Remarketing Ads get Interesting at Nordstrom (PLUS- Consumer Decision Patterns)
It looks like remarketing advertising is getting even more relevant than ever before. Earlier today, I was pinning a few items from Nordstrom onto my Pinterest boards. I had gone to the site because I had seen a page post from Nordstrom on Facebook advertising their men’s half-yearly sale.
After pinning the items, I went over to Reddit to see if there were any interesting new stories happening. Low and behold, in the lower right-hand corner below the fold (yes, people do notice ads below the fold!), I see this advertisement from Nordstrom:
Guess what? Each one of those items were from images I had just pinned on Pinterest minutes earlier. That’s right, I’m not sure of the vendor behind the technology, but this ad was actually able to recognize what items from Nordstrom I had pinned on Pinterest and place these images into the ad unit retargeted to me. (At least- this is what I can tell- it could just be that Nordstrom lucked out and chose the items at random from the pages I visited.) On top of that, each item has its own link in the ad unit, and if you click on it, it takes you directly to that item’s page on Nordstrom, ready for you to check out.
Don’t believe me? Check out my board on Pinterest below. I had pinned only four items from Nordstrom, and visited multiple other items at Nordstrom as well. Three of the items I had pinned made their way into the ad unit.
What could be more relevant to me? This is one great example of just how important cookies are to creating ads that are effective and targeted to only the right audience. It saves brands wasteful impressions that could be served to people less in-market than myself. Though I normally don’t shop online, this marketing will definitely stay in my mind if I head out to a brick and mortar Nordstrom store, and hopefully (for them) translate into a sale.
What is this also a great example of? How different forms of media tie into one another. There’s been a lot of controversy about Facebook and its effectiveness lately, but look at how all of this panned out. If I had not seen the page post from Nordstrom on Facebook, I would not have known about the sale. If I hadn’t known about the sale, I wouldn’t have visited Nordstrom.com. If I hadn’t visited Nordstrom.com, I wouldn’t have pinned items from Nordstrom on Pinterest. If I hadn’t pinned items from Nordstrom on Pinterest, I wouldn’t have received the very targeted retargeting banner ad on Reddit. If I hadn’t received the very targeted retargeting banner ad on Reddit, I might not have made the decision to actually stop in at Nordstrom this weekend and purchase the items I had seen online.
Advertising, marketing, and consumer decisions are all a cycle. Without multiple touch points, brands miss out on potential consumers.
-Bryan Nagy
Maybe it is just the last 3 item you looked at the site??
What is smart about showing you the last 3 item you looked at??
The thing is I had looked at multiple items in between these products and afterwards, but these were the most recent ones I had “pinned.”
What makes this interesting is that by remarketing the products to a consumer, they might be more apt to revist the site and make a purchase. The likelihood would be much higher than just seeing a “normal” nordstrom display ad, which is what consumers typically see when brands remarket to them. The ads “remind” the consumer about what items they had seen online. If they were on the fence about purchasing them, the consumer might give the products a second glance and convert to a sale.
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