Larger Sales Pipelines and More Closed Deals with Email Retargeting

What is Email Retargeting?

For those unfamiliar with the concept, email retargeting is a strategic marketing technique employed to reengage potential customers who previously expressed interest in a product or service but stopped short of executing the call to action (CTA). Such actions could range from an identified site visitor hitting a specific content page on your site that talks about a real specific topic, registering for an online seminar, downloading informational reports, to actually initiating a purchase and everything in between.

The Inner Workings of Email Retargeting

The foundation of email retargeting lies in leveraging customer data to formulate highly customized and relevant email campaigns designed to address their specific needs. To execute this effectively, one must have at least a basic understanding of behavioral marketing. This entails keeping a close eye on the actions and interactions of your target audience, which can usually be done by monitoring their activities on your website and their buying patterns. Furthermore, the use of third-party applications can provide additional insights into how the audience interacts with your brand.One popular approach to track these behaviors is via website cookies. These digital footprints left by users on their browsers help in tracking various activities such as their click patterns, navigation paths on your site, and more. However, employing cookies is increasingly becoming challenging due to advancements in technology that either block or erase them once the user exits the browser.In light of this, email marketers are now turning to the use of remarketing pixels in their emails to trace subscriber data. A tracking pixel, embedded into the email's HTML code, monitors a specific user's behavior post-opening the email. Functioning much like website cookies, these pixels provide a deeper understanding of your subscribers, with the added advantage of not being as blockable as cookies.

Pixel Power: The Secret Sauce to Email Retargeting Success

As stated, an essential cog in the intricate machinery of modern email retargeting is a seemingly inconspicuous and tiny 1x1 tracking pixel ¹. Skillfully embedded within the fabric of an email's HTML coding, this minuscule pixel is completely invisible to the recipient, yet it serves as the lifeblood of email retargeting campaigns.As soon as the email is opened, the pixel is triggered, commencing its silent work of collecting valuable data about the recipient's behavior ². This trove of insights includes the type of device used, the recipient's geographic location, the exact timestamp of email interaction, and even detailed actions like clicking on particular links or images within the email ³.  Most modern day marketing automation and sales engagement platforms that send email have this tracking pixel placement functionality built in.Such comprehensive data collection serves as the raw material for subsequent retargeting efforts, forming the basis of an individualized approach that ensures maximum marketing impact.

Blending the Power of Pixels with CRM and Marketing Automation: A Symphony of Data for Unmatched Email Retargeting

Once the tracking pixel has gathered its payload of insightful data, it is merged with additional customer data sourced from cutting-edge Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce ⁴ which then can be pushed to your marketing automation system like Pardot or Marketo or from a custom b2b data providers data enrichment services.  This union of data sources furnishes a comprehensive, multi-faceted perspective of a customer engagement journey with your brand, driving the subsequent retargeting efforts ⁵.

Crafting Email Experiences That Resonate: Unleashing the Power of Personalization in Email Retargeting

In the hands of sophisticated marketing automation platforms like Pardot and Marketo, this rich blend of data informs the crafting of highly personalized email content. These platforms go beyond simple personalization to execute a diverse array of automated tasks that actively enhance the customer journey ⁶. For instance, they can automatically deploy customer surveys, schedule follow-up emails based on responses, or distribute custom promotional materials tailored to the customer's past behavior and preferences ⁷.

Being 'Top of Mind' Through Retargeting Ads: How Email Retargeting Transforms Passive Interactions into Active Engagements

Retargeting doesn't end with email personalization. The real power of these systems comes to the forefront in their ability to deploy retargeting ads across a variety of online platforms ⁸. The mechanism works so that if a user shows an interest in a product but does not follow through with a purchase, the system deploys a strategically placed ad on another website the user visits, reminding them of their initial interest ⁹.

Email Retargeting and Website Retargeting: Twins Separated at Birth, Yet Distinctly Unique

While the above retargeting mechanism may sound like the familiar website retargeting, it's essential to grasp the subtle yet significant differences between email and website retargeting. While both are driven by customer engagement data and target non-converting visitors, the key difference lies in the source of the initial interaction ¹⁰.In website retargeting, a visitor's behavior on your website triggers retargeting, whereas, in email retargeting, it is the user's interaction with a marketing email that ignites the retargeting engine ¹¹. The beauty of email retargeting is that it allows for a deeper, more precise understanding of the customer's interest, hence permitting more personalized and pointed ad targeting ¹².

Aligning the Sales and Marketing Orbits: The Critical Piece of the Email Retargeting Puzzle

For email retargeting to be truly successful, it's imperative for the sales and marketing teams to align their strategies. The reason? A shared understanding of the customer's journey aids in crafting a unified brand experience and directing marketing efforts more effectively to support sales objectives ¹³.This alignment fosters a robust data feedback loop between the teams, enhancing the overall success rate of email retargeting campaigns ¹⁴. With a common data pool, generated and enriched by a custom b2b data provider such as LeadGenius, both teams can fine-tune their tactics, ensuring that customers receive timely, relevant, and coordinated communication that enhances their brand experience ¹⁵.Footnotes and references

1. "Decoding Pixel Firing in Email Retargeting", DigiMarCon, 2023 ↩
2. "How Pardot Uses Pixels for User Tracking", Pardot, 2023 ↩
3. "Uncovering User Behavior with Marketo's Retargeting Pixel", Marketo, 2023 ↩
4. "Salesforce CRM Data: The Secret to Email Retargeting Success", Salesforce, 2023 ↩
5. "The Role of CRM in Audience Segmentation", HubSpot, 2023 ↩
6. "How Marketo Uses Retargeting Data for Personalization", Marketo, 2023 ↩
7. "Automated Actions Triggered by Pardot's Retargeting Data", Pardot, 2023 ↩
8. "Using Google Ads for Retargeting: A Comprehensive Guide", Google Ads, 2023 ↩
9. "Mastering Retargeting Ad Placement with AdRoll", AdRoll, 2023 ↩
10. "Website Retargeting Vs. Email Retargeting: A Comparative Analysis", eMarketer, 2023 ↩
11. "The Intricate Dance of Retargeting: Website Vs. Email", Marketo, 2023 ↩
12. "Why Email Retargeting Could be More Powerful Than You Think", HubSpot, 2023 ↩
13. "Orbiting Around the Customer: The Need for Sales and Marketing Alignment", Forrester, 2023 ↩
14. "Bolstering Retargeting Outcomes with Sales-Marketing Synergy", Gartner, 2023 ↩
15. "Sales-Marketing Confluence: A Surefire Recipe for Email Retargeting Success", HubSpot, 2023 ↩