Retargeting and Remarketing
Most of the money spent on marketing goes toward reaching people who have never heard of you. Meanwhile there are three groups who already know your business and are considerably cheaper to convert.
People who visited your website and left. People who enquired and went quiet. And people who hired you once and have not been back.
The Cheapest Customers Are the Ones Who Already Know You
A stranger has to learn who you are, decide whether to trust you, and then choose you over the alternatives. That takes several touches and it costs real money.
Someone who has already been on your website has done part of that work. Someone who called you last spring has done all of it.
Most service businesses spend everything on the first group and nothing on the other two. That is usually where the easiest growth is sitting.
Three Groups, Three Approaches
They visited your site and did not get in touch
Very few people contact a business on the first visit, especially for work that takes planning. They look at three or four companies over a fortnight and pick one.
Retargeting keeps you visible during that fortnight. Ads on Google, Facebook and Instagram shown to people who have actually been on your site, so you are the company they keep seeing while they compare. It works best for considered purchases. Remodelling, roof replacement, cosmetic treatments, anything where the decision takes weeks rather than minutes.
They enquired and went quiet
This is the warmest lead your business will ever have. They raised their hand, then the timing was wrong, or the budget was not there yet, or they got busy.
Most businesses call twice, get voicemail, and write them off. The lead was never dead, it just was not ready that week.
Nurture sequences keep you in front of them until the timing changes. Useful content, seasonal reminders, a reason to come back, sent at a pace that keeps you familiar rather than annoying.
They hired you once and have not come back
Your past customer list is the most underused asset in most service businesses. These people have paid you before. They know your work. There is no trust to build.
We run email campaigns to that list. Seasonal reminders, maintenance they are due for, services they do not know you offer, and offers timed around when they are most likely to need you again.
This is usually the cheapest work a business can generate, and almost nobody does it consistently.
What We Build
Audiences built from real behaviour
Retargeting audiences from actual website visitors, segmented by what they looked at. Someone who spent five minutes on your bathroom remodelling page is not the same prospect as someone who bounced off the homepage.
Messaging matched to where they are
Someone comparing companies needs proof and reassurance. Someone who enquired needs a reason to come back to it. A past customer needs a reminder and a relevant offer. Same business, three different messages.
Your past customer list, handled properly
We clean and segment the list, set up the sending infrastructure so it lands in inboxes rather than spam, and manage unsubscribes and compliance. A list that gets marked as spam is worth less than no list at all.
Campaigns built around your calendar
Seasonal work, maintenance intervals and the services customers forget you offer. Timed to when they are actually relevant rather than sent on a fixed schedule.
Tracking by source
Every booked job traced back to which campaign produced it, so you can see what this is actually worth rather than assuming.
What Makes This Work or Fail
A list is only as good as its condition. If your customer records are scattered across a notebook, an old CRM and your phone, that is the first job. It is worth doing regardless.
Frequency decides everything. Too little and you are forgotten. Too much and you are marked as spam, which damages your ability to reach anyone. We set the pace around your service and your seasonality.
You need something to say. A reminder that you exist performs poorly. A reminder that their system is due for a service, or that you now do something they did not know about, performs well.
Retargeting needs enough traffic to work with. If your site gets very few visitors, there is nobody to retarget yet, and the honest answer is to fix visibility first.
Who This Is For
Is This Right for Your Business?
This works well when:
- You have a customer list, even a messy one
- Your service has a repeat or seasonal element
- Your website gets enough traffic for retargeting audiences to build
- Your work is considered rather than purely emergency
- You have services your past customers do not know about
This is not the first thing to fix if:
- You have very few past customers and very little website traffic
- You have no way to contact past customers, no emails and no phone numbers
- Your bigger problem is that nobody is finding you in the first place
If visibility is the real problem, we will tell you that and point you at what actually fixes it.
How It’s Delivered
Where This Sits in Your Growth System
Retargeting and past customer reactivation are demand generation, so they are built inside the Customer Acquisition System alongside your paid campaigns.
Follow-up on leads who enquired and did not book runs through the Speed to Lead System, which handles every inquiry your business receives from the moment it arrives.
Most businesses running one benefit from the other. We work out which combination fits on the roadmap call.
Frequently Asked Questions.
What is the difference between retargeting and remarketing?
The terms get used interchangeably. Generally, retargeting means paid ads shown to people who visited your website, and remarketing means direct outreach by email or text to leads and past customers. We do both, and which matters more depends on whether your bigger opportunity is website visitors or your existing customer list.
Will retargeting ads annoy people?
Only if the frequency is wrong. We cap how often someone sees your ads and stop showing them after a set period. Done properly it reads as a company that is established and everywhere. Done badly it reads as a company following you around the internet.
My customer list is a mess. Is it still usable?
Usually yes, and cleaning it up is part of the work. Duplicates, missing emails, outdated details. Even a partial list with a few hundred real contacts is worth more than most businesses realise.
Is emailing past customers legal?
Yes, when it is done properly. Past customers are an existing business relationship, which is the basis for contacting them. Every email includes a clear unsubscribe, opt-outs are honoured immediately, and we follow the applicable rules. We do not buy lists or email people who never did business with you.
How often should past customers hear from us?
Depends on your service. Something seasonal might justify contact every few months. Something people need every few years should be far less frequent. Too often costs you the list, so we set the pace around your business rather than a template.
How do I know if this is producing anything?
Every booked job is tracked back to the campaign that produced it. Reactivation in particular is easy to measure, since you know exactly who was contacted and what they booked.
Can I buy this on its own?
No. It is delivered inside your growth system, because retargeting and reactivation only work when they connect to the traffic, the leads and the tracking around them. This page exists so you can see exactly what the work involves.
Start With Your Growth Roadmap
We will look at your website traffic, the leads you have that never closed, and the customer list you already have, and tell you which of the three is worth going after first.