Remarketing with Google Analytics

In July 2012, Google announced a new way to do remarketing which will make it much easier for advertisers to take advantage of this fantastic marketing channel. The new method for remarketing is much smarter and more powerful way, which allows you to create advanced strategies with just one piece of code.

The Old Way

Previously, you would need to create different sets of remarketing code to be placed on the various pages that form part of the campaign. This was very time consuming and not in any way flexible. Working for a Digital Marketing Agency, we want to make sure that things we ask our clients to do are as straightforward as possible and remarketing was not always the easiest thing to explain.

The New Way

Gone are the days of the non-flexible remarketing, we can now create lists very easily and all clients need to do is make a simple change to the Google Analytics code which is currently on their site. The change needs to be done once and then you can start remarketing with highly advanced strategies.

To implement Remarketing with Google Analytics, you will need to add the highlighted line of code (shown below) to the Google Analytics tracking code on each page of your website. It will not impact any other customisations that you may have with Google Analytics.

The line of code below works with both the synchronous and the asynchronous versions of the tracking code.

I have been told that the update to Google Analytics is being rolled out throughout Europe in August so in order to get prepared you just need to make the small update to your code.

The World is Your Oyster

Last month, I wrote a post that looked at some of the most effective remarketing examples I have seen and gave some suggestions on how you can compete. This post is still very much valid, but the setup process has become a whole lot easier.

Remarketing with Google Analytics makes it very easy to find the customers you want to target. There will be predefined remarketing lists already set up for you or you can create your own customised lists based on metrics like the following within Google Analytics:

• Visit Duration
• Browser
• Operating System
• Country/Territory
• City
• Goal Completions
• All visitors to your site
• Specific page or area views

Using Google Analytics for remarketing allows you to get much more targeted and segment your lists to make them work for you. Check out these ideas on the Google Help Forum.

Getting Started with GA Remarketing

Google Analytics have produced a very easy to follow step by step guide on creating remarketing lists so I am not going to rehash it within this post. Click on this link to get started – https://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2611404&topic=2611283&ctx=topic

Please note that you will only see the Remarketing Lists option when you login to Google Analytics if you are looking at a profile that is linked to Google AdWords.

Once you have created your lists in Google Analytics, the next step is start using them within AdWords. Creating a list in Google Analytics that is linked to an AdWords Account should automatically import the list for you but you will need to associate it with a campaign and ad group for it to start working.

This step by step guide explains how to add your remarketing list to an ad group.

Summary

Once this has been rolled out in full I will be putting together a more in-depth post containing customised lists that can be used so watch this space. For now you need to get the line of code added to your Google Analytics code so that you are ready and waiting once it is fully launched.

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