How Google’s March, April and August updates might fit together

It’s been an interesting year in Google-land, with a number of large updates, including those in March, April and August.

Many have written at length and shared related data about all of these updates. In today’s post, I’ll cover in depth one aspect of the August update that hasn’t received much attention: brand authority.

I believe that one significant component of what Google did with the August update — increasing rankings for sites with general brand authority — was an adjustment to the impact of the March and April updates.

To be clear, the August update clearly had many different components that are also of critical importance. I’m calling out brand authority because it was not explicitly identified by other articles on the update.

I’ll go into this more deeply below, but I’ll begin with a brief recap of what others have said about the March, April and August updates. Feel free to skip ahead.

A brief recap of the March and April updates

I’m not going to repeat what’s already been said in the many excellent articles about these updates (though I link to some of them below). I will summarize some of the basics, then add some additional thoughts about what happened.

Here are some of the key quotes from Google on the update:

Google SearchLiaison

✔@searchliaison

 · Mar 12, 2018

Each day, Google usually releases one or more changes designed to improve our results. Some are focused around specific improvements. Some are broad changes. Last week, we released a broad core algorithm update. We do these routinely several times per year....

Google SearchLiaison

✔@searchliaison

As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded....

10:27 PM - Mar 12, 2018

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Per Google’s John Mueller in the Webmaster Central office-hours hangout on April 23:

The updates that we made are more around relevance, where we’re trying to figure out which sites [are] relevant for certain queries and not so much a matter of quality overall. That might be something where we just don’t think your site is exactly relevant for those specific queries. It doesn’t mean that it’s a bad site, it’s just not relevant for those specific queries … That’s something that I think happens to a lot of sites over time in that they might be really high-quality content, but over time [they’re] just not seen as relevant in the overall picture of the web.

Overall, there is a general consensus that the main components of this update were about how your content’s relevance is measured and Google’s adjustments around its understanding of user intent. This is consistent with statements from Google, as well as the data shared and analyzed by a variety of people in the industry.

Here are some of their analyses:

1. Recap by Barry Schwartz on March 12, 2018
2. Recap by Marie Haynes, last updated April 23, 2018
3. Recap by Glenn Gabe on May 16, 2018 (Part One)
4. Recap by Glenn Gabe on June 5, 2018 (Part Two)

My supplemental comments on the March and April updates

One aspect of the March and April updates that didn’t get much attention is the idea that the breadth and depth of a site’s content were considered as a ranking signal. Sites with large volumes of content that thoroughly and completely address a topic of interest did extremely well in these updates. Here is how I would characterize breadth and depth of content:

1. Content created by true subject matter experts.
2. Content created in high volume (from tens to hundreds of pieces of content per month).
3. Content that addresses key topic areas both deeply and broadly. In other words, they address many subtopics that are important to users, not just the surface level of the topic area. This depth and breadth may be (and probably should be) accomplished across many articles.
4. And, of course, content that isn’t sliced thinly for the sake of volume. Each of the different articles has a real reason to exist.

I saw many sites with these four characteristics experience a major uplift with the March and April updates. Here is an example of the Searchmetrics data through April for one of those sites:

As you can see, SEO visibility nearly doubled during the course of these updates. That’s a pretty serious set of gains! This is a phenomenon seen with many sites that follow this pattern of publishing quality content in volume. But, as noted, I do believe that a big key to this is the perceived depth and breadth of coverage of a topic.

To preserve anonymity, let me share what I mean with a fictitious example. Let’s say you want to be seen as an authority on replacing a kitchen sink. You might create a comprehensive article on the topic and include a companion video. That would be a great start. But perhaps some portion of your audience might be interested in one or more of these related topics:

1. Disposing of the old sink.
2. Installing a kitchen sink countertop.
3. How to install kitchen sink plumbing.
4. What type of caulk to use.
5. How much it costs to replace a kitchen sink.
6. What tools are needed for the job?
7. Installing a garbage disposal with the sink.
8. What would a plumber charge to install one?
9. Changing a sink faucet.
10. Special considerations for brass sinks.
11. Special considerations for copper sinks.

I could keep going, but you get the idea.

A brief recap of the August update

People have called out many different aspects of this update. Some of the principal ones have been:

1. Health-related sites being impacted more heavily, hence the “Medic” name Barry Schwartz gave to the update. However, it’s become clear that many different types of sites were impacted, not just health sites.
2. An increased focus on expertise, authority and trust (E-A-T). In this context, authority tends to mean using subject matter expert writers, citing other authoritative research (including outbound links to same), managing your reputation online and so on.
3. More speculation on aligning your content with user intent.
4. Basic SEO factors like crawlability, avoiding thin content, mobile readiness and more.

There is not quite the same level of consensus that there was with the March and April updates, probably partly because Google made fewer statements specifically about it. In addition, I think it’s quite likely that between April and August, Google collected a lot of data on the March and April changes and decided to make a series of adjustments as a result. More on that in a minute.

Here are some of the recaps written about the August update:

1. Recap by Barry Schwartz on August 8, 2018
2. Recap by Barry Schwartz on August 9, 2018
3. Recap by Ignite Visibility on August 14, 2018
4. Recap by Marie Haynes, last updated on August 8, 2018 (Part Two)

Digging deeper into the August update

I already noted that when Google does any large-scale update, they continue to collect data on how the SERPs are performing, and they’re able to compare that with what they were seeing prior to a given update. Based on this, they can make adjustments to build upon the success of the earlier update and correct its weaknesses. It’s a process of continuous improvement.

For example, here is the Searchmetrics data for one Fortune 100 retailer, showing a large drop to their traffic in April:

This site is for a very well-known brand, but it has fairly thin content on the e-commerce pages. The products are there, but there’s not much description or detail about them. And the site took a hit. However, they appear to have seen some level of recovery in the August update.

Here is a look at another site from a large, well-known brand through the same updates:

This site had the same problems with a lack of content on major e-commerce pages, and it took a substantial hit in the March and April time frame. However, it also recovered in the August update. So, I went looking for more of these. Here is an example from the travel industry:

Yes, another major brand with some content problems that sees a recovery in the August update. Here is yet another example of a prominent e-commerce site taking a hit in March and April but recovering in August:

To try and figure out what was going on, I did an analysis of each of these sites (as well as several others). In each of the above cases, and in several others I looked at, it seemed like the March/April evaluation of the site’s relevance was hurt by a lack of good, in-depth content on their e-commerce pages.

Why did all these sites recover during the August update? Based on the data I’ve seen, my speculation is that the weight of brand authority signals was one of the things that was adjusted in the August update. When I talk about brand authority, I don’t mean authority in the E-A-T sense, but in the pure and simple strength and power of a brand. How does Google measure that? There are probably many components to it, including factors like links, mentions and overall user engagement with a brand.

Why should brand authority matter so much? Think of it from a user perspective for a moment. Users develop a strong affinity for brands. They learn to trust them, and they give them the benefit of the doubt. As related to this series of updates, it means they may prefer sites from prominent brands they trust, even though the content of those sites is materially weaker.

In addition, for curiosity’s sake, I also looked back at my example site that I shared earlier, the one that did really well with the March and April updates. How did it fare?

It kept on soaring upward! For that first example site, the depth and breadth of their content has kept them going strong.

Source:- Latest Google update

What should I write in my blog and how to choose post titles?

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When choosing what to write in your blog (topic, article titles, content etc.) it is important to understand 2 basic concepts:

First is that content is the most important success factor of any web site or blog so this is where you should spend most of your time and second you should realize that you are not alone and so you don’t only have to create excellent content but you also have to compete with other web sites that create good content as well. I will explain below why this is important and what you can do to minimize your competition.

What should I write about?

In my seo tips for beginners article I have explained what is consider good quality content but for the purpose of this article I will go one step further and explain how to distinguish your content from the competition which is essentially the answer to the question: what should I write about so that it stands out.

Before to start writing you next blog post ask yourself these questions:

1. What would be the topic of my post?
2. Will my post answer a question or solve a problem?
3. What others are writing about the particular topic?
4. How can I differentiate my content from existing posts and make it better?

Once you have the above questions answered your next step is to decide on the actual blog post title, write the post, publish it and promote it.

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How to choose your blog post titles?

The blog post title is important for 3 main reasons:

1. A good title will attract more readers and social media attention
2. A good title is essential for SEO purposes
3. Blog titles should help both readers and search engines understand what the post is all about. Google has recently released a one-page cheat sheet stressing the importance of page titles for SEO purposes so it is not something you should neglect for any reason.

So, you know what will be the topic and type of your post and the next step is to choose the actual blog post title. This is where the Google keyword tool comes into rescue.

How to use the Google keyword tool for choosing your blog post titles?

The Google keyword tool among many other useful features gives you 2 pieces of information that are important when choosing blog titles: The number of exact searches per keyword and the competition level for that keyword. I will use these 2 in the example below to help you understand how to choose blog titles that have less competition and thus increase your chances of ranking higher for that term.

Let’s look at the following real example:

What would be the topic of my post?	Weight loss
Will my post answer a question or solve a problem?	Yes, my intention is to explain to my readers how to lose weight
What others are writing about the particular topic?	Searching “how to lose weight” “how to lose weight fast” “weight loss” “I want to lose weight” “how to lose pounds” brings a number of results from trusted web sites and my chances of ranking for these terms are minimum to zero
How can I differentiate my content and make it better?	I want to take a step-by-step approach to weight loss and explain how to calculate the weight you should lose and how to create your plan

Notice in the above table that I added the note “my chances of ranking for these terms are minimum to zero”. This is important and what this means is that even if I write a super article with the title “how to lose weight” (or any of the above titles) I will probably never be able to rank in the first positions because there are already trusted web sites in the first page and I need to give Google many concrete and powerful reasons to give me a good ranking.

In reality this is unlikely to happen so this is where I go to the keyword tool.

The first things I do are set the location to ALL Countries and the Match Types to Exact.

Next I start searching for keywords. Continuing with the example above I started searching with the phrase “how to lose pounds”.

From the results what I am interested at the moment is the Competition column and the Global monthly searches column. In particular I am looking for Low competition long trail keyword ideas with some monthly searches. Of course the more monthly searches a keyword have the better, but don’t forget that what is displayed there is only an indication and I have found many times keywords to bring much more traffic than the estimate given here. Also the lower the numbers, the greater are the chances for the estimates to be inaccurate.

Back to our example, fortunately for the term I choose there are many low competition keyword ideas that can satisfy my needs as outlined in the table above.

I did search for the other terms as well but without spending too much time I decided that a keyword that has low competition and a good amount of global monthly searches and fits my topics subject and purpose is “how to lose 15 pounds”.

To cut a long story short and also convince that this methodology works you can search Google for the above term and you will see my article on page 1, position 1.

You can also see below a screenshot from Google Analytics showing that in a period of one month the particular page has brought in twice the traffic estimated by the keyword tool.

So, to summarize this post it is important to remember that:

1. You don’t only have to create good content but you also have to select your blog titles carefully after doing a keyword analysis using the keyword tool and a competition analysis by searching for those terms on Google.
2. By selecting blog titles with low competition you increase the changes of ranking higher
3. Choose your blog topic first, find the title and then write the content
4. Once published make sure that you promote your blog post in the best possible way
5. Include keywords in your blog post titles but don’t overdo it (see my example above and notice the title I have selected which contains the keywords I want to rank for).
6. Don’t follow the above procedure for all your blog posts. Choose in advance which blog posts to optimize with the above method but also make sure that you have non-optimized posts in your web site/blog as well.

How to Write Title Tags For Search Engine Optimization?

Today we're going back to basics! And nothing is more basically important to a site than properly written title tags. You know the ones that used to appear in the little blue bars in your browsers. Most modern browsers try to hide these, though that doesn't stop them being helpful!

So what is a title tag? Why is it important to SEO, and how do you write the darn things?

Meta Tags

First let's talk about meta tags. Meta elements are HTML or XHTML elements used to provide information about a web page for the search engines and website users.

Such elements must be placed as tags in the head section of a HTML document. These elements are the:

• Title Tag
• Description
• Keywords (No one uses these anymore and you can get spam "points" for overuse on Bing, so just forget them. If you have keyword stuffed "spammy" ones, you probably want to fix those.)

What is a Title Tag?

Title tags are part of the meta tags that appear at the top of your HTML inside the < head> area. Think of title tags like the title of the chapter of a book. It tells people and search engines what your page is about.

Title tags are also part of what makes people decide whether to visit your site when it shows up in the search results. The title tag should contain important keywords to help the search engine determine what the page is about.

Write title tags for humans; format them for search engines.

NOTE: Every experienced SEO has their own unique methods to doing this, so I'm going to give you best practices along with some of my methods. However, there are a million ways to write a title tag.

What Does the Title Tag Look Like?

The title tag looks like this in your HTML code:

<title>Important Words Go Here </title>

Here is how title tags appear in a browser that uses the bar to display title tags (other browsers might only use the tab space or not show them at all):

Finally, here's where Google shows the title tag:

REMEMBER: A title tag is THE MOST IMPORTANT SINGLE TAG in your page. It tells the search engines what your page is about. It is still vitally important to your SEO strategy.

Quick Checklist

When you're writing your title tag what do you need to know? Here's a quick checklist with some tips on how to write optimized title tags:

• Length: Title tags should be a maximum of 70 characters long, including spaces.
• Keyword Placement: Your most important words (keywords) need to be first in your title tag, with your least important words being last in the title tag (most to least). However, if you're working in a language that reads right-to-left, then it is reversed, and it would be least important to most important.
• Keyword Separation: Use pipes | to separate important (keyword) phrases (no commas, underscores, dashes or any other punctuation unless the keyword is written that way).
• Wording: Keep your important phrases short and simple. Leave out words that would make it read like a sentence. (e.g., and, if, but, then, etc.)
• Company Name: If your company name is not part of the important (keyword) phrases, put it at the end of the title tag; if it is part of your important words, put it as the first words in the title tag. Some SEOs will tell you to leave it out. You can leave it in for branding purposes – so people will see the brand and click. This isn't valid for all sites.
• DON'T DUPLICATE Title Tags: They must be written differently for every page. Don't mass replicate your title tags.
• Make It Relevant: Title tags must be written to be descriptive of the content on the page. (e.g., the About Page would be:

About | Important Keywords | Company Name

or

Important Keywords | About Us | Company Name

Google & Title Tags

Sometimes Google doesn't like your title tag. In fact, sometimes Google thinks it can pick a better one, so it will rewrite the tag for you. There are several places it might get this information, most of them you won't prefer to one you crafted yourself.

While there isn't any assurance your title tag won't be replaced, make sure you write a title tag that is page related, content descriptive, short and sweet, and not keyword stuffed. This is your one defense.

Keyword Stuffed Title Tags

You've probably come across badly written title tags that try to rank for everything or repeat a word over and over. Keyword stuffing is the worst offense when it comes to title tags.

Say your site is trying to rank for Blue Bells and Yellow Bells. Many times you will see the main keyword repeated multiple times across the title tag. It might appear like this:

Blue Bells, Yellow Bells, All Types of Bells | Bells Bells and More | Doors.com

This is bad title tag writing. You don't need to repeatedly write the keyword. Google especially can pick up the keywords like your eyes can read them, so you would best to rewrite this as

Blue & Yellow Bells | Doorbells | Doors.com

We removed the extra words, combined the products (if possible you would split these products to separate pages, a blue and a yellow, but this isn't always feasible or desirable) and added a category keyword which would appear in the middle of the title tag on all doorbell related page titles, then end it with the domain name (again this is for branding purposes – there are also good reasons to not do this, it depends on the SEO).

Now our title tag is short, sweet, simple, and to the point. We have also categorized it and added in branding for good measure.

We also took out the word "and" and replaced it with an ampersand (&) so that you don't accidentally relate the two items and make Google think you want people who are looking for Blue AND Yellow Bells.

And there you go, a basic lesson in title tag writing. This can be the most challenging and fun part of any SEO's work! Or should that be "Inbound Marketer's" work?

Some Title Tag Writing Examples

Let's look at a few examples of writing title tags with actual examples.

If your important words (keywords) were "Charlie Sheen" and "Winning" your title tag would be written in that order:

Charlie Sheen Winning

Charlie Sheen would be the first words in the tag.

Now what if we had more than one set of words? What if my keywords were "Charlie Sheen Winning"and "Tiger's Blood"? Your title tag would still be written with "Charlie Sheen Winning" as the first words in the tag. Then you would add a pipe | and "Tiger's Blood" as the second phrase:

Charlie Sheen Winning | Tiger's Blood

Don't use hyphens, underscores, commas or any other type of character – just pipes.

Now what if we had more than one set of words and a company name we were not worried about optimizing for (the company name was not part of the reputation issue). If my words were "Charlie Sheen Winning" and "Tiger's Blood" and "CBS", you would separate these three phrases with pipes, with CBS last and farthest from the beginning, which Google sees as the least important phrase:

Charlie Sheen Winning | Tiger's Blood | CBS

The company name can be repeated in every title tag as long as it as not part of the important words and appears at the far right end of the title tag.

What about sentences? Couldn't you just write a sentence such as "Charlie Sheen Says Winning And Tiger's Blood And Gets CBS Riled Up"? You could, but those extra words like "says", "and", and "riled", dilute your important words and make them less important to content, so best to keep it short, simple, and clear. Leave out the extra words.

Title Tag Writing Pop Quiz!

When using strict SEO principles. Which are the BEST title tags for the important (keywords): (pick 2) "Charlie Sheen" "Winning" "Howard Stern Show" when optimizing (trying to rank for) the words"Charlie Sheen (1) Winning (2)"

1. Charlie Sheen Winning on the Howard Stern Show
2. Howard Stern Show & Charlie Sheen | Winning
3. Charlie Sheen is Winning Points on the Howard Stern Show
4. Charlie Sheen | Winning | Howard Stern Show
5. Charlie Sheen and Howard Stern Winning the Show
6. Winning | Charlie Sheen on the Howard Stern Show
7. Charlie Sheen Winning | Howard Stern Show
8. Doesn't matter as long as the words are all there

6 Types of Retargeting Every Marketer Should Know

When it comes to the topic of retargeting, most marketers instantly think of search retargeting, which they happen to already be running at least one campaign for. Hard to blame them, since search retargeting is, in fact, the fastest growing type of retargeting and has proven to have some of the highest returns.

But the truth of the matter is, highly effective marketers explore other types of retargeting to acquire and engage potential audience. During the “PPC Beyond Search” panel at SES San Francisco 2012, Dax Hamman broke down six different types of retargeting every marketer should know.

1. Search Retargeting

When using search retargeting, you’re essentially going after individuals on search engines who have searched using keywords or phrases relevant to your business. Keep in mind that when deciding to use this type of retargeting, you're making assumptions based on the searcher’s intent.

Just because they searched a term that is relevant to your business, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ready to make a purchase or be bombarded by “buy now” banners. Be sure to take intent into consideration and serve your creative accordingly.

2. Site Retargeting

Think of site retargeting as one step closer contact, since the searcher has actually landed on and visited your site at this point. Once they do so, you can tag them and follow them around the internet with your messages.

The most important thing to keep in mind when deciding to use site retargeting, is to identify certain actions as “tag-worthy.”

Let’s say you sell PPC management software. Would you tag someone who visits your blog to read a post and someone else who watches a video of an online demo the same way? Would you tag the blog reader at all?

3. SEM/SEO Retargeting

SEM/SEO retargeting is closely related to site retargeting and has to do with the search terms used prior to clicking to or arriving on your site. Couple someone’s search term used to land on your site with the actions they take on it and you have given yourself a whole new level of insight into their intent. Use this to refine your creative and perfect your message to them.

4. Email Retargeting

As apparent from the name, it allows you to retarget people based on actions they have taken on your emails. Engagement levels are important to take note of in this case, since someone opening an email should not be treated as someone else who clicked a link, forwarded it, or didn’t even open it at all.

5. Contextual Retargeting

In all the sessions I’ve moderated, never have I heard an “oooooh” from the audience as when contextual retargeting was introduced. In essence, it involves exchanging pixels between sites that are highly relevant to a searcher and targeting to each others’ visitors. For example, think of an airline and local hotel site targeting each other’s audience based on destinations that were searched or booked.

6. Engagement Retargeting

Perhaps the least commonly used by the average advertiser, this type of retargeting works exceptionally well with those who offer channels of engagement like videos, rich media, Flash games, etc. Based on the type of action the user takes, advertisers can infer things like intent and level of engagement to serve highly targeted display ads.

Summary

With so many different types of retargeting, advertisers are finding more ways (and more importantly, a second chance) to reach their target audience. When used correctly and with the right creative, advertisers can expect large boosts in CTRs and conversions for their campaigns.

Apart from search, have you used any of the other forms of retargeting? Which ones have proven to be the most effective for you? Share your thoughts and comments below.

An In-Depth Comparison of Remarketing and Retargeting Services.

A customer steps into your shop, inquires about a particular product, and then leaves without buying. You know there’s a potential sale, and there’s every chance that person will be buying a similar product sooner rather than later.

How would you like to send some of your sales people to follow that visitor, reminding them of your business wherever they go? In fact, reminding them to the extent that your business/brand is the first and only name that comes to mind when they are about to make a purchase?

Sounds like an insane idea in the real world. Even if your sales staff doesn’t get beaten up for stalking, the cost alone would make it impossible to pull off.

But that’s exactly what remarketing (a/k/a retargeting) services enable you to do in the online world.

Remarketing is great for many reasons. For example:

• Reduced cost per impression
• Better conversion rates
• Improved ROI
• Precise targeting
• Cost effective branding

It’s no wonder remarketing has been taking the online world by storm.

But… It just seems so difficult, so hard to understand and set up.

Is it?

Reeeeallly?

Truth be told, setting up a killer remarketing campaign is surprisingly easy. As long as you understand the basics, there are great remarketing platforms out there ready to help you smash your ROI targets. These platforms take care of all of the technicals, like leaving a cookie to earmark visitors, monitoring their behavior, making guesses about their intent, or working with a “display network” or “Real Time Bidding exchange.” Pretty cool, really, because they leave you more time to work on strategy and branding while they handle all of the technicalities.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the main platforms you can use.

AdRoll

AdRoll has been providing various online advertising options to businesses for more than five years, but they are best known for their retargeting plans. And while it’s not always a testimony to the efficacy of a service, with companies like Moz, Levi’s, Red Vines, and Salesforce using the platform, you can think they must be doing something right.

• AdRoll works with advertising partners like Facebook Exchange, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, allowing you to reach 98% of sites on the Internet.
• Speaking of ROI, AdRoll retargeting customers earn $10 for every $1 spent on average. (At least that’s what they claim on their website.)
• The guys at AdRoll are really good at advance targeting techniques, likecustomer segmentation, geo targeting, and more. Using their platform, you can target or exclude site visitors based on their actions, create groups of users based on purchase intent (like adding a product to a shopping cart), and set up advanced conversion tracking rules. Check out the image below to see a quick snapshot of this in action:

Customer Segmentation – AdRoll

• AdRoll makes retargeting quite simple with features like easy-to-read analytics. And for sites with over 60k uniques per month, they also offer their Liquid Adsservice. LiquidAds enables advertisers to personalize each impression based on the product pages that an individual user visits.

The image above shows the dynamic elements of an AdRoll LiquidAd. Each element can be tailored depending on your targeting preference.

• AdRoll is an official Facebook partner and provides one of the best and easiest-to-use platforms for customer retargeting on Facebook, especially the news feed ads.

A Facebook Newsfeed ad powered by AdRoll. Yep – AdRoll can remarket to your potential customers who left your site and went to check Facebook.

• Setting up a Facebook news feed campaign is quite simple. All you need to do is choose your weekly budget, schedule, targeted locations, and max CPM bid. Then select your visitor segments. Your ads will start appearing in their news feed. The ads will start showing to anyone who has been cookied on your website, regardless of whether they liked or interacted with your Facebook fan page. The ads will start showing in the person’s news feed simply because they visited your website in the past and you have targeted them in your ad campaign. Pretty cool!

• AdRoll has good transparent pricing and solid customer support, both in terms of responsiveness and level of expertise.

AdRoll in a nutshell: Easily the frontrunner when it comes to retargeting platforms. While it is a little on the pricey side, the service and ease of their platform make it worth your marketing dollars.

Chango

Chango specializes in search retargeting (though they are offering site retargeting solutions as well). Search retargeting doesn’t require a potential customer to visit your website before your ads start appearing on their screens. Instead, customer interest and relevancy are decided by a recent search they performed on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

So, if someone performs a search for a product/service on a search engine and lands on a website that is part of Chango’s data network, Chango will earmark the user and let you advertise to that user with a customized ad promoting relevant products and services.

• Chango has a massive network of data partners. You will get access to more than 8 billion search events and search data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo, which means you also can get some great keyword ideas or suggestions.
• You will get a dedicated account manager, meaning you won’t have to waste countless hours trying to set up, optimize, or manage your campaigns.
• You can target customers from some of the best markets like US, UK, and Canada.
• Chango has certain indicators and scores allowing you to assess each visitor according to what they do before, during, and after visiting your website. They call it “intentscore,” so you can target the visitors who seem to have the “intent” of buying a particular product.
• If you’ve got a product feed, Chango offers dynamic creative for online stores, allowing you to create ads with recently viewed products the customer browsed at your e-commerce store.

Chango points to take home: Chango prides itself on having a huge network of data partners. Using their search retargeting option to target potential customers with an intent to buy, will give you an upper hand over your competitors when it comes to SEM.

Chango isn’t for the fainthearted, and their minimum price is 10k to set up a campaign. If you are just taking your first steps in the remarketing world, it might be wise to use one of the other platforms before you dive into the deep end with Chango.

Perfect Audience

The guys at Perfect Audience provide a retargeting platform for those who’d like to keep it as simple as possible. All you need to do is insert a script/code in the body section of your website, create lists of visitors’ types to retarget, design campaigns to target certain segments in your retargeting lists, and your ads will start appearing on visitors’ screens, so it’s as simple as ABC (and D).

• You get to remarket your products or services to lost customers on Facebook, a platform with a user base of more than 950 million people. When a visitor leaves your website or a certain page without ordering, you will be able to retarget that visitor on Facebook. Similar to AdRoll, Perfect Audience offers both standard Facebook ads and the ability to retarget in the Facebook news feed. Check out this ad they actually ran themselves when they started their beta testing:

A Perfect Audience Facebook Newsfeed ad

• For online stores using platforms like Shopify, 3dcart, Magento, andVolusion, Perfect Audience offers practical solutions to retarget visitors who are leaving without buying anything.
• You don’t need to pay a setup or maintenance fee, which makes it an ideal choice for small businesses with tight budgets.
• Their “site reports” actually show you the names of websites which your ads have been served on, how many impressions were served, and how many clicks were attained. Using this data, you can easily see where your ads are performing the best and where your target users are spending most of their online time. Further to this, if you notice that one or a few sites aren’t performing well, then you can “blacklist” that site from your campaign to focus on more profitable exposure.
• As suggested earlier, Perfect Audience focuses on keeping it as simple as possible. They even have a 5-minute quick start guide with instructions for setting up and starting to use their platform in a matter of minutes.
• If you are sending emails or newsletters to a list of subscribers, you can retarget recipients who’ve opened the email. All you will need to do is place an image pixel on your HTML email template. Then anyone who opens your email in HTML format will be cookied and on your remarketing list. Of course, this opens a plethora of marketing opportunities. If you are a little creative, I’m sure you can think of a few fun ways to use this feature. The great part is its simple to build out your list. Take a quick look at this shot of me creating a remarketing list of past buyers of an e-commerce business:

With Perfect Audience you can target people who have open your emails.

• Perfect Audience also has a huge knowledgebase with short to-the-point manuals, quality guidelines, video tutorials, and dynamic ads.

Perfect Audience points to take home: Perfect Audience is a great option for small businesses that are keen to learn a bit more about online advertising without spending massive amounts. The range of options is great for e-commerce stores using third party platforms like WordPress, Shopify, Magento, or 3dcart.

Triggit

Triggit has many different advertising options for their clients, but, like Perfect Audience, they seem to be focusing more on Facebook ads. That’s mainly because they strongly believe in the power of social media when it comes to converting a visitor into a prospective buyer. So, you will find many tools and features made specifically around the Facebook Exchange.

• You can set your own budget, frequency caps (so that people don’t get annoyed by your ads), maximum bid, and a lot more while retargeting your visitors on Facebook and around the web.
• While their reach doesn’t quite hit the highs of AdRoll or Perfect Audience, Triggit more than makes up for it by offering more advanced targeting features like frequency caps, bidding rules, and campaign goals
• The Dynamic Creatives feature allows you to use custom heading, custom dates, and custom images in your Facebook ads to improve click through rates (CTR.) Not only can you retarget with products that the visitor has recently browsed on your website, you can integrate your product feeds and the software will dynamically create multiple ads for the same purpose.

• In addition to the basics, there also are some advance retargeting options available, like targeting the people in your remarketing list according to their location (i.e., FBX Geo-Targeting [advertising to Facebook users according to their location]), one-off product marketing, custom reporting, customer segmentation, and creating unique strategies for different segments.

A Geo-Targeting Campaign in Triggit

• Triggit claims having access to more than 10 billion impressions a day, from millions of websites around the Internet.
• Triggit is one of the oldest DSPs in the market, so they have plenty of experience when it comes to the art of retargeting.

Triggit points to take home: Triggit specializes in retargeting via Facebook Exchange, and that is where their strength lies.

ReTargeter

ReTargeter is comparatively new, but it already has shown itself to be a strong contender when it comes to remarketing platforms. Retargeter offers a wide range of marketing and remarketing solutions, including site retargeting, Facebook Exchange, CRM Retargeting, email retargeting, search retargeting, and short tag (you can use a custom link shortener and when you post that link on social media, anyone who clicks on it will see your full ad popup AND be cookied for later.), to name a few.

• The service is aimed at sites with over 30,000 unique visitors per month.
• You can create target ads according to the demographic, geographic, income, or intent of your customers.
• Since they are not focusing more on a certain type of retargeting, you can choose from a variety of options; for example, retargeting visitors who have browsed your website, subscribers who have opened your newsletter, or people who’ve engaged with you on social media.
• ReTargeter does not restrict their inventory based on spending level, so you will get full network access.
• You can use frequency capping; for example, showing users 15-20 advertisements per month, so that they don’t start getting annoyed by your ads appearing left, right, and center.
• Their services start at $1500 per month (and you will get up to 175,000 impressions for that price), and all the campaigns are managed by a dedicated account manager.

ReTargeter points to take home: A great solution for larger volume sites. ReTargeter has some unique advertising solutions which will put you ahead of the pack.

Google

Since we’re talking about retargeting, we’d better take a quick look at what the big “G” offers. With a massive display network encompassing more than a million websites, videos, and apps, there are plenty of opportunities to retarget successfully with Google.

The service can be set up easily from inside your Google AdWords account. All you need to do is add the remarketing tag to your website, build your ads, set up your campaign, and off you go.

In your AdWords account, head to the shared library (from campaigns tab) to create a list of people visiting a certain section or page of your website. Check out this image below to see exactly where to go:

Once in the shared library, click on “view” under Audiences as per below:

• Google offers super simple targeting options. You can target people depending on their actions, time of visit, and the specific pages they landed on. Take a look below to see a real life example of this:

• Google has recently introduced remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) with the aim of allowing advertisers to craft campaigns aimed at people who have searched for a particular keyword, regardless of whether they have visited your site or not.
• Google remarketing takes place on the Google Display Network. This means you can reach close to 10% of the internet through their platform.

Google points to take home: A simple solution for users who are comfortable with the AdWords platform. It is limited to the Google Display Network and doesn’t offer any Facebook retargeting options. This service is great for people looking for an easy, quick solution without any headaches.