Retargeting in Affiliate Marketing: How to Bring Back Traffic and Boost Conversions

What Is Retargeting in Affiliate Marketing?

A retargeting strategy lets you reconnect with users who have already seen your communications to give them another opportunity to convert.

How retargeting works

Let’s say that User A clicked the ad but didn’t sign up. You can retarget them by showing the same ad (or a different one, depending on how you structured your funnel) to nudge them into conversion.

Why it matters for affiliates

Retargeting ads are useful for affiliates because they help them squeeze more revenue out of their target market. Since there’s an assumption of a higher level of familiarity with the brand or offer, they’re also easier to convert.

Why and When to Use Retargeting

Should you create retargeting ads? If the following benefits and conditions resonate with you, doing so may be the right move:

Benefits of bringing users back

Having retargeting as part of your campaign setup allows you to:

• Improve ROI from the traffic you have already paid for
• Work with warm leads that are easier to convert
• Further build familiarity and trust with your audience

Not everyone will be converted right away. However, by knowing how to use retargeting, you’ll be in a position to convince users to purchase.

When retargeting works best

Under these conditions, you’re more likely to yield better outcomes:

• There’s a special offer for retargeted users.
• You’re running a multi-step funnel where a user can fall off before actual conversion.
• There is a clear conversion goal, like lead generation or purchase.

Ideally, you will have already driven a few hundred unique clicks. You get a potentially higher revenue from your efforts to retarget lost users.

Top Retargeting Formats for Affiliates

You can use various formats to try to convert users. The most suitable ones will depend on the traffic source, user behavior, and type of offer.

Push notifications and in-page push

Push retargeting is highly effective for incentive-driven messaging and time-sensitive offers, and it’s most common when targeting dating and iGaming traffic. In-page push retargeting is appropriate for the same verticals, except that the user doesn’t have to subscribe to the alerts.

Email and direct messaging

Email retargeting is only possible if you already have access to the necessary user data. This is usually the case with multi-step campaigns or verticals where there’s a longer purchase cycle, such as health and B2B.

Banner-based and pop retargeting

Banner-based and pop traffic retargeting is great when there’s an assumed mass appeal. For example, a $100 Amazon gift card giveaway will be attractive to most people.

How to Set Up Retargeting Campaigns

After identifying the traffic type that you’ll use, you can start setting up your retargeting campaign. 

Track with pixels and postbacks

There are two ways to track user activity. The first is through pixels, which insert small bits of code into your campaign assets. These allow you to monitor clicks, views, and behavior. Meanwhile, postbacks log conversions without cookies.

Segment your audience and create triggers

With the data from pixels and/or postbacks, you can now segment your audience. Here, you can use existing behavior, such as cart abandonment or page views. Then, based on this behavior, create triggers like showing the ad right away if they didn’t complete the signup process. Feel free to identify more than one trigger.

Find the right creatives and timing

Although it can make sense to use the same ad, making new creatives is sensible if there is a way to personalize the content even further. Test different combinations of content and timing to find out which will work best for you.

How Retargeting Impacts Conversions

Even though this means additional work, it will almost always make sense to implement retargeting in affiliate marketing. Here’s why:

It uplifts your conversion rates

This is especially true in verticals where the user may not make a purchase decision right away.  And since you’re already paying for the traffic, even a small increase in conversion rates can mean a decent surge in ROI. 

Metrics to watch

The metrics that will matter most to you will depend on why you’re running a retargeting campaign in the first place. Usually, you’ll need at least some of the following data:

• Click-through rate for monitoring user engagement
• Conversion rate to see how many people complete a purchase
• Cost per action to see how much the campaign is bringing down the cost per result.

Monitor the frequency as well. Showing the same ads too often may induce ad blindness.

Integrating retargeting into your funnel

In affiliate marketing, retargeting should be a part of your campaign setup. So, instead of the user falling off completely, they’ll be “caught” by the retargeting, giving you another chance to convert them. For multi-stage funnels, you may need to create many offshoots to capture every potential lead and sale.