In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Why Those Engagement Ring Ads Keep Finding You ft. Hope Bellair
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We break down retargeting as clienteling at scale and explain why it feels like ads “follow you” after you browse jewelry online.
Hope Bellair shares practical ways to segment audiences, choose platforms, set budgets, and measure success beyond last-click sales.
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Welcome And Why Retargeting Matters
SPEAKER_01Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. This week we're talking about retargeting. Uh retargeting is the sort of creepy aspect of ads that sort of seem to follow you around after you uh visit a website and uh get a chance to you know re-advertise to you uh because you've shown a level of interest or intent in shopping. I wanted to speak with Hope to talk about the state of play, some best practices, and also how you could maybe be doing retargeting uh in Q2 and Q3. Uh she's gonna be giving a presentation about this The Client Workshop, which should be going on as this episode releases. And I wanted to kind of get her thoughts on it ahead of time. It's a really cool conversation. I hope you enjoy.
SPEAKER_00This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, Punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth, or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, PunchMark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical world in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01What is up, everybody? I am joined by Hope Bel Air, digital marketing manager at Punchmark. How are you doing today, Hope?
SPEAKER_02I'm doing so well. How are you?
SPEAKER_01So well getting excited for the client workshop, which this is going to air actually during the client workshop. So that's very exciting. One of the topics you're going to be discussing at the workshop is going to be about retargeting. I feel like uh retargeting has been discussed in the past, but it changes all the time. Could you give me like an overview, high-level view of uh what retargeting actually is?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So I'd like to say that retargeting is a form of clientelling, honestly. So there's a lot of different buckets that retargeting can go into, whether it's a client that you've had for let's say 10 years and hasn't been in the store for quite a bit, or a new client that hasn't necessarily been into your store but has visited your website a couple different times and viewed a couple different products. Um basically it is just nurturing those relationships, whether they're online or in store.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Sometimes I always think about it as like like gardening. It's like some plants grow really quickly and some grow really slow, and some of them need a lot more nurturing before you can have any uh before they bear any fruit. And the cool thing is that these can be highly automated. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_02For sure. Yeah. With the tracking and everything that we have on the back end of our punchmark websites, as well as Google Analytics and stuff like that, we can definitely work with clients and stuff like that to get a good retargeting audience.
SPEAKER_01So when you set up retargeting, are you setting it up on like a per platform basis? Or is there a way for you to build one retargeting uh series and then have it display everywhere? Or do you have to build one for Google, one for Facebook, one for, I don't know, Reddit? Do you have to do all of those individually?
Cross Device Tracking And Intent
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So what obviously with marketing, we always try to have a very holistic viewpoint, especially with email, Meta, Google, et cetera. But specifically between Meta and Google, those are the two powerhouses, right? Retargeting on Google looks a lot different than retargeting on Meta. Mainly because Meta is again a strong visual platform. We're focused on visitors that have already seen the website and know, you know, your brand. And let's say that they were looking at a pair of diamond studs on your website. What we would retarget them then for is diamond studs or diamond jewelry as a whole. It's great for lifestyle imagery, social proof, of course, if you have a strong social media presence organically and a lot of brand recall. So Instagram, Facebook, et cetera, is a little bit more of the proactive um platform, in my opinion, and in a lot of people's opinions, honestly. But um, you know, you're we're creating those touch points where let's say a new client sees you, it takes about five to nine touch points for them to finally visit your site when they see an ad. So when they visit the site, then they get into a different funnel, basically. Um they visit the website and they're like, oh, okay, well, that ad worked for them to come and see, you know, the website as a whole, and here's where they went on their journey. Based on where they went on their journey, they're now put in to a different type of funnel, that mid-funnel tier, to really get out there and say, Hey, we know you just saw this, we're gonna keep targeting you with these lifestyle images and these videos because this is what attracted you to our website. Now, in Google, it's a lot different because Google is a little bit more reactive and that it is a search-based query that comes through, and then from there we retarget. So that would be kind of going from a search intent to more of a quote unquote what we like to call performance max campaign, which highlights display, Gmail marketing, um, Google Maps, and stuff like that. So let's say they searched diamond jewelry near me, and they searched and your search ad came up based on that. Once they click on that ad, we know they went to the website. Same kind of thing happens. However, now it's going to be more subtle in a way. It's just gonna pop up on the side of their Gmail or at the top of their Google Maps where it's like, hey, we know you just went to this website. Here's the direction to that store if you're close. Um, and then it's just basically for intent-based follow-up in that case.
SPEAKER_01So are these ads independent of the device that they're on? So for example, if I'm logged in and I'm I'm viewing some stuff on my laptop and then I use my phone, do I have the same, I guess, profile that is having these ads applied to it? Like if I'm progressing and I'm seeing more and more ads, are they progressing whether I'm on phone or I'm on uh like a MacBook or something?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So for the most part, actually, this is a perfect example because I was doing some research, I guess, for Gabriel and Co. not too long ago on um my laptop here, my work laptop, copitpunchmark.com. And even still, since I researched it and looked at their website on you know, my work computer on my personal Instagram, I was then flooded with Gabriel and Co. ads um on my Instagram specifically. So um, nope, I don't think it does matter. Definitely the technology that's around us all the time communicates with each other in ways that I'm sure we don't even begin to understand. Um, but yeah, nope. As if you're searching on your laptop, let's say diamond jewelry, then on your phone, it's gonna pick it up.
SPEAKER_01And what about is this also uh are the ads progressing? You know what I mean? Like progressing as in like having those touch points myself as a shopper. If I'm on Google and I search diamond rings and I click on yours, and then I go back and I see a display ad for diamond rings, and then there's two of them, and I click on one that is not yours. Is that also showing intent to Google where it's um like are they all being pooled across all the different ads that I've seen, as in like not just yours, or does it have to be your funnel that it only applies to? Does that make sense? Uh like I'm trying to see if like sometimes I get ads from multiple different uh places. If I'm, you know, for example, looking at sometimes I look at jackets and I see an ad from um Huckberry, Huckberry, but then sometimes I click on Philson and then Philsen and then I go back to Huckberry. Is that also applying to it? Like, is it building a stronger case for me to be uh a highly um uh customer with high intent?
SPEAKER_02So yes, and that is separate. So with our, like let's say our retailers, right? We're retargeting those based on you know, XYZ jeweler in Charlotte, let's say. If all of a sudden XYZ jeweler, we've been retargeting them, you know, it's on the fifth touch point of that second funnel that I mentioned, all of a sudden they're gonna go ahead and click on ABC Jeweler instead of XYZ. That is only giving Instagram and Google your intent. So basically the algorithms and both saying, hey, this person is definitely a high-intent buyer for you know a diamond jewelry, but that does not go into the like data points for us and our retargeting. So for example, if XYZ jeweler, you know, we're still retargeting to this guy that looked at our website. If he clicks on ABC jeweler, we don't necessarily know that. And that's okay because a lot of you know, jewelry in it in itself isn't a whim purchase for the most part. They're gonna do their research, they're gonna compare, but with every click that they go on Meta and Google, it is serving that algorithm to know that, hey, okay, we've served we've served them this ad from ABC and XYZ Jeweler. He's definitely, you know, going to make a purchase here soon. Obviously, Instagram and Google doesn't necessarily know where they're gonna go, but the retargeting ads from both will be served to him all the time.
SPEAKER_01It's really quite interesting because I noticed um I noticed that they they chase me around too. I always joke like that it thinks I'm the most uh eligible bachelor of all time because I'm constantly looking at engagement rings on many different websites. But I guess I'm I'm confused sometimes about when an ad decides to show up. Uh, you know what I mean? It's like I do have ad blockers on a lot of my devices and a lot of websites. And sometimes an ad uh shows up and I'm always confused about it. Are you basing these off of personas like I or I guess um audience like demographics? Like, how are you building who should even initially see it? Or is it just, you know, hey, if they visited our website in the last, you know, 30 days, we're going to show them um them ads.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So for an initial campaign across the board, Google Meta, all the same, we are creating personas that are, okay, you know, this person is in a relationship. You know, maybe they've been in a relationship for two months, four years. We don't really know.
SPEAKER_01Crazy, crazy that they can even discern that. I sidebar, but keep going.
SPEAKER_02So in a relationship, engaged, we can see, if they're married, we can see, if they have kids, um, we can use all of those lifestyle factors as well as specifically with um meta, we can go in. There's a whole subset for Gabriel and co-engagement rings. So, like if they have um a demographic that say they really like Gabriel and Co-engagement rings, cool. We want to show them some of their some of our custom engagement rings. That's something that we can go ahead and pick on Meta to just say, hey, I know you like this, but hey, look at this. And this is similar to Gabriel and Co, and you'd be, you know, supporting an independent jeweler instead. That is for the initial campaign. For the secondary campaign, the retargeting campaign that we're talking about, that is solely coming from lists. So that is someone that has been to the website in the last 30 to 180 days. That is someone that is a client of yours that maybe hasn't shown up in two years that we want to retarget and you provide us that list. Um, that's someone that went to the diamond jewelry category on the website and now is only going to be served diamond pendants. Same thing with engagement rings, custom, appointment-based stuff. Um, it can really dive down into specific segments when we're retargeting so that we're only grabbing that niche audience from every, you know, angle, basically.
Email Audiences And Abandoned Cart
SPEAKER_01Now, what about things that are not, well, I guess it is because I use a Gmail. I was gonna say that are not related to it, that are not like browsing based. Um, one thing I notice is I'm on several of our clients' uh newsletters. And a lot of the times I get their newsletters for events and campaigns because you know, I have a testing account on their website, or I have done a test um uh transaction or something along the lines over the years. And I've probably done this on 20 um of our clients' websites, and now I, you know, I get them occasionally. Is email opening is that related to retargeting? Is like, do emails and what I guess Meta and Google know about me? Are those at all connected or are they independent?
SPEAKER_02So it's a little bit more independent. So whether you're using like email marketing specifically, we can get an engaged audience. So basically, if they've clicked on the email to open it, if they've gone to the website from there, that is an engaged audience. What we can do from you know your email platform, whether that be Clavio, MailChimp, etc., we can download that audience and upload that to Meta or Google or use a third-party connector like Zapier to connect the two to where we're like, hey, actually, this Mother's Day email that we sent out, um, we had let's say 50 people click on it. I want those 50 people to see this Mother's Day ad now. Um, so yeah, it can definitely go across platforms. It just requires a couple more connections and integrations um from either your marketing person or a third-party platform.
SPEAKER_01And then one of the last ones I was thinking of is uh abandoned cart ads are very, I think the strongest, in my opinion, because it's like, hey, you're so close to buying. What do you think about a coupon? Have you ever added something to your cart? Being like, I'm not gonna buy this, I'm gonna see if I can get a coupon out of this. And then you like add it to your cart and then you leave and just like see if they'll send you something. Because I've done that several times and it it used to work a lot better. I'm gonna say, probably 10 years ago. I feel like people were a lot more aggressive about uh sending coupons uh for a band of carts. Are abandoned cart email, because Punchmarks uh site manager has an entire automation that's just built off of abandoned carts, and I think it just automatically works for everybody. Is that something that also ties into these campaigns, or is that just totally isolated and separate?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, absolutely. So when we notice that someone is abandoned cart, obviously our platform sends out an automated email. But if you also have a flow set up in another email platform, we can use again that persona and that profile that we know abandoned the cart and create an ad to be like, hey, actually, remember this specific product? Yeah, it's like a dynamic ad. Like, don't don't miss out. Keep keep browsing type of thing. Um, I get that all the time as well with my algorithms.
Always On Retargeting And Seasonality
SPEAKER_01All right, everybody, we're gonna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. This episode of In the Loop is brought to you by Punchmark. We've been hard at work rolling out new e-commerce experiences designed specifically for jewelry retailers, including expanding payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. It's all about making checkout faster, easier, and more seamless for your customers so you can convert more sales. If you're ready to modernize your website and unlock better performance, book a demo today at punchmark.com slash go. And now, back to the show. And we're back. So I guess uh and also are these campaigns are these like uh retargeting, is this something that everybody should be doing all the time as just like a best practice, or is it best geared towards like like an event or I guess or towards like slow times? Because like around here, one thing I've been kind of thinking about increasingly is a lot of the times Mike Town shuts down for like all of April. And I sometimes wonder if it's should you be trying to drive traffic in the slow part of the year, or should you be like kind of building this infrastructure and then driving traffic, being like, hey, it's been a while, and then like trying to catch the traffic as they come back. So I've always wondered like, is there uh do you try to have people like set up these kinds of things around sales? Or is it just like, hey, come visit us, that kind of thing?
SPEAKER_02So it can be both. Honestly, retargeting is good to just kind of have as a slow burn all year. Again, it's just kind of that top of mind awareness. It's not necessarily going to cost you big bucks to do so, but um just having that top of mind retargeting awareness going all year round is is fabulous, right? But specifically um Q3 going into Q4, definitely ramping it up and saying, hey, Christmas is right around the corner. Um let's do it this especially December, same thing. Um, and then if you know, obviously jewelers collect a lot of personal information, like an anniversary date or a birthday, something like that, those are good um segments to have for retargeting purposes because let's say, right, you had a couple come in, they bought an engagement ring from you two years ago, and they got married only six months ago, right? In the six months, obviously, they're going to go ahead and have their first anniversary. So two months to a month out, saying just set sending them subtle messages. Again, it's almost like subconscious. Like, hey, your anniversary. Yes, you just got married this time last year. Think about that anniversary gift. Let's let's get her a pair of diamond studs or get him a watch, something like that, um, to just express your love and then get really detailed with the messaging about a week or two weeks ahead of time, depending on whether it's a male or female and their habits type of thing. Because we know that um men tend to do shopping at the last minute and women do it a little earlier.
Budget Benchmarks And Holiday Spikes
SPEAKER_01Okay. So uh I guess I've also am just curious in general. So can you ballpark what a campaign might cost as far as ad spend? Because I know it's different depending on where you are in like the competition that's out there and the time of the year. So, for example, I know that you mentioned December. December is like the big leagues, that's like when it's going to be intense. I'm trying to encourage people to be marketing, especially for their website, in all of the other parts of the year. Um, maybe more. I think it's like so the cacophony of noise is so loud in December to buy stuff. Granted, there is a reason to buy stuff for most people. What is like the what would you ballpark for a jeweler that's just wants to get into retargeting uh for like, you know, May or June?
SPEAKER_02May or June? Let's say, I mean, as a base, I say with all of my campaigns, we're looking at at least$500 a month. That's where we start to see the conversions come in. That's where we start to see people walking at the store and it's just a little bit better. You can get away with a smaller budget, but that is I I wouldn't want anybody to be throwing their dollars into the wind and saying, you know, oh, I'm spending, let's say,$250 a month on this ad campaign, and you know, people are seeing it, but maybe they're not coming in because there's not enough, you know, time and the ad budget is getting gobbled up in the beginning of the day, and you know, people can't see it. So definitely five hundred dollars as a minimum. For a campaign, I'd I'd say. And then um, depending on again what the messaging is, if it's just diamond jewelry, then we're looking at maybe you know that$500 is a nice sweet spot. But if we're looking at bridal, that's where we're looking at$750 to$1,000 for a campaign just because it is a uh aggressive type of thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Bridal is expensive.
SPEAKER_01It sure is. It's just I I I am encouraging more people, yeah, to sort of just test it out. One thing that I found for myself, and just with my own paintings, is I found that spending a little bit of money and just trying to see what a uh an Instagram ad buy is like, it just sort of I feel like I learned something through the process. Granted, I I would only spend like$50 uh on boosting a post just to see what it can do and like see kind of how the effects are. Granted, it's like I I sometimes wonder it's$50 versus$500 versus$5,000. Are those powers worth necessarily the increased um buy? I don't know. I think that there is a certain point where you're just spending more money. However, I do think that when it comes to these types of buys, I think that it is a little bit competitive where you kind of need to like spend enough money to start playing a little bit. So I think you're probably right, 500 bucks. And then when it gets into um December, is it like minimum a thousand dollars or is it more than that?
SPEAKER_02Well, at least. So I will say like the customer acquisition cost across the board is kind of at least like$800 as an average. So if you think about that in like a monthly term, right? If we, you know, low end, let's say it's 400, high mid-range is is eight. If you're spending$500 a month, you could probably see about gaining one customer type of thing. Um, when it comes to December, and because ad bids go crazy um in November and December, depending it's again, it depends on how aggressive you want to be. If you just want to keep the same brand messaging out there and you know, spend the 500, um, that's going to be eaten up rather quickly. When it comes to the holidays, you're looking at at least doubling or tripling your ad budget for those last two months to be effective. But again, it does, you know, it does um matter where you are in the United States, like let's say you're in the middle of you know, America and you're in a very rural town and there's not a lot of you know other competition, you might be cooking. Are you talking about New York? No, listen, I'm not talking about, hey, New York in general, outside of the city too, is expensive.
Measuring Results Online And In Store
SPEAKER_01So now, how do you judge how do you judge success on these things? Is it like, hey, someone saw this ad and bought a piece of jewelry? So I think that sometimes I find that to be so narrow. And like, what if someone saw and like you've mentioned before, the funnel is so many steps and they came in and they bought it and like the ad definitely worked, but how do you how do you is there a way to even judge success on these things?
SPEAKER_02So there's a few different things that we can track on our end. So specifically with Google, we're able to see if there's a click to get directions to your store based on an ad. There's also a nifty little tool that I like called Microsoft Clarity. And that is you can see user intent and user browsing basically on your website. You can see what pages they visited, their whole journey, if there was any hiccups throughout the whole thing. Um, and then you can also see if that also came from an ad type of thing. So we can see at least on the digital front, whether they made a purchase, added to cart, added to wish list, et cetera, based on our ads. However, where the buck stops, and it's unfortunate, right, is we can't necessarily see if they clicked on get directions that they went there and actually went into the store. So that's where we rely a little bit on the retailer and say, Hey, why'd you come in today? And maybe it's because they saw your ad 35 times, right? And then all of a sudden they were like, actually, I need something. And they remembered, you know, your brand. So they finally, they finally have made the trip or you know, what have you. Um, so it's it's definitely a more cooperative effort to kind of you know get those those uh numbers in that regard.
Workshop Invite And Contact Details
SPEAKER_01That's why those those questions are so important at at checkout, is you're just making a very casual conversation. And I I do find that jewelers are very good at this because I don't think anyone like comes into a store and buys in under five minutes, you know, no one comes in, buys, and leaves. A lot of times it is much more involved with their browsing and things like that. And even if they're highly intent, um high intent shoppers, I do find that asking them right at the at the register, oh, so what's this for? Do you want a gift wrapped? You know, what's the what's the what's the occasion? Uh, and then whatever it is, I do think capturing that information, especially in your point of sale system about why they were buying it, um, it just adds an extra layer of data um that you can eventually remarket to. Sounds like uh, and then that brings you right to the beginning of you know, marketing and then retargeting, and then we're back to the races. So um, anything else that we should be discussing, hope on this? Um, it's a really interesting conversation. It's very kind of sandbox, it feels like. Like you can, there's a lot of ways to skin the cat in this case.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yep. I mean, you know, listen, if you're trying to get retargeting and interested about learning more, definitely we're gonna be at the workshop. I'll be presenting on it um during one of the days. So come visit the seminar. And of course, if you want to talk about it more, then I can uh get real down in the nitty-gritty, depending on where you guys are in in the country and what your goals are, and we can kind of come up with a game plan from there.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. And hope, I guess if uh people where should they reach out to you if they want to, you know, they hear this episode and maybe they're not at the workshop and they want to um have a discussion about retargeting for their own website, where would they go?
SPEAKER_02They can go to email me at hope at punchmark.com h o p e. And then they can also just call our digital marketing sales line um that we can that can be found on www.punchmark.com slash digital marketing.
SPEAKER_01And there you go. Thanks everybody so much. Uh hope I appreciate you joining me. It's always fun talking about marketing. Um, I was uh looking on the side, trying to figure out if I could export my data uh that Facebook has on me, because it would be really interesting to be like, here's what it knows about me. Uh, but I uh I would have to remember my Facebook password. And hey, nobody got time for that. So um I appreciate your time. And everybody, we'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye. All right, everybody. That was the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. My guest this week was Hope Belair, digital marketing manager at Punchmark. If you want to contact her, you can email her Hope. That's H-O-P-E at Punchmark.com. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burfo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cochran. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash loop at L O U P E. Thanks, we'll be back next week Tuesday with another episode. Cheers. Bye.
