5 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Get the pixel in before you buy the traffic
Most first time visitors will not convert, and retargeting is the net that brings them back, so install the tracking before any spend and you can later offer a course or lead magnet to somebody who is no longer a stranger. One founder whose broad campaigns failed outright reports a good experience showing ads only to previous visitors, because you are paying to reach individuals who already showed interest rather than a demographic; another splits roughly five sixths of a daily budget into cold audiences and the rest into returning people to whichever step they abandoned. The dissent is specific and worth taking seriously: retargeting people who already reached your pricing page mostly bills you for conversions you were going to get anyway, so compare cash in the bank before and after rather than the dashboard.
Where this splits
Four builders treat retargeting as the paid audience that reliably converts, while another argues it largely charges you for sales you would have made anyway.
4 claims against 1
Austin Church · Greg Hickman · Jordi Giménez · Kurt Elster
Retarget the visitors who already showed interest
- 01Get the retargeting pixel in place before you spend, so the same readers can later be offered the email course or lead magnet by someone who is no longer a stranger.
- 02Retarget the visitors who engaged and left, since most first-time visitors will not convert and paid retargeting is the net that returns them.
Retargeting bills you for sales you already had
Retargeting people who already reached your pricing page mostly bills you for conversions you were going to get anyway, so compare cash in the bank before and after the spend rather than the dashboard.
- 03Retargeting works where cold advertising does not, because you are paying to reach individuals who already showed interest rather than a demographic.
- 04Split the ad budget between cold prospecting into the webinar and retargeting people who dropped out, sending them back to whichever step they abandoned.
What it returned
- $50
Kurt runs Facebook retargeting across devices on a budget of $50 a month.
- $600
Greg spends about $600 a day, roughly $500 of it on cold lookalike audiences into the webinar and the rest on retargeting, producing 50 to 60 applications a month.
Bugfender reports a good experience showing Facebook ads only to people who had previously visited the site, in contrast to their broad campaigns.
Sources
- Facebook Ad Manager is lying to youChris Frantz · chrisfrantz.com · 2020-05-08 · dissenting
- Marketing Automation: Sell While You Sleep - Double Your FreelancingKurt Elster · doubleyourfreelancing.com · Marketing Automation Tools · 2015-08-20
- S02 Episode 3: How to Value Your Funnel with Greg Hickman - Double Your FreelancingGreg Hickman · doubleyourfreelancing.com · S02 Episode 3: How to Value Your Funnel with Greg Hickman · 2018-05-01
- The Ultimate Guide to Building Client Relationships - Double Your FreelancingAustin Church · doubleyourfreelancing.com · Run Facebook ads to your flagship posts. · 2016-09-12
- Bugfender: Scaling an Internal Remote Logger to €9,000/MonthJordi Giménez · failory.com · Which were your marketing strategies to grow your business? · undated
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
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