A question that I have been asked a couple of times in the last week was if it was possible to define a re-marketing audience based on specific events.
This is a common issue on websites that link out other websites and also e-commerce websites that link to third party payment processors. In both cases, the marketer does not own the third party website and is therefore unable to add conversion tracking goals. This can be an issue when trying to remarket to people who have not converted.
This example, will focus on showing you how to:
Scenario 1: Exclude re-marketing to a user if they have gone to a page on a website AND clicked on a button that takes them to another site.
Scenario 2: Remarket to people who visit the same page in a website but NOT clicked on a button that takes them to another site..
The Solution
Re-marketing to visitors who completed an action that led to an action on another website is tricky. But it can be done if you use the Google Analytics re-marketing tag instead of the Adwords re-marketing tag.
This is because the Adwords re-marketing tag is URL based not Goal based. Therefore in instances where the goal is an action a user takes that is event based, it is better to use Analytics re-marketing.
This post makes the following assumptions:
- That you have set up analytics re-marketing by changing your existing Google Analytics code on your website.
- That your AdWords and Analytics account are linked so you can access the list within AdWords.
- That you have Admin access to Google analytics so you can create a goal.
- That you have enough visitors to your page for your re-marketing list to be effective.
Part 1: Creating a Remarketing List
1. The first step is to create a retargeting list for all site visitors who visited a specific page. To do this, you need to navigate to your Google Analytics account via your AdWords account.
2. Once you are in analytics, click on the admin tab on the right hand side.
3. Click on the “Remarketing” tab.
4. Select “+ New Remarketing List”
5. Ensure you have select the right website profile and choose the option “Visitors who visited a specific page/section of my site.”
Type in “/” and a list of your website pages will appear. Select the page that previous visitors had been exposed to in order to select the people that you wat to remarket to. Give your list a name that makes sense, set the membership duration and choose which AdWords account will use the re-marketing list.
Part one is now set up. You still need to create a list for people who you don’t want to remarket to so you can exclude them from your main re-marketing list later on. But first, we need to set up event tracking.
Part 2: Setting up an Event So It Is Recorded in Google Analytics
In this scenario above, we are going to track an action – the action being tracking people who click on a button that links to a third party website.
To do this, you need to add some code to the link that directs the user to the page. You can use any words to describe the event – in this case I have used the word “exitpoints” for the category, “click” for the action and “enquire” for the label. I have highlighted the code in red below. You may need to refer back to this later on when we create a goal.
<a onclick=”_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’,’ExitPoints’, ‘Click’, ‘Enquire’, 4])” href=”http://thirdpartydomain.com.au/”>
The code basically tells Google Analytics to record the click on the button as an event in Google Analytics.
The next step, is to record the event as goal in Google Analytics.
Part 3: Creating An Event As A Goal in Google Analytics
To add a goal in Google Analytics, go to your Google Analytics account and click on Admin like we did in Part One, Step 2 above.
1. Click on your web profile
2. Click on “Goals“
3. Select “Create a Goal“
4. Select “Custom” goal and then progress to the “next step.”
5. Give the Goal a name and select the Event Type of Goal. Then progress to the next step.
6. Complete the Event goal by the category, action and label names. Note that the words you use should be the same as the words when we added tracking code to the link on the button on the website in Part Two.
Now that we have a list for people who visited a page on the website and now that we have created an event and set it up as a goal in Google analytics, then next step is to create a remarketing list for those people that took action and clicked on the button.
Part 4: Creating a Custom Audience Based on Event Goals
1. To do this, follow steps 1 to 4 in Part One of this article.
2. Select the option “All Visitors who completed a conversion goal.” Give your list a name – for example XYZ Page Converters and set the membership duration. Ensure you are linked to the correct AdWords account and then choose “Save remarketing list.”
Part 5: Creating a Custom Remarketing Audience That Excludes Some Visitors
Now that our lists are created, we need to go back to AdWords and create our custom audience that includes all visitors who visited a certain but excludes those who converted.
1. To do this, you need to navigate to Shared Library in AdWords. Its located in the bottom right of the left hand column when you are on the campaigns tab.
2. Select “View ” under the Audiences section.
3. In the audience list, you will see the two re-marketing lists we created earlier in Google Analytics. We now need to create one more audience so we can exclude people who clicked the Enquire Now Button. To do this, Select “New Audience.”
4. From the Drop down menu, select “Custom Combination“
5. Write the name for your list in a way that makes sense in the combination name field. Give more detail in the description field. By default, the list will automatically be set to “Any of these audiences,” so you now need to select the audience that you want to remarket to. In this case, we want people who visited a certain page on the website.
6. After we have clicked on “Select Audiences“, you will be directed to “Interest Categories.” Click on Interest Categories and select “Remarketing Lists.”
7. Choose the list we created that will contain people who visited a specific page on the website. In this instance, we have chosen the audience of people who Visited Unique New System Page. You will need to click on the double arrow (>>) to select the audience so it moved to the right hand column.
8. Now add another audience to this list. Click on the second “any of the these audiences (OR)” box and select “none of these audiences.”
9. Once you have clicked “none of these audiences,” click the “select audiences” button.
10. Add the list of people who took action and clicked the enquire now button. Once you have done this, press save.
11. You should now see a audience that will contain a list of people who visited the unique new system page but who didn’t click on the enquire now button.
12. Now that you have your list, you can then go into Adwords, create an adgroup in your remarketing campaign that is linked to this audience.
As you can see Remarketing can be quite complex and time consuming to set up.