Re-engagement campaigns can increase lead generation yield by reigniting prior interest. Targeting non-converted inquiries, typically inquires three to 24 months old but the timeframe varies by industry and brand, marketers can squeeze additional conversions without incurring incremental lead generation fees.

Multi-Track Email Re-Engagement Campaigns

• Objective: Encourage movement to the next milestone within the customer journey.
• Sub-Objective: Identify consumers who are not likely to ever convert.

Emails Personalized to Match the Customer Journey

Multi-track email re-engagement campaigns use dynamic content to personalize creative elements, including name, product or service of interest, images and calls to action. Using responsive templates and click-to-call (CTC) technology, email re-engagement campaigns can provide mobile users with a quality, seamless experience to pick up where they left off on the conversion funnel.

Time- and Milestone-Triggered Emails

For most re-engagement email campaigns, once an individual enters a re-engagement campaign, they continue to receive emails based on time triggers for a specified period of time unless the next milestone in the conversion funnel is achieved. In addition to encouraging movement along the customer journey, re-engagement emails can be designed to clarify future intent. This allows the removal of individuals unlikely to ever convert.

Coordinate SMS Messages with Email Campaigns

Text messages, or SMS, coupled with time- and milestone-triggered email campaigns can trigger inbound calls or encourage prospective customers to schedule appointments. Plus, in many cases, the entire conversation can take place with artificial intelligence (AI) driven chat technology manning the advertiser side of the engagement.

CTAs Direct Prospects to the Next Point in Their Customer Journey

Re-engagement email campaigns can have multiple calls to action (CTAs). With the right technology in place, CTC phone numbers can be trackable and appear only during the hours your team is accepting calls. Email creatives can also include links to personalized landing pages (PURLs). Whether personalized or not, landing pages should provide pertinent information based on the actions that need to be taken to achieve the next milestone. Consider linking to articles, videos or other educational content that helps the prospective customer make the decision to move forward with a purchase.

Display Re-Engagement Campaigns

• Objective: Encourage movement to the next milestone within the customer journey.
• Sub-Objective: Maintain high brand awareness.

Use Email Addresses to Target Display Audiences

Many display advertising platforms now allow for the targeting of defined lists of email addresses. An inclusion list, consisting of individuals who inquired but did not make a purchase, can be uploaded into the platform. It is recommended that this list be updated at least weekly.

Data enrichment can be used to add additional email addresses owned by individuals on the list, ideally increasing the match rate. For example, if you have an individual’s business email address and they are registered on Facebook with a personal email address, data enrichment may be able to provide you with that personal email address, enabling you to target that individual on Facebook.

Display Creative Reinforces Your Message

Display re-engagement creative should focus on strengthening brand awareness and reinforcing the desire to choose the previously researched product or service.

Remarketing List for Search Ads (RLSA)

• Objective: Bring prospective customers back to your content.
• Sub-Objective: Maintain high brand awareness

Increase Paid Search Bids to Targeted Audiences

Believe it or not, you can increase paid search bids for specific search results delivered to specific people. Using email addresses or phone numbers and targeted keyword lists, you can boost the cost per click (CPC) you’re willing to pay to make sure your brand is at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) for individuals familiar with your brand or close to converting.

Multi-Channel Re-Engagement Reporting 

With your re-engagement campaign objectives clearly defined, reporting is both easier and more essential.

Metrics to Track for Email Re-Engagement Campaigns

• Emails sent, delivered, opened and clicked: These early metrics evaluate the campaigns potential and the creative’s ability to engage the audience.
• Conversion metrics: Track the movement from milestone to milestone to make sure your re-engagement campaign is successfully nurturing the audience along the customer journey.
• Bounces: Bounces tell you how clean your email list is. The lower the better. If your bounce rate is on the high side, consider cleaning your list before doing another send.
• Unsubscribes: Don’t fear your unsubscribes; they’re helping you identify people who will never be interested in your product or service (the sub-objective of your email campaign). However, be cautious of high unsubscribe rates or spikes in the unsubscribe rate. Both could indicate poor creative choices or a frequency of email sends that does not align with the audience’s desires.
• Format, operating system and browser: Data that helps you understand how and where emails are being opened (ex. mobile vs. desktop, iPhone vs. Android, Chrome vs. Safari) can help you refine email testing. Email creative can render differently in different environments. Identify the environments most prevalent for your audience and focus on getting your creative to look perfect there.

Metrics to Track for Display Re-Engagement Campaigns

• Impressions, clicks, click-through rates (CTRs): Typical display and paid search performance metrics tell you how much your creative is being seen and the frequency of engagement. All of these metrics help evaluate the effectiveness of a campaign at hitting the brand awareness sub-objective. (Though brand awareness can never be proven without surveying an audience.) Click-through rates also help marketers understand which creative best initiates engagement.
• Media cost: Display campaign payment can usually be set up on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC) basis.
• Conversion metrics: For the primary objective of moving your audience through the customer journey, you need to measure the volume of people making the transition from one milestone to the next.

Metrics to Track Paid Search Re-Engagement Campaigns

• Impressions, clicks, CTRs: The earliest key performance indicators (KPIs) for paid search campaigns are similar to those of display campaigns, and they help marketers understand the reach and effectiveness of a campaign and its creative components.
• Ad position and media cost: Paid placement on the SERP varies based on a number of factors including CPC bids, ad relevance and a brand’s quality score. While the top spot typically drives the highest volume of clicks, it can cost significantly more than the placement just below it. Paid search campaign optimization requires balancing cost with results to achieve the proper cost per conversion.
• Conversion metrics: Google often encourages marketers to focus on the click conversion, but the sale is the true conversion metric to measure for paid search re-engagement campaigns. Calculate conversion volume, conversion rates and the average cost per conversion to get a true picture of campaign effectiveness.

Because re-engagement campaigns are targeted to email addresses, it is possible to know precisely who you have and have not reached. Use cross-channel attribution to measure the effectiveness of all channels together. In most cases, campaign effectiveness is greater with multiple media channels working together versus either one on its own.

Especially in Lead Generation, It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over

There may be gold in your stale leads, and re-engagement campaigns will help you find it. Contact Digital Media Solutions today for help strategizing your best approach for adding re-engagement campaigns to your lead generation efforts.