In the marketing, and especially the digital marketing industry, so much jargon floats around. And there’s so many techniques to use out there – more than your company has time to test!

Plus, these tools and technologies all change so fast…

So if you’ve heard about “retargeting” and “marketing automation,” how do these marketing techniques work, and what value do they really offer?

Let’s check ’em both out:

Retargeting

Have you ever seen those ads that seem to “follow” you around the web? You go to several different websites, and they’re completely unrelated in terms of topic, but yet you see the exact same ad.

That’s retargeting in action!

You place a small piece of code on your website that your visitors don’t even notice. They download a cookie. That cookie tells the retargeting ad provider to serve your ad over and over again.

Companies use retargeting because it:

  • Gets a higher ROI – You have more control over who sees your ads. You can set your ad to only show to people who visited a certain page on your website.
  • Lowers online advertising costs – The cost-per-click for retargeting is lower than other types of digital advertising (like traditional PPC) because it allows for such precise targeting.
  • Enhances your branding – Even if they don’t want to purchase now, your audience sees your company name many more times, making them more likely to remember you and buy from you in the future.
  • Rapidly optimizes your campaign results – Retargeting lets you get in front of many more people, and quickly. You get so much more data to make decisions from.
  • Can customize messaging by market segment – Consumers respond to what’s relevant, and retargeting lets you customize your ads for specific behaviors visitors take on your site.

Marketing Automation

Okay, so that’s retargeting. Now turn your attention to marketing automation.

In a nutshell, marketing automation means using tools to automate repetitive marketing tasks.

However, the term gets thrown around a lot in the marketing industry. Some mistakenly believe marketing automation tools have all the digital marketing tools you need in one place.

And of course, it would only make sense that they basically automate the whole digital marketing process for you, minimizing the work you put in.

That’s a logical conclusion, isn’t it?

However, many of them operate at the middle of the marketing funnel, after you’ve initially built some relationships. So some companies purchase these awesome new marketing automation tools, try to get more new leads, and then watch their investments fail.

They do improve your digital marketing results, but they aren’t completely automated like their name implies.

Before you start an automated marketing campaign, check out these pros and cons:

Pros 

  • Efficiency – It’s the obvious one. Marketing automation takes care of many of those repetitive, gruntwork tasks.
  • Builds relationships – Got leads that aren’t ready to buy? Marketing automation works great for staying in touch.
  • Easy to test out marketing messages – Many of these tools have testing functionality built in. You can rapidly learn what works and what doesn’t.
  • You get a lot of data – That’ll help improve your marketing results over the long run.
  • Can encourage sales and marketing to work together – On their own, sales and marketing often don’t work together. However, if they share a common platform, both departments can build relationships with one another, enhancing your bottom line.

Cons

  • Implementation takes time and money – It can take up to 2-3 months to set these tools up before they’re ready to use.
  • Expensive –  If you get a good ROI from yours, that’s no problem. But it can be a big risk for a smaller company.
  • They want a lot of content – You must have a ton of it in place, or the resources to do it. If you don’t, your results will suffer.
  • They still need management – Marketing automation isn’t “set it and forget it.” You still have to manage these tools to get the best ROI.

Is marketing automation worth a look? Yes, but you have to  be willing to invest a fairly significant amount of time and money to make it work.

Hope That Clears Things Up!

It’s always good to know the realities of anything before diving in. Do you think marketing automation or retargeting are right for your business?

In a webinar coming soon we will explain how to connect Retargeting and Marketing Automation together to drive more return from your digital campaign.