An official blog post from Google brings good news. After years of people asking, Google are finally allowing remarketing across multiple devices on the Google Display Network.
What’s the deal?
First off, let’s quickly recap what a remarketing ad is. When you visit a website, you’ll probably notice later that day an ad pops up from the same company. That’s remarketing. The site sees you and then basically follows you around the internet trying to get you to come back. It’s a hugely powerful tool from both a conversion and brand awareness point of view.
Why is cross-device remarketing exciting?
At the moment, remarketing ads only appear for people on the device they visit a website on. For example, if you went on the John Lewis site on your laptop, you’d only see their remarketing ads on your laptop. If you visited the site on your phone, you’d only see them on your phone.
Now, Google has changed the rules so that ads can be served to signed in users on all devices. So you could visit a site on your phone in the morning and then get an ad on your laptop at lunchtime.
Google sum it up brilliantly:
GIF via Google’s official blog
Why do it now?
There’s no definitive answer but I’d take a guess at two key reasons.
1. Google is really focused on putting the customer first. They know from their own research that 60% of conversions start on one device and end on another. They want to make sure their users have a seamless experience with ads. They also want to make sure advertisers can reach their customers as easily as possible.
2. Facebook. Because of the way Facebook works, they’re able to serve up ads to users on every single device they use. Google knows how successful Facebook’s ad platform has become and they don’t want cross-device issues to be a limitation on their marketing solutions.
What’s the benefit?
The benefit is huge. This update means that companies can reach customers more often and on whichever device they’re using. By taking remarketing out of device silos, Google is catching up with the huge rise in cross-device browsing and ensuring everybody wins: them, their advertisers and their customers.
The update is scheduled to be in place by the end of the year.
If you need help with your remarketing campaigns or any online marketing issues, give us a shout and we’ll be happy to help.
