Remarketing for Search allows you to target people who have already been to your site and visited a specific page, but also searched a specific key term. People who have already been to your site and are familiar with your product are in many cases more likely to convert. Combining that with the fact that they’re searching a relevant keyword (which implies that they are actively seeking something relevant) makes this a very useful method of targeting. Many people do their holiday shopping online, so if you haven’t implemented Remarketing List For Search Ads (RLSA) in your accounts yet, now might be a good time to start!

How It Works

RLSA is simple to set up, especially if you have already created audience lists for Display remarketing campaigns. You can either set up a new campaign or add the audience list to an existing search campaign. For each Ad Group you can adjust the setting to be either “bid only” or “target and bid.”

In the “bid only” setting, the Max CPC will be increased for people on your audience list, but ads will still show to people who are not on your list. In the “target and bid” setting, your ads will only appear to those who have been to your site and received a cookie. It’s that simple!

There are many different ways to set up a Remarketing for Search campaign.

You can change the duration of time that users are on your list, so that you can be sure to serve ads to people when they’re most likely to convert.

Custom combinations are also available. You can exclude people who have already converted (or target people who have, for example, placed an item in the shopping cart but abandoned it).

Read more in the full white paper: How to Keep Your Agency on Top of Holiday Ecommerce Planning

How To Implement It Into A Holiday Strategy

Remarketing for Search is a great strategy to implement around the holiday season. The beauty in RLSA is that you can strategically show ads to someone who has visited your site, but may be comparing prices on other sites, so they have not converted.

For example, let’s say you sell computers. Someone may come to your site looking to buy a computer as a gift, but is at an early point in the buying cycle and is just looking at prices. Since they visited your page but didn’t convert, they now have a cookie and are part of your audience list. Every time they search for anything related to your product like “computer cables” or “computer accessories”, your ad will be displayed, thus reminding the user of your product.

Another great reason to use Remarketing for Search is that customized ad copy can help you bring those customers who have not yet converted back to your site. This is a great opportunity to advertise special holiday promotions, such as a coupon code or free shipping. This further entices users that have already taken a peek at your products to come back and make a purchase.