B2B marketing is increasingly becoming important as global marketing spending is expected to reach $4.7 trillion by 2025. Despite these record spending levels, generating leads in B2B marketing is no joke! It’s like playing a high-stakes poker game with an unseen opponent. You have to constantly stay on your toes and employ different methods to stay ahead in the game.
This is due to oversaturation, as clients are exposed to too many messages from too many sources. So, it has become difficult for brands to stand out from the rest and generate leads.
If you don't believe me, then take a look at these stats:
So, what's the solution?
Well, in their quest to generate leads, retargeting and remarketing can guide B2B marketers like a lighthouse that guides the ship through treacherous waters.
Both retargeting or remarketing have similar goals, which is to re-engage with potential businesses who have shown interest in a product or service.
However, their approach is different, and for a B2B marketer, it is extremely important to understand the distinction between the two.
In this section, we will explore in detail the difference between remarketing and retargeting. Let’s start with their definitions.
Retargeting allows you to send targeted ads to businesses who have previously visited the website to research your product or service but didn't complete a purchase action. For some reason, they left. Retargeting aims to re-engage and convince them to return and complete the purchase or subscribe to the services they previously didn’t.
Here is one of the retargeting ad examples: Imagine a B2B client researching cloud-based solutions for their business. While visiting a website, they are retargeted with ads showcasing the benefits of the cloud-based solutions, key features, and subtly encouraging them to request a demo. This is called retargeting.
Remarketing takes a broader approach towards engaging with businesses. It goes beyond ads and uses different channels like email campaigns, content marketing, social media, search engine marketing, video marketing, direct mail to build and nurture a long term relationship with the clients.
Here is a remarketing example: In a B2B context, a potential lead who has interacted with a software company’s website might receive a personalized email containing relevant case studies, white papers, and exclusive insights curated to their industry, aiming to nurture the lead through educational content and convert them.
For further explanation, the image below will show you the key differences between retargeting and remarketing.
It is important for B2B marketers to understand these nuances as it will allow them to strategically deploy retargeting and remarketing to address specific needs in lead generation and build long-term relationships with the clients.
Retargeting and remarketing have become powerful tools in B2B marketing. Here are some key findings that showcase their effectiveness.
Here are some of the best practices for using retargeting and remarketing advertising effectively in B2B marketing.
Retargeting: Divide your clients based on what actions they have taken while visiting your website. For example:
By dividing your clients based on these actions, you will be able to create a retargeting campaign that is extremely accurate and relevant to their interests.
Remarketing: Come up with a category of your clients based on how they interacted with your brand. For example:
Creating categories of clients based on these interactions will help B2B marketers create a strategy that aligns with the client’s behavior across different channels.
B2B marketers can use dynamic retargeting to show ads on products or services that the client came across while visiting their website. This will ensure that the visual content shown is relevant to their interests, thus increasing the likelihood of capturing the client's attention.
Remember, the ad you create should highlight all the important features, benefits, and unique selling points of your product or service. It should resonate with the client's interest if you want to bolster your brand's value proposition and nudge them towards revisiting the website once again.
Furthermore, dynamic retargeting will also allow you to make changes to the ad based on client behavior. For example, if they have visited multiple products or explored different categories, then in such situations, you can adjust the ad to showcase their different interests. This will create a more personalized experience.
Additionally, suppose the client has shown interest in a specific category of product. In that case, dynamic retargeting will allow you to show other products of a similar category that align with their preferences.
Lastly, dynamic retargeting will let you display the exact products that the client added to their cart but didn't purchase. You can also add limited-time offers, discounts, or additional incentives to convince them to make the purchase.
There are other use cases as well.
Dynamic retargeting will empower B2B marketers to create highly personalized and relevant experiences for other businesses.
Both retargeting and remarketing have one common goal, which is to convert those clients who are most likely to purchase from your brand, just that they leverage different approaches to achieve the same objective.
Retargeting focuses on those businesses who have interacted with your brand but have not yet purchased via paid ads.
Remarketing focuses on re-engaging existing clients through email campaigns and reaching out to those who have already had previous interactions, thus allowing for more specific upselling.