What You Need to Know About Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs)

With the ability to personalize the online advertising experience, remarketing strategies are gaining traction as one of the most popular internet marketing strategies. Online marketers no longer must rely on keywords as their only targeting strategy.

Keywords haven’t been left behind as there are methods that work alongside them such as Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSAs). RLSAs have been around since 2013, but they’re still being overlooked and underused.

This post will help you understand what RLSAs are and some strategies on how to use them. Once you get a basic understanding of what RLSAs do and how they work, implementing them for your benefit will become much easier.

What are RLSAs?

Remarketing Lists for Search Ads takes traditional display ads a step further to target ads to customers who’ve visited your site, on the Google Search Network. RLSAs allow you to apply different keywords, bids, and ad copy to a variety of audiences.

RLSAs provide an opportunity for greater personalization in a world where tailoring ads to users is essential. It is now easier to create ad copy that is relevant to the user and enhance interactions between them and your company.

To get started with RLSAs, you will need to set up your website with Google Display Network remarketing and set your campaigns to include all features and settings. RLSAs use the same lists and management as your Google Display Network. These pre-existing remarketing lists will allow you to:

• Target visitors on the search network who’ve already visited your website
• View visitor behavior while active on your site
• View search queries on Google

You don’t have to set up new campaigns or ad groups. Simply attach a remarketing audience and campaign of your choice. However, don’t hesitate to experiment and set up new campaigns and ad groups to specifically test RSLAs.

Getting started with RLSAs

Keyword research is essential to having highly relevant RLSAs. By applying different audience targeting you can refine who you reach out to and refine keyword sets appropriately.

With this you can bid on more generic words or wider math types for visitors that have visited your site before or are more likely to convert – the possibilities are endless.

You can tailor your bidding strategy is any which way you choose as some keywords may be too broad for general search traffic. Think about bidding more to:

• Customers who viewed high price items
• Customers that spend a certain amount of time on your site
• Customers who leave their carts with items or don’t fully complete transactions

The benefits of implementing RLSAs

It’s important to understand that Remarketing Lists for Search Ads are targeted for people who have already visited your website or app. People that are familiar with your site are much more likely to convert in comparison to new visitors.

RLSAs give your company an additional opportunity to target your previous visitors through a different channel. You can better targeted qualified and valuable users who already know about your website or app.

When implemented correctly, RLSAs can deliver:

• Efficient use of ad spends
• Higher click-through rates
• Better conversion rates
• Lower cost per conversion
• Better return on investment (ROI)

How to implement RLSAs

You must update your Privacy Policy or Cookie Policy on your website or app to affirm your use of DoubleClick cookies. You need at least 1,000 cookies in one list to utilize Remarketing Lists for Ads.

Currently, RLSAs require the use of AdWords Remarketing code as opposed to the Google Analytics remarketing code. Add the AdWords remarketing code to your website, but you can have both sets running alongside each other.

Once you’ve completed these basic steps, you can begin to:

• Set up remarketing lists to be used for RLSAs within AdWords interface
• Add a remarketing list to a search campaign group
• Add a negative remarketing list to a search campaign or ad group

Getting the most from your RLSAs

Setting on Remarketing Lists for Ads on your campaigns is the first step. The next step is to ensure that you are using RLSAs efficiently. Here are three ways to ensure you’re getting the most out of your RLSAs:

• Personalize as many ads as possible
• Adjust your bids
• Explore keywords

Tailor your ads to your specific audiences—be as creative as possible. Interchange approaches between ads and works towards making them increasingly relevant and personal. Don’t use the same ad for people who left items in the cart and those who didn’t get past your homepage.

Take advantage of what you already know and bid for audiences that are most likely to convert. Lower your bids for those who are less likely to convert or not as valuable to you.

RLSAs give you the opportunity to bid on keywords that you wouldn’t otherwise. Creating an entirely new search campaign for your RLSA doesn’t pose the same risk as targeting your audience through a random standard search.

Now that you know what Re-marketing Lists for Search Ads are and how to implement them, there is no excuse to not be using them.  Don’t be left behind by simply targeting keywords. To learn more about RLSAs and how to use them or explore other internet-marketing strategies, click here for my done-for-you system.