Setting up an abandoned-cart campaign with Google Display Network

Goal: To create a simple Google Display Network campaign that targets those who are closest to purchase.

Ideal Outcome:  You start generating more sales by marketing to your most qualified leads by investing under 30 minutes of your time in setting up a paid campaign.

Pre-requisites or requirements:

You need to have a Google Ads account. If you don’t have one yet you can follow the procedure covered in :

You need to have the remarketing pixel or the global site tag on your site. If you haven’t done so yet, you can follow the procedure covered in:

Why this is important: Remarketing campaigns are perhaps the first type of paid campaign you should start running if you already have consistent website traffic. Cart abandonment is an easy-to-capture revenue opportunity.

Where this is done: In your Google Ads account.

When this is done:  Every time you want to start a new abandoned-cart campaign.

Who does this:

The person responsible for paid advertising.

• Make sure you have conversion tracking in place

If you are not tracking your AdWords conversions yet, it is recommended that you do so before starting any AdWords campaign.

If you are using Google Tag Manager you can follow SOP 025: Adding AdWords conversion tracking to a site (using Google Tag Manager).

• Set up a remarketing audience for abandoned carts

1. Log in to your Google Adwords account by heading over to https://adwords.google.com.
2. Click the Tool icon in the top right corner → “Audience Manager”

3. Click the blue “+” icon → “Website visitors”:

4. Give your audience a name like “Abandoned carts for [name of your product]”

5. On the “List members” section, select “Visitors of a page who did not visit another page”.

6. Now you will have to configure the rules that will identify a user as having abandoned a checkout:
1. Visited page: [URL] [contains] [Insert the URL slug of your checkout page here]
1. Note: This will usually be your checkout page (or the first page of your checkout if you have multiple steps).
2. Note 2: There might be cases where you might want to select a different match type such as [equals] [starts with] or other.

7. Unvisited page: [URL] [contains] [Insert the URL slug of your thank-you page here]

8. On the “Initial list size” select the one that you think fits you better:
1. Include people from the past 30 days (recommended): If you already had the remarketing pixel or the global site tag implemented in the past 30 days you will already be able to start straight away by selecting this option.
2. Start with an empty list: If for some reason you want to start a brand new audience (e.g: you might have repurposed an URL slug that had an entirely different product on it before) you can select this option.

9. On the “Membership Duration” section you will select the number of days you will want for someone to remain in that audience.
1. Note: Your remarketing lists targeting the Google Display Network must have had a minimum of 100 active users within the last 30 days for your ads to run.
2. Note 2: The best number of days will depend on the type of product you are selling and the duration of your purchase cycle. If you’re selling a type of product or service that typically does not take too many days for a customer to make a purchase decision (e.g: a cell phone screen protector) you may want to shorten it, whereas if you’re selling a high-ticket or complex product or service you may want to lengthen it. You can also use Google Analytics’ “Time to purchase” reports to give you a more accurate idea.
3. Note 3: If you don’t know which one to select, you can select 30 days.

10. If you have any other information you would want to add to this audience you can do it in the “Description” field. (optional)

11. Click “Create Audience” and your list will start populating.
1. Note: It may take a few hours for the list to be ready to be used in your targeting.

• Prepare your campaign assets

If this is your first cart-abandonment campaign, we recommend that you start with the most simple ad format: single image. However, it’s best practice to test different ads on  each campaign you run.

Note: Click here to see the full requirements for your particular case.

1. Prepare 2 (or more) variations to use for the campaign, with the following specifications:
1. Dimensions:
• 336x280
• 300x250
• 728x90
• 300x600
• 320x100
2. File Size: Each file must be under 150KB.
3. Animations: If your ad is animated the maximum animation time is 30 seconds. The animations can be looped, but they still must stop at 30 seconds.
4. Variations:

There are several variations you can test in your ads, but you should only make 1 variation per ad at a time, pick one:

• CTA Copy
• CTA Color
• Ad Copy
• Graphics

**Note: Remember that you will still need to re-create all the versions of your ads on multiple dimensions. Increasing the variations may increase the workload significantly. Example:

300x250

Version A (Red CTA)     Version B (Orange CTA)

728x90

Version A (Red CTA):

Version B (Orange CTA):

• Creating your ad campaign

1. In your AdWords account click “Campaigns”.
2. Click the blue “+” icon → “New campaign”

3. Select “Display Network”

4. Select “Sales” and use the following settings, and click “Continue”:
1. Campaign subtype: Standard display campaign
2. Setup details: Leave this field empty

5. Name your campaign and input your campaign preferences:

• **Note: Whenever possible you should standardize the naming process and adopt a naming convention, if you don’t have one yet you can use: Remarketing - [Product name] - Abandoned Cart

6. Locations: Select the locations where you want your ad to be displayed.
1. Note: If you only ship to certain countries you might want to take that into consideration in this option.

7. Languages: Select this option If you only want to show your ads to customers that speak a certain language.

8. Bidding: Select “Manual CPC” and make sure “Enable Enhanced CPC” is ticked.

9. Daily Budget: Enter the maximum amount you are willing to allocate to this campaign in a daily basis.
1. Note: Take into consideration that there might be a slight fluctuation on your daily spend and it is possible that in some days your campaign might overspend a little bit more than the daily budget you have selected.
2. Note 2: The daily budget you set should be according to your industry, overall business goals, profit-margins, conversion rate, among others.
3. Note 3: If you’re just getting started you can select a budget between $20-50/day, you can edit and adjust this later on.

10. Name your ad group and input your ad group preferences:

• Note: Whenever possible you should standardize your naming process and adopt a naming convention, if you don’t have one yet you can use: Remarketing - [Product name] - Abandoned Cart

11. Audiences: Click Remarketing → [Select the remarketing list created in step 4 of the first section of this SOP] → Click “Done”

12. Demographics: You can further target your ad by only showing your ad to people that are likely to be in your selected demographic. This is an optional field and you may leave it empty.
13. Automated targeting: Select “Conservative automation”

14. Ad group bid: Enter the maximum amount that you want to pay per click.
1. Note: The ad group bid you set should be according to the industry, overall business goals, profit-margins, conversion rate, country, among others.
2. Note 2: If you’re just getting started you can select a bid of 1$, you can edit and adjust this later on.

15. Dynamic ads: You can leave this field empty. (outside of the scope of this SOP)
16. Click “+ New Ad” → “Upload display ads”

17. Enter your destination URL → Click “Choose files to upload” → Select the assets you have prepared on the previous section.
1. Note: Make sure you have auto-tagging enabled in your account. If you are not sure or don’t have it yet you can follow the procedure covered on SOP 014.

18. When you’re ready, click “Add to ad group”:

19. You should now see a thumbnail list of all your ads → Click your ad image

20. Rename your Ad → Click “Apply Changes”
21. Note: Whenever possible you should standardize your naming process and adopt a naming convention, if you don’t have one yet you can use: “Remarketing - [Product name] - Abandoned Cart - [Ad variation] - [Ad Dimensions]” (e.g: “Remarketing - Emoji BE - Abandoned Cart - Version A Red CTA - 300x250”)
22. Note: Repeat this process until all ads have been renamed.

23. Click “Create Campaign”

24. That’s it! Your campaign is now going to go through the approval process and should start running after it has been approved.