Remarketing on Facebook and Instagram: How to win back customers who didn't buy
Most visitors to a store do not purchase on their first visit. Remarketing allows you to reach them again and remind them of the product at the moment they are ready to buy.
How remarketing works in Meta Ads
The Meta Pixel and Conversions API record what users did in the store: which products they viewed, what they added to their cart, and whether they initiated checkout. Based on this, you create custom audiences and show them tailored ads.
Audiences worth starting with
People who added a product to their cart and didn't purchase within the last 7 days.
People who viewed products within the last 14 or 30 days.
People engaged with your Instagram or Facebook profile.
Customers who bought a long time ago, for re-engagement campaigns.
Dynamic catalog ads
The most effective form of remarketing for stores is catalog ads. Meta automatically shows each person the products they viewed, complete with the current price and photo. This requires connecting a product catalog and sending product identifiers in pixel events.
How much budget for remarketing
Remarketing usually delivers the highest ROAS on the account, but has limited scale because it depends on store traffic. Too large a budget causes high frequency and ad fatigue. Most of the budget should go toward acquiring new customers, with remarketing complementing it.
Common mistakes
Failing to exclude people who have already purchased.
Using the same creatives for many weeks.
Evaluating remarketing solely on ROAS, without checking how many of these people would have bought anyway.
Summary
Well-set remarketing closes sales, but it will not replace acquiring new customers. It works best as part of an entire account structure that we build as part of Meta Ads campaigns. It's also worth combining it with emails, as we discuss in our article about marketing automation.
