Retarget Lost Customers During the Holiday Season to Drive Sales

This holiday season, you're probably focused on reaching new customers and reeling them in with dazzling specials. Reaching out to holiday shoppers who need your help making good decisions on purchases for others is a great way to boost your bottom line, but what about all those shoppers who went before? What about the buyers you reached out to last holiday season but then never heard from again?

You can only bring in so many brand new buyers with each gift-giving season. If those consumers don’t stick around after the season’s end, how can you keep making money throughout the year? Well, with this holiday season, it’s time to start focusing on the lost customers. Wooing them back might just be easier than you think.

Go After Cart Abandoners

You probably already know that about 70% of your visitors will abandon their carts, at least on the first visit. Of that 70%, three-quarters of those visitors definitely want to come back later and finish the purchase. It’s just that life gets in the way, and suddenly it’s a year later and they never did buy that amazing gift for their special someone. 

Well, now’s the time to bring them back. If you’re not already going after abandoned carts with an aggressive email campaign, start today. If you do already chase down potential customers, great! Now consider going back to last year’s almost-loyal customers and reminding them that they once loved your products, if only for a moment.

Retargeting Ads

These can be a little tricky, especially if you get too creepy with your messaging. Consumers aren’t crazy about feeling like they’re being watched, and you don’t want this holiday season to feel more like Halloween.

There are a few ways to retarget people who might just be interested in buying from you this season. The first would be ads that serve visitors to your site. Next, you want to target those who’ve searched online shops just like yours. Then there are those who engage with shops like yours on social media. Finally, you can target those who’ve seen your ads on other sites, whether or not they clicked those ads.

You can use the information you’ve gathered about this almost-customer to make sure they end up in the right place after clicking, too. If they’ve already searched products on your site, make sure the ad leads back to one of the items they loved. If they spend time searching prices for products like yours, make sure they get information about prices after clicking on your ad.

Again, it’s a difficult balance between delight and downright creepy, so you want to be smooth about it. Adding in a discount or other special offer can go a long way toward smoothing creeped-out feathers, so consider the lengths you’ll go to when convincing a buyer to click an ad. Then add some good copy, a strong CTA, and you’re set to bring back those long-lost customers.

Now you’re ready to reel in those past customers, whether they made a purchase before or not. Once you get them back, make keeping them a major priority. Imagine your bottom line if you could count on past customers, current customers, and new customers to make purchases at the same time. That’s what this holiday season could be for you.