Retargeting 101 + how to retarget Eloqua Contacts on social channels

May 14, 2021 Chuck Leddy

As every B2B marketer knows, the buying journey goes way beyond a single interaction to encompass multiple touch points. For example, of all the prospects who might visit an eCommerce website for the first time, 97% of them leave without buying anything, according to Business Insider. Research from Moz says that 30% of visitors to an eCommerce website place an item in their cart, but only 3% will actually make a purchase. Conversion takes time. 

For marketers, the key to converting a prospect into a buyer is simple: you have to stay in touch, keep the interactions going. Website guru Neil Patel refers to “the rule of 7,” meaning prospects need to see you seven times before they’ll purchase anything. In the world of B2B, the “rule of 7” sounds optimistic -- you’ll typically need a lot more than seven interactions to close a deal.

What is retargeting?

Retargeting reminds your prospects about your products and services after they’ve visited your website or otherwise digitally interacted with you. In layman’s terms, retargeting enables you to follow the digital breadcrumbs your prospects/customers leave behind and use them to keep the interaction(s) going. B2B Marketers can craft retargeting campaigns with the help of Google Ads, Facebook retargeting, LinkedIn Ads and other retargeting advertising platforms. Marketers leverage retargeting to (yes) re-connect with prospects and customers, as well as to boost revenues and customer retention. 

Retargeting is a popular tactic because it works. Retargeted website visitors are 43% more likely to convert into buyers than non-retargeted visitors, according to research from Criteo. Imagine, retargeting an eCommerce prospect who places a certain product in her cart, only to abandon the cart and leave your website. Why did she “show buying intent” but then abandon the cart? Well, you might never know -- but if you retarget this prospect, sending her a message that includes a 15% discount on the abandoned product, you have a good chance of reinforcing that prior buying intent and converting that “lost” prospect into a buyer.

The retargeting eco-system

Social media platforms have an interest in enabling retargeting, of course. Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are extremely popular, with billions of users, and have business models that convert their traffic into massive amounts of advertising dollars (which is why these platforms are so often free to users -- because social media companies sell their user’s attention to marketers and other third parties). Marketers, of course, want to go where their customers and prospects are going, which includes social media channels. Hence, retargeting:

  • Facebook Lead Ads, for example, enables marketers to generate high-quality, low cost leads directly within Facebook. It will pull your leads in from Facebook in real-time and push them into your marketing automation platform, so you can easily nurture and transform those leads into sales revenue for your business.

  • LinkedIn Campaign Manager enables marketers to raise awareness with native ads, build relationships and drive better lead generation efforts through the world’s top professional social platform, which includes over 690 million global business professionals. By leveraging the Campaign Manager app for LinkedIn, B2B marketers are able to retarget a specific set of Oracle Eloqua contacts with digital advertisements on LinkedIn.

“There’s an app for that . . .”

During our April Eloqua User Group meeting, Karin “KP” Pindle presented the topic, How to Retarget Eloqua Contacts on Social Media. Pindle, a Senior Marketing Automation Specialist at Sojourn, explained that a number of free and paid applications/apps exist that integrate with Eloqua and facilitate retargeting efforts on social media channels.

Pindle explained how to add these “retargeting apps” by going to the Oracle Cloud Marketplace, where you can find a large catalogue of apps (free and paid) for Eloqua. Once you access the app marketplace, Pindle says, “you can just search the words social media,” and you’ll be shown a list of apps you can download and configure for Eloqua.

In order to push people from Eloqua to your social channels, for instance, Pindle suggests:

  • LinkedIn Matched Audience (free), which adds Eloqua contacts to an LI matched audience;

  • Google Ads Custom Audiences (paid), which adds Eloqua contacts to a Google Ads custom audience.

In order to add contacts to Eloqua from your social channels, Pindle suggests:

  • LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms (free), which add LI ad form submitters to your Eloqua campaign canvas;

  • Facebook Lead Ads (free), which add Facebook ad form submitters to your Eloqua campaign canvas.

Pindle mentioned that no apps currently exist to help with retargeting for Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. 

Using retargeting apps in Eloqua

Pindle’s presentation included a demonstration of how retargeting could easily be set up in Eloqua’s campaign canvas. “You might add a feeder from LinkedIn or Facebook forms,” she said, “and then automate messaging, maybe sending an email asking a prospect to register for the next Eloqua User Group meeting.” It’s fairly simple and straightforward to set up the apps and automate messaging via Eloqua’s campaign canvas, says Pindle. She did exactly that during her presentation. 

You can even blend SMS messages into a retargeting campaign, says Pindle. “Right now, you need an app (paid) to send messages in Eloqua, but a native SMS integration should be available from Eloqua in 2022,” she says. Blending apps that facilitate retargeting in Eloqua doesn’t require much technical ability at all -- it’s just a matter of deciding to begin and seeing what works best for your particular marketing needs.

Use retargeting efforts as a way to continue customer conversations across multiple channels and drive conversions. Oracle Eloqua helps you do just that.

Interested in learning more about retargeting, and/or setting up retargeting campaigns in Eloqua? We can help - feel free to reach out to us here.

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