How to Retarget Shoppers With Web Push Notifications

Retargeting isn’t a new marketing theory, but now more than ever, you have plenty of unique options for retargeting shoppers at your website. Push notifications, in particular, are one of the latest and greatest ways to engage your audience. But we don’t expect you to just take our word for it!

With web push, you can engage with shoppers as soon as they subscribe. They don’t have to provide their email or any other personal information. This allows you, in many instances, to engage these users much sooner than you would if you had to wait for them to give you some type of contact information such as their phone number or email address.

We aren’t saying you should abandon your other retargeting strategies, but why not consider adding web push into your mix? If you aren’t sure what that exactly means, don’t worry. We are breaking down all the best ways you can retarget shoppers with web push notifications.

Including both manual campaigns that you create, as well as triggered campaigns that send based on your subscribers’ actions at your website, here’s how web push can work for you!

Automated Campaigns

This first set of campaigns allow you to target individual subscribers with notifications based on their specific actions. These notifications are incredibly personalized and relevant and are great for improving your brand’s overall user experience, boosting customer loyalty, and increasing conversions.

We refer to these notifications as triggered notifications. Best of all, you only need to set these campaigns up once. Once they are set up and turned on, they will send automatically according to the conditions that you select. It couldn’t be easier!

1. Abandoned Carts

It pretty much goes without saying at this point: You absolutely need to be retargeting your abandoned carts! The average cart abandonment rate is still at around 70%. There is no reason to not try and reclaim at least some of those carts. And, like other popular methods like email, you can fully automate your abandoned cart web push campaigns.

We recommend offering some type of incentive, such as a discount code, to encourage users to click your campaign and finish their purchase. Also include a CTA button and make it easy for users to finish their order in as few clicks as possible.

Looking for more information? Check out our full abandoned cart strategy for more tips and tricks.

2. Product Pages

Don’t just retarget those who abandon their shopping cart, reach out to those who looked at your products as well! Just because they didn’t add them to their cart doesn’t mean they aren’t interested.

Users who reach the stage of viewing your products are clearly interested in your brand and may just need a little bit more time to make up their mind. Instead of crossing your fingers and hoping they choose your brand instead of your competitors, retarget them with a push campaign and remind them of what they left behind!

You can treat these campaigns similarly to abandoned cart campaigns. Offer a discount code or some other incentive, and make sure your copy is engaging. You can do that by instilling a sense of urgency, complimenting the user’s taste, or sharing a great review of the product, just to name a few tactics.

3. Shipping Alerts

Your work isn’t done once you make a sale, in fact, it’s only just beginning! While new customers are great, you should devote a good portion of your time towards securing repeat, loyal customers who will continue to come back and shop with you (and tell their friends and family about you along the way).

One great, quick way to engage your customers and provide them with excellent customer service is to set up a triggered notification that alerts them when their order has shipped. People enjoy being kept in the loop when it comes to their purchases, and in fact, they don’t just enjoy it, they expect it.

The better your buying experience is, the better. From your product pages, to your checkout process, shipping policy, all the way to your delivery, you need to make sure each stage of the process is easy for your customer. This shipping notification is one easy way for you to meet your customers’ expectations and will have you well on your way towards securing more repeat customers.

4. Post-Sale Follow Up

Like we said above, your work is only just getting started once you secure a sale. After a user has received their order, it is on you to foster that relationship and encourage them to come back and shop with you.

On average, around 65% of a company’s business will come from repeat customers. They are such an incredibly powerful segment of your business, and they deserve to be treated well! Following up post-sale to thank a customer for their business is just one of many great ways that you can focus on improving your customer retention rates.

Manual Campaigns

This next set of campaigns are what are known as manual campaigns. These are set up by you and are sent to an audience that you determine. While you don’t have to segment your audience, we highly recommend that you do.

A broad campaign to all of your subscribers will be far less effective than segmented campaigns that target the interests of different groups of people. These segmented manual campaigns will help engage and retarget your audience and shoppers at each phase of the buyer’s journey, ensuring that you are connecting with the right audience at the right time with the right message.

1. Relevant Product Alerts

Things will change in your store inventory and a great way to boost your sales is to retarget your subscribers accordingly. An item might come back in stock for example, or maybe it goes on sale. Perhaps it is low in stock and about to sell out. Your audience won’t know about these changes unless you tell them!

You can create a segment of your subscribers based on products that they have visited and target them with relevant campaigns that deal with those products. The change in price or sense of urgency that it might sell out may be just the motivation they need to return to your website and complete their purchase.

Pro tip: For this, or any of the manual campaigns on this list, you can also enable A/B testing in order to improve the effectiveness of your campaigns over time.

2. New Product Announcements

A great time to retarget and engage your audience is when you have new products. Send out a campaign (or a series of campaigns) alerting your audience that new products are coming.

You don’t always have to get super specific and target users based on individual products- you can also retarget them based on the category of products they have looked at! If you sell clothing, for example, you might send a notification similar to the one above to anyone who has looked at your exercise clothing.

3. Blog Posts/Useful Information

We’ve talked a lot about retargeting shoppers who have either looked at your products, added items to their cart, or have already made a purchase with you. But what about those users who aren’t quite there yet? You should absolutely retarget them too!

These subscribers should be targeted a bit differently, as they are still towards the top of your sales funnel. Instead of encouraging them to shop with you, you can send them campaigns that are more information based that can help nudge them closer to conversion.

The last thing you want to do with your web push campaigns (or any marketing campaign for that matter) is come across as overly pushy or overly salesy. Yes, you want your subscribers to shop at your store. That time will come, but you can’t force it!

Instead, send out campaigns with helpful information that will help the subscriber make the decision to shop with you. This can be especially helpful if you sell products that are fairly complex, expensive, or even that are just new to the market and are fairly unheard of. Educate your audience and tell them why your products are so great.

Don’t ignore this segment of your audience. Just because they haven’t engaged with your products doesn’t mean that they never will. These campaigns will help push them closer while still providing a great user experience. Just make sure your content is top notch!

4. Referral or Rewards Program Reminder

Rewards and/or referral programs are powerful tools for ecommerce store owners. They are a great way to increase sales, customer loyalty, satisfaction, and so much more. In fact, 70% of customers say that they are more likely to recommend a brand that has a good loyalty program.

If you run a rewards or referral program, that makes great content for a web push campaign. You can either remind your subscribers to use their rewards points, or remind them about your referral program to encourage them to share your brand with friends and family.

By combining the power of these two marketing initiatives, you are sure to see excellent results. Be sure that your web push campaigns make it easy for your subscribers to either access their points or something like a referral link so that they can put your program to good use.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully you now have a good understanding of how to retarget shoppers with web push notifications. With a combination of both triggered and manual campaigns, you can cover your audience at each phase of the sales process, including following up post-sale to increase your customer retention rates.

The better you engage your audience, the more successful you will be. Shoppers today expect a lot from the businesses they shop at, and with web push, it makes it easier than ever to connect with your audience and give them exactly what they want: A personalized, relevant, convenient shopping experience.

If you are new to web push and want to give it a try, you can get started for free with Aimtell. Still need more information? No problem. You can always check out our Beginner’s Guide to learn more.

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