Digital Marketing with Web Cookies and IP-Addresses: Part 1 (Web Cookies)
How often have you experience this scenario? You’ve searched for a pair of shoes, clicked on a website and now you see that same website’s advertisement on all your social media platforms or on search engines? Well, that is the effect of web cookies! Web cookies are crucial in every good digital marketing campaign as it helps you to reach out to the right customers.
In the first part of this series, we will touch on what web cookies are, what they can do for your digital marketing campaigns and how you can maximize your outreach with them!
A web cookie is a small piece of data that gets triggered every time a browser comes onto your website. This piece of data is stored by the user’s browser for a standard period of 30 days (it could be longer based on rules set by the website visited). The web cookie affects the way your visitors can interact with your website or in the bigger picture your digital marketing channels. Let’s discuss some of the ways you can conquer digital marketing with web cookies!
Web Cookies and IP Address
A web cookie is often used to collect demographic and behavioral data to allowing advertising services to group and target groups of audience based on your needs. Utilizing web cookies in your digital marketing campaigns also allows for retargeting which locks in on audiences who have had past experiences with your website before to encourage conversion beyond your website’s borders.
Site retargeting Cookies
Once the visitor has loaded up your website, a cookie is left in the visitor’s browser which allows for your adverts to be displayed when they visit websites within the Google Display Network. You can instruct for a specific product advert to shown or your website on the whole.
Search retargeting Cookies
This type of cookie retargeting allows your adverts to be displayed on third-party webpages based on the user’s previous search activities. E.g. if they previously browsed for shoes, your advert selling shoes will be displayed to them on third-party webpages (i.e. other shopping platforms)
Display ad-based email retargeting
Email retargeting involves another channel that all digital marketing folks are familiar with, EDMs! The web cookie is triggered when the user opens the email containing the tracking code. However, it is important to note that display ad-based email retargeting only works when the email is opened using a browser-based email service.
Besides helping you to narrow down the target audience of your digital marketing campaigns, cookies can be used to help you to assess or even improve the performance of your digital marketing campaigns.
Web cookies and Google Analytics
Google analytics is a great tool to help you track and monitor areas of your website are doing well or need a little push. With data input from web cookies, Google Analytics is able to show you the demographic and behavioral trend of your website visitors. This allows you to understand your target market better and sections of your website that you can focus on improving for a higher conversion.
To find out more about Google analytics, check out our related article here
Web Cookies and Conversion Tracking in Google Adwords
Did you know that you can track the source of a conversion from when it happened to which channel and keyword? With the usage of web cookies in your digital marketing campaign, you can track whenever a visitor has reach your website via a AdWords advert, made a purchase or completed a specific conversion goal i.e. signed up for newsletter, submitted a form etc. This will allow you to better understand the most effective keywords and channels that will work for your business.
Looking to find out more about Google Adwords and how you can better tweak your keywords and ads spending? Click here!
While there has been debate over tracking user data across their browsing history, there is no denial that as a marketer, web cookies have become a necessity for success in digital marketing campaigns. However, that success is not to be taken for granted. Targeting/retargeting using web cookies is a science and requires a keen eye for data analytics. Adssential Marketing has a team of experience marketers who have helped countless business achieve success using smart data such as web cookies, contact us today to see how we can help you!