With the phase-out of third-party cookies and Apple’s announcement of their iOS 15 update, some marketers are lamenting the end of retargeting, but this is far from true. According to Moz, the conversion rate for email retargeting can be as high as 41%, while the average eCommerce conversion rate is between 2% and 4%. Email retargeting isn’t over because we’re (slowly) saying goodbye to cookies or email pixels; there are still plenty of ways that you can use email to retarget customers and generate leads.
What is email retargeting?
Email retargeting is a direct way to reintroduce your business or products to email subscribers that have shown interest in the past. They may have signed up for your newsletter, downloaded your website content, or added items to their cart, but didn’t take any further action. They may have made a previous purchase from you but have stopped engaging with any of your communications.
Rather than assuming these people are a lost cause, retargeting and re-engaging them is an effective way to get your business back on their radar. Using the data you have collected, you can easily retarget your audience with any number of campaigns. Let’s take a closer look at practical examples of what email retargeting is and could look like for you.
4 examples of email retargeting
1. Re-engaging inactive subscribers
Every email marketer will come up against inactive subscribers: contacts who receive email after email but never open or click through. While it may be tempting to wipe them from your list, try reconnecting with them first. They may have lost interest for any number of reasons, but there is still a chance to win them back.
Take Skillshare’s email for example. They first acknowledge that the subscriber has been a little quiet (people will value messaging that is honest and personalised like this), then go on to give persuasive, concrete reasons to re-engage with them.
Offering an incentive, like a discount or free gift is a great way to get readers’ attention and prompt them to take action. This simple strategy can have a big impact and can help win back subscribers that needed a little extra push. Busuu draws attention to their offer in the email headline, ensuring it’s easy to understand and encourages subscribers to take immediate action.
TOP TIP: Remember, one of the first steps in your re-engagement campaign should be to segment all your inactive subscribers into a list for retargeting. You don’t want to spam your active and engaged subscribers.
2. Recover abandoned carts
The average shopping cart abandonment across all eCommerce industries is 69%. This is a staggering amount of missed revenue. One great way to entice customers to return to your website is by retargeting them with automated abandoned cart emails. There’s a reason it’s one of the most effective email lead generation tools. These emails are super easy to set up by integrating your eCommerce website and your email marketing platform.
Grove Collaborative’s simple and sleek abandoned cart email gets straight to the point, without being too pushy. They make their products the hero and place CTAs throughout the email for easy engagement. Adding more information about recommended products is also a great way to bring customers back to your website and potentially add more items to their cart.
Taco Bell on the other hand keeps their email short and sweet. They use fun, vibrant colours to grab customers’ attention and simple messaging to drive quick action.
3. Reminders on renewals and subscriptions
Any service or subscription-based business will greatly benefit from sending out retargeting emails to subscribers who fell off the wagon or may have a subscription expiring soon. It can be hard for people to keep track of all their subscriptions, so a timely and friendly message is the perfect prompt.
Whether they’ve taken part in a free trial or are coming up to a renewal, you can use their customer data to set up automations with time-based triggers. This will keep your business and products front of mind and remind them of the value you provide.
In this example from Zapier, they’re reminding subscribers that their trial is ending soon and highlighting all the great features that they’ve had access to. This is a simple and effective way to get subscribers’ attention and use a time limitation to drive conversion.
Framer’s retargeting email reaches out to new subscribers who haven’t completed their set-up and lays out simple steps for them to complete it. Keeping this process as simple and straightforward as possible (and keeping the barrier to entry low) is the best way to get people to re-engage. The complexity of the signup process may be the reason they didn’t complete it in the first place.
4. Product restock announcements
Replenishment emails are a great way to retarget customers who have shown high intent and have interest in specific products. If you plan to restock products, don’t leave customers guessing. Create a form to collect their data and you’ll find yourself with a pre-made list of interested customers to target with your replenishment campaign.
Sonos’ restock email is minimal yet an eye-catching way to announce to customers that a specific item on their wishlist is now back in stock. They’ve also taken this as an opportunity to build trust with prospective customers by highlighting their unique selling point (USP).
If you’re restocking bestseller products this is the perfect time to retarget all customers. While these items may not have been on their radar, you can certainly generate more interest by targeting customers that have made previous purchases from you before. Take this email example from Tens, who are announcing the return of their most popular products.
More retargeting options
Retargeting doesn’t just happen via email. You can use other retargeting tools in your strategy to reach more subscribers and increase your impact. Retargeting ads with Facebook and Google Ads will help you reach your audience wherever they are online, even when they’re not on their email.
Our direct integrations with Google Ads and Facebook Business lets you seamlessly integrate your email and digital marketing, making it easy for you to connect with your customers at every stage of their journey. This kind of comprehensive approach of winning back your inactive or unengaged subscribers will be more effective than just using email alone. People who haven’t engaged via email may respond better to a different method of communication.
Want to try out email retargeting for your business? You can create a free trial account today with Vision6.
