Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
Page conversion rates have always been a problem. The simple fact is Most people don't convert even on the best optimized sites.
This is why traditional retargeting on ad networks is so damn effective. Retargeting leads are cheap, but they are still not free. Worse, you're back to competing with your competition in the old ad auction system.
For the past 6 years I have used a tactic called “ Inbox retargeting to find out who ends up on my key pages and direct Contact them in their inbox.
No more advertising. No more auctions. Just a targeted outreach that showed interest but hadn't quite taken the plunge yet.
Before I get into the “what” and “how,” this tactic can only be used in the good old USA of A. If you're not in the states or don't have clients in the states, good luck out there. Excuse me!
How it works
Inbox retargeting doesn’t require much effort. Next I will present the strategy, but I wanted to start with some of the logistics.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer or a programmer. So keep this in mind when technical or legal questions arise.
If you have a website, you have tracking scripts e.g. E.g. GA4, the Facebook Pixel, heatmap software etc.
To get started with inbox retargeting, all you need to be able to do is copy and paste two scripts onto your website:
- A collection script: This will fire and attempt to identify the visitor
A script of oppression: You would trigger this on your conversion confirmation pages. You don't want people who converted to end up in your inbox retargeting campaigns.
The technology is based on a database of contacts in the United States who are eligible to receive email, so it is fully consistent with your ESP. However, there are a few things you should do before treating them like a regular member of your email list.
We initially tested this in one of our paid media campaigns. We already had a really strong campaign that we wanted to get more leads out of… and we did that.
We drove traffic from Meta (Facebook for the OGs) to this landing page:
The conversion rate of this page is 58%. Yes, that's a humble brag…deal with it.
Even with a 58% conversion rate, we are still missing out on 42% of them Traffic we have already paid for. That's kind of a shame.
After we added the capture script to the page, they were able to capture a lot more clues. The conversion rate increased from 58% to a very sweet 87% – that’s an increase of 50%!
That was the impact on a single page, that's when we knew it was time to go bigger.
The strategy
Most of the tools available, be it Retention.com or Customers.ai, charge based on the number of contacts. So it can be pretty easy to burn contact credits if you run the script on every page you manage, including your website and your clients' websites.
For this reason, you should make sure you choose pages that capture your intent and don't target all of your traffic.
ID key pages
Here are some of the pages where you should add the collection script:
- Campaign landing pages – When you pay to direct someone to a page, the referring source has piqued their interest. If they didn't convert, you should definitely follow up.
- Product pages – When someone views this page, they are rating a specific product that they were interested in.
- High intent/value content pages – This could be your main content on your blog pages, podcast pages, or your top-level service pages.
- Registration pages – This is a subsection of a landing page, but if someone has gotten to a registration or sight-up page, they are a prime candidate for contact.
- Shopping cart pages – There are people abandoning their shopping carts all the time. If you were unable to recognize your details during the checkout process, this is an ideal opportunity.
Essentially, this is any page where you drive a specific action. While the above pages are pages to choose from, a homepage is acceptable but requires a bit more finesse in further editing.
Assign to email campaigns
Now that you've determined where you want to identify leads, you need to map them to your automation tool.
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Most tools have direct integration with your email service provider. However, in a worst-case scenario, you may need to route the data through a no-code integration tool like Zapier.
Once you have clarified the digital context, you should follow up using the page on which the contact was recorded. Here's how you should follow up:
- For campaign landing pages – Give them the specific asset. You were interested, you have your contact details, just hand in the goods. This builds goodwill at the beginning of the relationship.
- Product pages – Send us the details of the product or product category you viewed. This can be a simple reminder or you can build goodwill with a special offer or coupon.
- High intent/value content pages – Send some of your best content or giveaways that move people to the next phase of the customer value journey.
- Registration pages – Treat this like an “abandoned cart” email and get them to take the next step.
- Shopping cart pages – Same as “Registration Pages”, but it’s actually an abandoned cart reminder. Similar to product pages, you could entice them to come back with an offer or coupon.
- Homepages – Publishing these on the homepage means you have to relaunch rather than move on to showcasing your best content.
Email structure
The first message you send needs to have a very specific flow. There are four critical Things that need to happen when they open your inbox retargeting message.
First, Remind her about who you are and how they know you. This can be as simple as a “Hey, thanks for stopping by…” message. Have fun with it.
Next you need to deploy very specific value based on their browsing intent. If you get this wrong, your message will simply be filed in the SPAM section.
After that you have to do it Set expectations with what they get and now you will communicate with them in the future.
And finally, you have to do it Give them an EASY OUT. These campaigns have our highest unsubscribe rate, but that's because we directly ask people to unsubscribe if they don't want further contact.
Once you've worked through this, treat them like one of your regular subscribers with all your fancy promotion automations, content emails, and promotional emails.
Here are the email stats from one of our PPC campaigns:
With an average open rate of 53.87%, we know there is underlying interest in the result. CTR is pretty darn good for notifying visitors who didn't convert.
Sure, the unsubscribe rate for this campaign is a bit high, but that's intentional. We ask them to unsubscribe in the first email so that we are not overwhelmed with complaints later.
The payout: Another 109,000 last year
I mean, who wouldn't want another 100 grand for adding a script to your website and writing some emails? This is how the numbers work out:
Last year we identified 3,714 leads using this method. IMPORTANT: When I pulled these numbers, I noticed that we installed the code incorrectly on some sites lost with about another 2,000 leads… oops!
Our average lead cost was about $7, so the leads themselves represented $26,000 in value. The alone would be a reason to use the technology.
BUT JUSTIN, are you converted?!
Yes!
We closed a $36,000 IPPC deal with this lead source. For what we spent on these leads, we expect a ROAS of 750%. Not too shabby.
The rest of the money we made came from sale offer this service to our customers. Since we run paid ads for our clients, this method is a no-brainer. We ran a pilot program and offered it to just a handful of customers last year. On average we achieved sales of around 4,000 per month.
For some of the niches we operate in, we have sold leads to our clients for around $2/lead. that's a bargain.
If you decide to sell, you need to make sure the customer knows this is the case lesser intention leads and requires long-term care. If you follow the email strategy I outlined above, you're good to go!
Pro tip: Fee for setting up the follow-up sequence!
That's it! If you run your own business or are an agency owner, you need to think about inbox retargeting. However, I also have bad news…
I don’t want to be “Chicken Little,” but this is getting slow much more attention, there are services that stick out of the woodwork, so this becomes a table stakes method. So take one step further today.
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
