The How and Why of Retargeting: A Guide to Maximizing Your Marketing Dollars

Did you know that 98 percent of the leads who visit your website leave without converting? What may seem like a disappointing statistic is actually an opportunity — if you know how to retarget your advertising. In this guide, we’ll tell you what retargeting is, how it works, and how you can use it to convert more leads and make your advertising dollars count!

What is Retargeting?

Retargeting is simple — it’s when you show ads to people on other pages they visit after visiting your website. Have you ever been shopping for something, left the site without buying, and seen an ad for that product on a completely different website? That’s retargeting!

In this guide, we’ll cover site-based retargeting, which serves ads to people visiting your website. The ads show up on other websites the person visits, keeping your gym top of mind for your leads.

Other Types of Retargeting

1. Search Retargeting: Advertising to people who use certain keywords or phrases in a search engine. This type of advertising makes assumptions about the searcher’s intent and is less targeted than focusing on people who visit your site.
2. Email Retargeting: This is the next level up from site retargeting! With email retargeting, you can focus ads on people who opened certain emails. For example, if you send out an email about a nutrition challenge, you can use email retargeting to show those people ads promoting the challenge.
3. Social Retargeting: This is similar to site retargeting but also shows ads to people who visit or interact with your social media page.

These are all great techniques because they are not just advertising — retargeting is also an excellent brand-building technique, keeping your gym in front of people who’ve visited your site.

How Retargeting Works

In a nutshell, retargeting places an anonymous cookie in the browser of every person who visits your website. When they leave your website and visit another site, they’ll see ads for your gym as they browse the internet or use mobile apps.

Any digital marketer (like Zen Planner) can provide you with a few lines of code that will drop an anonymous browser cookie. This cookie stores the information that the lead visited your site but won’t store sensitive information like the visitor’s name, address, or any information that would reveal the person’s identity.

When that person visits another site, the cookie alerts your digital marketer. If there’s space available, the marketer bids on that space in real-time. If they are the highest bidder — within the budget you’ve set ahead of time — they will secure the ad space before the page loads.

This is all automatic and happens almost instantly! Once everything is set up, you don’t have to manage the process at all. People interested in your gym will automatically see ads showing them how you can help them meet their goals even after they’ve left your site. Retargeting is a great way to make sure no lead gets left behind!

Why Gyms Should Use Retargeting

When someone visits your gym’s website they are likely feeling excited, motivated, and looking forward to trying something new and meeting their goals. However, joining a gym is a big decision! It’s not a one-time purchase like buying a pair of shoes, but an ongoing commitment. Making a decision could take some time.

The beauty of retargeting is you have an opportunity to stay in front of people who are interested but holding back for some reason. Maybe they got interrupted by work or a family member, maybe they need time to gather up their courage. Whatever the reason, a person who visits your website without taking any action is someone you want to pursue. As we discussed at the beginning of this guide, that covers 98 percent of the people who visit your website!

While the mechanics of retargeting are fairly straightforward, you can make some mistakes when writing and designing your ads, deciding on the frequency of your retargeting, and how you measure and track success. (When you use Zen Planner, we make sure you don’t make any of these mistakes!)

Common Retargeting Mistakes

1. Showing Too Many Impressions

While you want to stay in front of people who’ve expressed interest in your gym, you don’t want to become annoying! This is very easy to avoid. Just set a frequency cap on the number of impressions for each user.

2. Not Showing Enough Impressions

The flip side of showing too many retargeting ads is not showing enough. Like most things in life, it’s all about balance! One of the goals of retargeting is to build brand awareness. This is only possible through repetition. Most marketers agree that the optimal number of impressions per user is 17 to 20 each month.

3. Using the Same Creative for Too Long

No matter how good your ad is, eventually, it will go stale. Most research shows that click-through rates decrease by almost 50 percent after five months of seeing the same ad. We suggest creating at least three versions of each type of ad and changing them up every few months.

4. Failing to Measure Success

The agency handling your retargeting will be able to provide you with data about how your ads are working. (Analytics are included when you work with Zen Planner.) However, most people don’t click on the ads. Instead, they are more likely to see the ad, get reminded of their interest in your gym, and visit your website independently.

This is why it’s a good idea to set up a free Google Analytics account and track site visits and visitor loyalty. If you track how many people return to your site directly or through Google and see an increase corresponding to your retargeting campaigns, you’ll have a good sense that your retargeting is working.

5. Using Multiple Providers at the Same Time

It’s tempting to try different retargeting providers to see which works best, but this is ultimately not a good strategy. The biggest problem is that you’ll be bidding against yourself, which increases your advertising costs. It’s also hard to stay within your frequency limits if multiple agencies place ads simultaneously. Tests are always a good idea when advertising, but if you want to test different retargeting campaigns, run tests in different months using one provider at a time.

Get Help with Retargeting from Zen Planner

We know you’re busy running your gym. If you don’t have time to handle the details of marketing your gym, Zen Planner can help you attract and convert qualified leads with a la carte digital marketing packages. Just pick whatever services fit your needs and budget!

We offer content, creative services, and strategies that will bring in new members and grow your gym. Our Digital Marketing team has expertise across multiple channels, including Facebook, Instagram, and Google search ads. This means that wherever your members are, your gym will be too.

Our team will work with you to create high-converting campaigns for cold traffic and retargeting — ensuring you reach your ideal customers!

All digital marketing packages include a quarterly review with a marketing specialist so you can evaluate what works and plan future goals. The Zen Planner team has an entire group of people dedicated solely to building and optimizing paid ad strategies for gyms. Not only will we go to work for you, but we’ll get on a call with you every quarter to review results, talk strategy, and decide on the path forward.

Our Digital Marketing services include all the landing and thank you pages you need. Your future members are out there. We can help you find them.