Remarketing is a powerful tool that lets you target ad content to users who have already
visited your website. When a user visits your site and doesn’t make a purchase, you can
use remarketing to show them relevant ads on the Google Display Network, on mobile apps,
or on Google Search. This can bring them back to your website and encourage them to make a purchase.
To enable Remarketing in Google Analytics, you need to first enable Advertising Features
in your Analytics property settings.
In the Admin section, click on “Tracking Info” and then “Data Collection.”
Then set Remarketing and Advertising Reporting Features to “on.”
You will also need to link your Google AdWords or DoubleClick Bid Manager account to Analytics.
Once you’ve set up remarketing, you can create specific “Audiences” that let you
target groups of users based on common attributes. Audiences are made up of browser cookies from
users that visited a site with Google Analytics implemented and the remarketing tracking code
enabled. Audiences allow you to target ads to those
users. For example you can create a Remarketing audience that includes users who visited a
specific page of your website or clicked to play a video.
Since website remarketing utilizes browser cookies, creating remarketing audiences in
Analytics doesn’t require any additional tagging on your website. But note that if
a user clears their browser cookies, they will no longer be a part of the remarketing
audience you created until they visit your site again.
To get started, click “Admin” and then “Audience Definitions” under the property
you wish to use for this audience list.
Click “Audiences.”
Then click “New Audience.”
Select the view and account you want the audience list attached to. Click Next Step.
Now you can define your audience from a preconfigured list of audience definitions. You can mouse
over the question mark next to each Audience to learn more about the users that those Audiences
target. If you click on an Audience, you can see an estimate of the users in that audience
over the last seven days.
You can set how long users are eligible to be served remarketing ads using the membership
duration. You can set Membership duration for your audience from 1 to 540 days.
If you wish to design a more specific audience for your business, you can import a Segment
to use as the basis for that audience. Click Import Segment and choose from the segments
that are available in the current property or create an audience directly from the segment picker itself.
You can also define a new Audience from scratch. Notice that the Audience Builder is very similar
to the “Custom Segment” builder. The Google Merchandise Store can remarket to users who
have viewed Android merchandise product pages. You can click Conditions from the options
on the left and create a filter for sessions in which “page” contains “android”.
When you finish configuring your audience, click “Apply.” You can see the estimated
number of users in the audience you just defined.
Audience lists will populate in the AdWords or Doubleclick account that you link to Analytics.
You can then use those products to create ad campaigns for those specific audiences.
If your Audience in Analytics meets the requirements for Search remarketing, it will be eligible
for both Search and Display remarketing in your AdWords account. An Audience list for
Google Search ads must have at least 1,000 users before it can be used. Note that Audiences
that include the Google Display Network's demographics dimensions “Age, Gender, Interests”
are not eligible for Search remarketing.
Remarketing is a powerful way of re-engaging users who have visited your website, but didn’t
complete a conversion or make a purchase. Google Analytics can help you define those
audiences based on user behavior and customize your campaigns to increase your conversions.