A website is more than a place to call home online. It’s your sales funnel.

For associations, that means more members, more attendance at your events, more sponsors and more educational products sold.

Your website, which is one of your largest marketing investments, should be built around a strategy that starts by providing value to your respective audiences.

And there is one digital marketing tactic that will quickly increase your website’s ROI.

Retargeting, which is sometimes called remarketing, is essentially an extension of your website. Simply put, it’s a digital service that keeps your brand in front of your web visitors after they have left your website. For example, do you remember seeing the ad of a familiar brand on every website you visit? Well, that means you are part of that brand’s retargeting campaign. In other words, that organization is engaging with people who already know them and like them. And that’s why retargeting results are extra special.

About 97% of your website visitors leave without buying anything – never to return. But retargeting can fix that problem. The click-through-rate (CTR) for retargeting ads are 10 times better than display ads (0.7 vs. 0.07) because they are targeting people who are already familiar with your association.

Here are eight hacks that will help you improve your association’s results with retargeting:

1. Upsell Existing Members for Associations

Create a list of converted members who have purchased items such as an event or educational products. Then, serve them customized ads. You can also create special lists for certain products. For example, retarget members who have purchased event tickets with ads that promote your new training course. More involvement from your members will mean more membership retention for your association.

2. Encourage Repeat Business To Sell More Educational Products

If your association sells educational products that are tied to one another, create a remarketing list with a specific membership duration. For example, if your data tells you that individuals who complete the beginners course opt for a mid-level course within 90 days, then create a list with a 30-day duration and one with a 90-day duration. Use a combination list to encourage the next sale.

3. Use Bid Strategies To Increase Conversions for Non-Dues Revenue

There are several bidding strategies that you can employ. If you are starting out and have few conversions, Enhanced CPC (cost-per-click) will adjust your manual bids for clicks that seem less likely to lead to a sale.

If conversions aren’t a challenge for your association, you may want to use Target CPA (cost-per-action), which will optimize bids in real-time, impression by impression to maximize your returns. Target ROAS (return-on-ad-spend) sets a maximum cost-per-click bid while trying to achieve an ad spend equal to your target.

Raising your bid to reach more members would help you improve your retargeting performance. You can also segment your web visitors on different lists based on durations, spending more money on the list that is more valuable.

4. Target Similar Audiences for More Sponsors

You can target “similar audiences”, which allows you to show ads to people who share characteristics with people on your existing retargeting lists.

According to Google, you can extend the reach of your campaigns toward new users by up to five times more than with retargeting lists alone. In addition, you will see 41% more conversions by combining similar audiences with display retargeting. Similar audiences are updated in real-time using machine learning that analyzes millions of behavior signals to optimize performance.

5. Leverage Auto-Targeting To Grow Membership

Campaigns on Google’s Display Network automatically use auto-targeting, which shows your ads to an audience that is similar to the one you originally targeted. But you can extend the reach by opting for more aggressive auto-targeting.

Expanding your targeting reach automatically with the targeting expansion feature is one of the quickest ways to improve performance.

Expansion works on contextual targeting, such as keywords, and similar audiences, based on your membership lists.

6. Use Dynamic Retargeting To Drive Attendees at Associations’ Events

Google can show products and services to your members and prospects who have previously viewed those products and services on your website. Google’s suggestion engine will decide which type of ad layout is most likely to perform best. To get started, create a basic .csv, .tsv, .xls, or .xlsx feed. The Google Ads product recommendation engine will pull products and services from your feed, determining the best mix of products for each ad based on popularity and what your members viewed on your site.

7. Tailor Your Association Ads to Match Your Retargeting Strategy

Creativity is just as important as your retargeting list strategy.

Make sure your ads are 1) relevant to the intended audience, 2) look and feel the same as your website and 3) motivate a high-valued response with a call-to-action.

Whether you are promoting membership at your association, an event or a product, you must provide specifics to help interested parties find your solution. Generic messaging isn’t helpful.

CMA launched a retargeting ad campaign that helped the Women’s Health Leadership TRUST drive attendance at its 2020 Forum, which was an online event. The campaign delivered 72,194 impressions and 98 clicks for two months leading up to the event. As a result, registration increased 20% and attendance jumped 19%, compared to results from the 2019 event.

8. Use Responsive Display Ads To Grow Your Association

Responsive display ads can save you time and money by automatically adjusting their size and appearance to fit any available space, ranging from banner ads on one website to dynamic text on another website.

Responsive display ads are replacing responsive ads as the default ad type for Google’s Display Network. They can be used in standard Display campaigns as well as Smart Display campaigns.

By attaching a feed to your campaigns, you can make your responsive display ads work with dynamic marketing. Responsive ads show personalized content to customers from a feed you control and add to your campaign. If you add a feed to your campaign, your ads will show in both dynamic and static formats.

If your association is ready to maximize the investment you made in your website, CMA can develop multiple retargeting campaigns to monetize your existing members and soon-to-be members. Contact us today to get started.