How to Build a Retargeting Strategy for YouTube Ads

Step 1: Confirm Your Remarketing Pixels are Installed

This is a mandatory first step, and something that needs to be done first.

These pixels are how the ad platforms are able to track users activity and provide you the ability to remarket them with various campaigns and offers. 

Even if you’re not planning to advertise soon on any channels, I HIGHLY recommend creating a free ad account and installing that platform pixel on your site to start building your remarketing pool. 

 

Remarketing audience size requirements for YouTube

• YouTube = 100 audience members

Step 2: Create all possible retargeting segments by time frame.

Once your remarketing audience has met minimums it’s time to build your segments. 

This step will vary depending on how large your retargeting audience is. 

In a perfect world we’ll want to create retargeting segments for the following timeframes:

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The advantage of creating retargeting segments by time frame is:

✅ Easily see which cohort performs best

✅ Allocate more budget to the top performing time frame

✅ Align offers and messaging accordingly 

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Watch this video to better understand the thought process behind leveraging different remarketing segments by timeframes:

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In addition to testing timeframes we want to combine as many relevant remarketing segments together in each cohort so we can scale up our overall audience size.

Depending on the channel you’re advertising on, the available remarketing segments will vary.

Here are my go to choices for YouTube. 

Top 4 YouTube Ads retargeting segments:

Depending on your audience sizes you might not be able to use shorter timeframes. 

If that’s the case, default to the next longest one:

For example: 

❌30 days < 1,000 audience size? Try 90 days

❌90 days < 1,000 audience size? Try 180 days

❌180 days < 1,000 audience size? Hold off on remarketing until your audience sizes build

Build out each relevant remarketing combination for the channels you want to advertise on. 

Step 3: Adjust targeting and exclusion parameters.

Equally important to who you’re targeting is who you exclude. 

With all your retargeting segments created it’s clear who you’re going to target. 

Now it’s time to get clear on who you’ll exclude for each cohort (e.g. 30, 90, 180 days). 

Exclusion audiences allow you to remove users who aren’t a good fit for your targeting. 

Here’s my go-to exclusions for YouTube.

Top 6 YouTube Ads Exclusion Audiences:

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Feel free to remove and add the exclusions that make sense for your business and who you’re ultimately trying to reach with your retargeting campaigns. 

By no means should you only use the ones I outlined above, some will make sense others won’t. 

Once you’re clear on who you’ll exclude it’s time to align on content and offers.

Step 4: Align on retargeting content and offers.

Now that you’re clear on who you’ll target and exclude for each cohort. Let’s chat about what content and offers you’ll want to show them. 

First things first, don’t make the mistake of only showing offers to people in your remarketing audience. This is the equivalent of following someone all day asking them to buy something.

This is what Corporate Bro has to say about that 😂

 

Recommended B2B Remarketing Budget Allocation:

Avoid leaving a bad impression and potentially hurting your brand by also adding content in the mix.

50% of your remarketing budget should go towards adding value to your audience, and 50% goes towards asking them to convert on something (ex: Demo, Trial, Event, etc…)

With this budget allocation you’re rotating offers and content equally to your remarketing cohorts (e.g. 30, 90, 180 days) and letting the users decide which asset they're interested in. 

Which leads us to common remarketing mistakes you’ll want to avoid. 

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4 Common Mistakes to Avoid with Retargeting:

    1. Only promoting offers ‍

Avoid a pitch fest and split your remarketing budget 50/50 between content and offers as outlined above. 

    2. Retargeting on assumption instead of action

Don’t create these crazy retargeting flows where someone must do X then Y and finally you’ll give them Z. This kills your retargeting audience size and you’re assuming that you’ll be correct 3/3 times (idk about you but I’m not great at guessing). 

Instead show them everything equally (content and offers) and then once they decide to click on an ad, watch a video etc… you can now create unique campaigns to remarket off that activity (now you’re no longer assuming they are interested). ‍

    3. Not using all available retargeting segments

Don’t rely on 1 segment alone like a website visitor segment. Instead combine multiple segments together with an OR statement in the same timeframe to scale up your overall retargeting audience so you have more flexibility to layer filters. 

    4. Failing to refresh creative to offset fatigue

There’s nothing worse than seeing the same ad 1,000 times. This can be easily avoided by creating a workflow to refresh your creatives on a monthly basis. 

Just changing the creatives for the same offers and content will create a new experience for users and help offset ad fatigue. 

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Watch this video to learn more about how to monitor and overcome ad fatigue:

When we talk about remarketing content and offers equally – what exactly does that mean? 

• White papers?
• Webinars?
• Tutorials?
• Demos?
• Trials?

The list goes on, and on…

There are 1,000s of offers and content you could potentially promote. 

To help simplify and conceptualize this, here are 4 useful remarketing buckets inspired by Canberk Beker, Global Head of Paid Media at Cognism from episode 2 of Behind the Ads.

Recommended Remarketing Buckets by Timeframe:

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Step 5: Build all Relevant Retargeting Campaigns.

After going through steps 1-4 you should be clear on:

• Which channels you’re going to advertise on 
• What retargeting segments you’ll leverage
• Which exclusion audiences you’ll block
• What content/offers you’ll showcase

Let’s wrap up with how these campaigns should be built. 

B2B Retargeting Campaign Structure:

Here’s what the retargeting campaign structure will look like at 10,000 feet:

 

Couple of important call outs:

Every campaign has its own unique timeframe and retargeting bucket.

‍This makes pacing, optimization, and reporting really easy. 

‍All retargeting segments within the same timeframe are grouped together as an OR.‍

This allows you to scale your retargeting audience size overall within the cohort. 

Combine segments together with OR not AND. 

Naming conventions are clear and consistent from the campaign to ad level. ‍

This allows you to easily find your campaigns and reporting on performance.

 

How to Build YouTube Retargeting Campaigns:

Create the following campaigns in the YouTube Ads campaign manager across whichever timeframes are applicable for your account: 

Cohort #1: 30-Day YouTube Retargeting

Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}

• EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (30D) | In-Stream | Views
• EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (30D) | In-Stream | Conversions
• EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (30D) | In-Stream | Views

Recommended Objectives:

• Content focus =  Get views
• Conversion focus = Drive conversions

Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day

Recommended Audiences: 

• All website visitors (30D)
• All YouTube video viewers (30D)
• All YouTube subscribers (30D‍)

Recommended Bid Strategies: 

• Content focus = Max CPV
• Conversion focus = Maximize conversions

‍Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial)

 

Cohort #2: 90-Day YouTube Retargeting

Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (90D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}

• EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Views
• EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Conversions
• EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Views
• EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (90D) | In-Stream | Views

Recommended Objectives:

• Content focus = Get views
• Conversion focus = Drive conversions

Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day

Recommended Audiences: 

• All website visitors (90D)
• All YouTube video viewers (90D)
• All YouTube subscribers (90D)

Recommended Bid Strategies: 

• Content focus = Max CPV
• Conversion focus = Maximize conversions

‍Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership

 

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Cohort #3: 180-Day YouTube Retargeting

Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | Remarketing (180D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}

• EX: USA | PM Content | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Views
• EX: USA | Demo | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Conversions
• EX: USA | Social Proof | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Views
• EX: USA | Thought Leadership | Remarketing (180D) | In-Stream | Views‍

Recommended Objectives:

• Content focus =  Get views
• Conversion focus = Drive conversions

Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day

Recommended Audiences:

• All website visitors (180D)
• All YouTube video viewers (180D)
• All YouTube subscribers (180D)

Recommended Bid Strategies: 

• Content focus = Max CPV
• Conversion focus = Maximize conversions‍

‍Ads: Product marketing content, social proof, offers (ex: Demo, Trial), thought leadership

 

Optional: 30-Day YouTube Offer Bouncers Campaign

If you have the audience size available creating an offer bouncer campaign that shows personalized creative to folks who visited your intent pages and didn’t convert is worth testing. ‍

Campaign Name: {Location} | {Offer} | {Offer Name Bouncers} (30D) | {Ad Type} | {Objective}

• EX: USA | Demo | Demo Page Bouncers (30D) | In-Stream | Conversions

Recommended Objectives:

• Conversion focus = Drive conversions

Recommended Daily Budget: $25-$100/day

Recommended Audiences (layer titles or function if possible): 

• All pricing, demo, trial & case study visits

Recommended Bid Strategies: 

• Conversion focus = Maximize conversions

Ads: Offers

 

 

B2B Retargeting FAQ

There’s no shortage of questions around implementing successful retargeting campaigns. 

We completely understand the complexity (especially when it’s your first time building them). ‍

Here’s 5 of the most common retargeting questions we hear from clients:

How long does it take to build a retargeting audience?

•  7-30+ days depending on monthly engagement or traffic volumes for the retargeting segment you’re trying to build (ex: website visits, video views, post engagement, etc..)  

How many channels should you advertise on?

•  Focus on one advertising channel at a time when you have a limited budget (ex: < $3,000/month) master it and then expand to other channels over time. 

How do you calculate your starting retargeting budget?

•  $25-$100/day is a general rule of thumb you can follow as it’s enough to support the average costs per platform and coverage for small retargeting audiences when starting out.‍

How does retargeting work?

•  Leveraging first party and third party data ad platforms are able to track user behavior in-app and out of platform allowing you to remarket to them based on past behavior. 

How often do you need to refresh creatives for retargeting?

•  A smaller audience size (ex: < 50,000) typically requires more frequent creative refreshes vs a larger one (ex: > 50,000) to prevent ad fatigue. At minimum you should aim to refresh ad creatives on a monthly basis to stay ahead of ad fatigue. 

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Launch Checklist

Here’s a checklist we put together to help you easily reference when launching your retargeting campaigns to make sure you don’t forget anything and avoid common pitfalls.