials which could entice the user to convert
- Users further down the purchase funnel and have abandoned their shopping cart could be targeted with reminder messages or offers that might convince them to return and complete the purchase
- Users who have looked at a category page could be targeted with a reminder of what brands or specific products you stock within that category
With all of these specific page audiences, they can be as granular as you like, but should be informed by GA data, perhaps prioritising most visited pages.
Conclusion
These are just a few examples of GA audience lists which you can create and leverage – and of course a combination of the above segments can be tested, along with different lookback windows. Our suggestions are by no means exhaustive. This list should help ensure your remarketing campaign gets off to a good start, and it’s just a case of testing and optimising as you go. Ad copy and creative is always worth testing to see what resonates best with different audiences. If you have had any experience with revolutionary (or even just useful) GA audience lists that we haven’t explored in this blog please comment below and let us know what remarkable remarketing results your lists have driven.
Will Kynaston, Biddable Account ExecutiveIf you need help managing your paid search campaigns, give us a call on 0203 597 1400 to chat to one of the team or get in touch here
