There is more to Bing than meets the eye. The Bing interface is a powerful tool and used in the right way can be just as successful as Google to remarket to customers.
What Is Remarketing?
User lands on your website, cookies ‘drop’ on their computer/machine and then the user is then added to a remarketing list. The minimum amount you can have in a Bing remarketing list is 300 (Google is 1000 users). When the customer leaves your website and next returns to a search engine i.e Microsoft Search Network, they can then be targeted with a remarketing ad.
Image source: Bing
Why Is It Good To Use Remarketing?
A large number of first-time visitors that come to a website are not likely to convert. They may be interested in the site and even add items to the basket but not be prepared to commit straight away. To avoid losing this custom and capitalise on their interests and impulses, the customer should be targeted at a later date with remarketing ads and should be on a list. This almost sounds sinister.
It is not possible to import audiences from Google so it is important to build remarketing audiences on Bing. Fortunately, most of the creation and association is very similar to Google with only a few differences.
Segmenting Your Audiences
When looking at your audiences and how to segment them, it can be beneficial to think about how they fall into the sales funnels such as awareness, consideration & conversion. Adjust your bids accordingly to these funnels.
For example, if someone has only visited the homepage they should only be targeted with a low bid. If someone has gone as far as to visit a product page they are likely to have more intent on purchasing and should be targeted with a higher and then if someone has gone to the basket page, bid even higher for these. Once a customer has made a purchase, they are likely to come back to your website more so make them important and valued customers. If, however, the product is not going to be purchased frequently, for example, a new phone then low bids should be used. Below is an example of a bid spends per website page.
Image source: Bing
How To Set Up Remarketing Lists & Associate (Old UI)
Within the old Bing/Microsoft UI, navigate to campaigns > shared library > audiences > remarketing list > name the audience list (i.e all visitors or basket abonders) > selected your UET tag > decide on the duration (Maximum in Bing is 180 days, Google 500).
Now to associate your audiences to your campaigns, simply select the campaign/s > click edit > associate audience and select the specific audiences list you would like to add.
You then need to decide which targeting setting to use; either Bid only (observation) or Target and Bid (Targeted).
Bid only is when you increase or decrease your bids for these audiences but your ads will show to all customers who are searching and interested with your ad.
Target and Bid is where your ads will only show to users who are in that audience list – this is when you are going to want to make your ads really stand out and almost seem personal to those users – enticing them to come back to your website.
Optimise Towards Different Types Of Shoppers
Window shoppers and browsers – These visitors haven’t yet bought anything, or driven any leads (i.e email sign up). It is therefore worth trialling out different offers within the ad copy, calling out varied USPs (unique selling points) about your website (new product launches, free delivery etc) and also increasing your keywords to have more relevant and varied keywords to see which are driving the traffic.
Basket abonders – Drive urgency with these visitors. They clearly were very close to making the purchase. Look to entice them with an offer that has an upcoming end date, look to be aggressive with your bidding so that you appear in a strong position in the SERPs (search engine result page) so that you stand out against competitors because basket abonders are likely to be visitors who are looking around for the best deal.
Converting customers – Given that these visitors have already converted, they can be a great audience to target to maximise on revenue. Think of how you can begin to cross-sell products to them – maybe highlight relevant products in your Ad extensions or call it out in the main ad copy etc. You want to think of these customers almost like you are building up a basket – ensure that their AOV (average order value) increases next time they buy. For example, if someone has just purchased some new makeup, maybe show them ads for a new makeup bag. Knowing that these customers convert, you may be more willing to lose some profit to them by showing them offers i.e is there a media code they can use on their next purchase or any other incentive?
Double Your Remarketing
Bing may not be on the same scale as Google and may not be anyone’s first tool when thinking about remarketing, but at the end of the day, you still want to entice those customers to come back to your website across all platforms.
