Why you should use a sales message in remarketing content

While content is important to try and achieve the highest performance, you should also consider the messaging and context of your ads.

There are many types of messaging when it comes to remarketing ads, and there are some that perform better than others.

One of the best-performing types of messaging we found was sales.

Knowing how to use sales messaging and the different types can make or break the results of your ads, especially when you’re trying to reach users who’ve interacted with your brand and didn’t make a purchase.

Remarketing ads cost more and take more time & effort, so make sure you are getting the most out of your ads by optimizing the messaging type.

Let’s dive in!

Sales & Shipping are the best performing messages for remarketing audiences

When we compared all the various types of ad messages in remarketing content, there was one particular message that stuck out as the best-performing: Sales.

Sales beat out shipping, new, and other messaging types with a 61% better-than-average performance!

Let’s consider some reasons why that is.

Remember that remarketing audiences are typically the ones that saw your products, clicked on your ad, and browsed through your store, but didn’t end up making a purchase.

One common reason sales messaging performs so well is related to price.

The consumer who clicked on your ad or product showed at least some interest, but not enough to buy.

Showing that same product at a discount, it’s often enough of a push to make the product come across as a much better deal than the original price, enticing a possible purchase.

Another small note to keep in mind is that if you are considering other types of messaging, shipping(free shipping, free returns, etc.) is the 2nd best performing, with just -6% in performance below average.

The one thing in common between sales and shipping is that they both try to get the customer from “kind of interested” to “this is a deal I can’t miss”.

When it comes to remarketing audiences, messages about sales tend to perform the best, followed by those about shipping.

If sales messaging has such a high performance, this should mean that everyone is using it right?

Only 27% of remarketing ads are offering a sale

Surprisingly, even after looking at the data telling us sales are the top-performing remarketing message, only 27% of remarketing impressions are talking about sales.

This means that there is a huge opportunity for you to take advantage of.

As an advertiser that realizes the potential of using sales as the messaging type for remarketing ads, you could beat out the competition as only about a quarter of advertisers use this message.

Now, other types of messages like shipping may have some benefits but should be tested first for performance.

But based on what we found, sales is still the king when it comes to remarketing performance, and not a lot of people are using it!

It’s easy to take this information and just start running with it, but keep in mind that not all sales ads are created equal.

Let’s take a closer look.

When running a remarketing sale, be sure to consider what kind of sale to run

A sales ad can come in lots of different variations.

This is especially true in the case of remarketing, where some sales types give you better results than others.

We found that the best-performing remarketing sale is a sale “on everything”, with a performance of 56% better than average.

An “on everything sale” is very attractive for remarketing audiences because this sale applies to all products, which will include some that an audience has previously interacted with or is interested in.

Everything is now at a lower price, which means that customers will most likely be guaranteed to find a product they like, along with the additional motivation of a discount to make a purchase.

The second best-performing remarketing sale is “vouchers”, with a 39% better performance than average.

The voucher is similar to “on everything” in that it usually also offers a discount on any product that the customer might be interested in buying.

A voucher also introduces urgency since they usually only work for a limited time.

The difference between a voucher and a sale on everything when it comes to urgency is that if the customer decides not to click on an ad with a voucher, there is no guarantee they will see it again.

If they want to apply the voucher, they’ll usually need to do it right then and there, otherwise, they would need to write it down and/or memorize it.

However, a sale on everything is still the best-performing sales type with vouchers following close behind.

Seriously consider the type of message your remarketing ad has

It’s important to consider the message of your remarketing ad as it could create the difference between a great-performing piece of content that wasted your entire remarketing budget.

We found that the top two remarketing messages turned out to be sales and shipping, but still sales remained the king.

Try and use “on everything” and “voucher” sales to give your audience the final “push” of purchasing an offer too good to ignore.

Data section

The dataset from this article is based on 215M impressions and 6K pieces of individual content on Meta (Facebook) platforms. It takes into account data from all countries and industries, with the campaign objective of Conversions. The period is from 1. September 2021 - 16. September 2022.

Numbers are looking at correlation only, not causation. Remember to check your own data: numbers for different brands, industries, and contexts will vary.

If you were intrigued about a specific insight, you can go in-depth into the various dimensions and how data can be segmented in Confect, here.