Book Marketing For Authors Blog 90- Retargeting to Increase Sales

Retargeting to Increase Sales

 

Did you know that the big boys and girls in this business love cookies? That’s right, my self-publishing indie authors. Every time we do a search, the big boys like Amazon and Facebook, to mention a few, try to use their cookies. Their cookies are little bits of code that are attached to the internet searches we do. That small code shows them what we’re looking for.

I’m sure you have been targeted by big business so they can increase their sales. For example, how many times have you done a search for something, and then the very next day, an ad for the same thing pops up on your Facebook page? That was not a coincidence, my authorpreneurs.

That’s a big business strategy that doesn’t have to be used only by big businesses. Believe it or not, we authorpreneurs can use this retargeting strategy to increase our sales too. We can enjoy the fruits, or maybe I should say the cookies, of this kind of targeted marketing.

So, how do we do what the big boys and girls do? Sit back, and let me explain.

We can put a specific cookie code on each and every page of our website. We can have follow-up actions for ads depending on what page our visitors were on and what steps they took or did not take.

This is intelligent advertising because these people have already shown interest by visiting our website and engaged in a particular behavior based on their likes, dislikes, or needs. Retargeting based on just this limited information is already way better demographic targeting than the traditional demographic targeting of age, income, education, gender, and place.

Another place we can use retargeting to increase our sales is in our email campaigns. According to whatever actions people on our lists took, we could send them a particular targeted follow-up email.

If they ignored our email, we would send them a specified follow-up email. If they looked at it and did nothing more, then a different email would go out to them. If they clicked on a link in our email but didn’t buy, then a specific email will follow that one up too. We could send them a different email if they went all the way to our shopping cart but then abandoned the shopping cart without buying. If they went all the way through the order and bought something, something else could be sent out as a follow-up.

Again, this is differentiated and very intelligent advertising that uses retargeting to increase our sales. Hey, it’s good for business, my authorpreneurs.

Okay, another strategy could be to use certain keywords for retargeting, too. Let’s say someone types in a particular keyword in our niche, but doesn’t go to our website. They don’t even know we exist. All is not lost, though. Because they did a search with a specific keyword, we can target them and put our ads in their path. We already know what they are looking for. So why not make ourselves easy options for them.

And then depending on what actions they take to our ads, we follow-up once again with a very specific different ad. It’s a wash and repeat, wouldn’t you agree?

Sometimes, we come across someone who is in our niche and looking for something in our market. But for some reason, we just aren’t a perfect fit. However, we know someone who is. Guess what? We can still make a few bucks here.

Okay, this is how we do it.

We use our cookies code with an affiliate link to one of our affiliate partners. Now, this prospect will get a follow-up email or ad from one of our affiliates, offering them a solution to their problem. The advertisement or email doesn’t come from us. It comes from one of our affiliates, which is better suited to the prospect’s needs.

When the prospect clicks on their link and buys their product or service to help them with their problem, we get a piece of the financial pie from our affiliate. We get some of the profit through that affiliate link.

This affiliate one is a little bit more advanced, but it’s effective and profitable. And while it doesn’t give us the sale, it still helps create a sale to solve a problem for someone. And we still make a little something off of it, too.

I’d say that that’s still a win-win, or perhaps even a win-win-win since three parties are benefitting from our retargeting, wouldn’t you?

Watch the free video lesson on this chapter!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi3N5GmPX2M&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=91