There has been a lot of interesting talk surrounding retargeting and prospecting, especially in the realm of social media. In healthcare marketing, retargeting and prospecting are integral elements of any campaign, which is why it’s always so interesting to me to follow these hot topics when they take over the marketing news cycles.
Everywhere from Search Engine Journal to MediaPost.com, marketing experts are showing frustration with retargeting strategies. While, at the exact same time, advertising giants are touting how effective retargeting can be. Where do you stand?
Retargeting Out, Prospecting In on Social Media
According to BusinessInsider.com, Quantcast, the company best known for its web traffic measurement business, has struck a deal to start serving ads inside Facebook. The trick – he’s going to pay more than his competitors for ads; and he’s going to do less “retargeting” than they do.
Quantcast will, in fact, do the opposite of what many big box advertising companies are doing on Facebook – paying more for less targeted advertisements. The first question that popped into my head as a Quaintise social media strategist was “why would they do that.”
Quantcast has huge clients. The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas is one of them. U.S. Cellular is another. As the 18th member of Facebook’s new ad exchange, they are expected to produce big numbers for their large clients.
From a healthcare marketing perspective, this backwards way of running Facebook advertising is intriguing, to say the least.
Retargeting is essentially the process by which you target an individual who has already shown interest in your product or services. If a mother visits Baby’s R Us and checks out some strollers, then jumps over to Facebook, you can easily bombard that mother with baby advertising. Retargeting is more affordable than prospecting new clients simply because those retargeted individuals have already shown an interest in the product or in your specific physician’s office. Half of the work has already been done.
What the Numbers Say
While Quantcast has selected prospecting instead of retargeting, the numbers for retargeting cannot be denied, especially on Facebook. According to MarketingCharts.com, retargeting advertising on Facebook is hugely successful so far.
In fact, the study[download page], which analyzed more than 1 billion impressions across 547 advertisers running retargeting in each type of inventory, found that click-through rates for news feed ads were an impressive 21 times higher than for standard web retargeting, and 49 times higher than for RHS ads. And those clicks don’t seem to coming at a significant cost.
In fact, the average cost-per-click (CPC) for a news feed ad was 79% lower than for standard web retargeting, and 54% lower than for RHS ads.
It’s easy to see why retargeting has become a critical element of healthcare marketing, especially on Facebook. The experts at Quaintise can develop integrated retargeting and prospecting strategies to increase your patient volume and revenue. Give us a call for more information.