As any IT consultant will tell you, a perennial problem affecting IT department is project failure. Despite vendor hype and sales pitches that promise impressive ROI, projects continually come in over-budget and late. And the main reason for this isn’t necessarily the technology itself, but the process (and people) behind it.

This lesson is particularly acute when rolling out a search or site retargeting campaign. Businesses can’t sit back and wait for the technology to do its magic. There needs to be a disciplined and structured back-end process, which is where we come in. We work with our clients to develop a site retargeting strategy based on their expertise of their customer base and marketing strategy mixed with our knowledge of online marketing. Killer keyword lists are the foundation of a great search retargeting campaign. We recommend creating a general list, competitor list and a branded list to start. Here’s an example: say you’re a hotel chain, called Wilmington Hotels. Put yourself in the consumers shoes and ask yourself what you might search for if looking for a hotel. Create a general list based off these terms, it would contain keywords like “hotel”, “motel” etc. Then create a competitor list, this would contain terms like, “Hilton” “Marriott” etc. Then create a branded list, containing terms like “Wilmington Hotels”.
A basic step in site retargeting is establishing targeted parameters for the ads. We work with clients to determine where the ads should be run, the time of day, the duration of the ads, and the frequency. All of these, on the surface, sound simple enough, however one poorly constructed input can doom the entire campaign. Then consider which pages, products, shopping cart items etc you want to use in your campaign. This leads to smarter and more precise targeting.