Google Remarketing
Most people who visit your website leave without enquiring and never come back. Remarketing follows them across the web with targeted display ads — quietly keeping your brand front of mind until they're ready to book.
- Understand exactly how remarketing works and why it converts so well
- Confirm your Google Tag is installed and tracking site visitors
- Create a remarketing audience and a Display campaign targeting it
- Write display ads that bring warm visitors back to your site
- Set this running as a permanent background campaign for £30–£50/month
97% of visitors leave without enquiring — remarketing brings them back
On average, 97% of people who visit a travel website leave without making an enquiry. They weren't necessarily uninterested — they got distracted, wanted to think about it, or planned to come back later. Most of them simply never return.
Remarketing changes that. Once someone has visited your site, Google tracks them (with their consent, via cookies) and allows you to show targeted display ads to that person as they browse other websites — news sites, sports sites, recipe blogs, anywhere on Google's Display Network. Your ad appears and reminds them you exist, at a moment when they might be ready to take the next step.
The reason this works so well — and why it delivers the best return on investment of any paid channel at this budget level — is the audience quality. These aren't cold strangers. They already know your brand. They've already shown interest. Your cost per click is very low, your conversion rate is much higher, and the whole thing runs in the background with almost no ongoing management.
A set-and-run campaign that works while you sleep
Unlike Google Search Ads which require regular keyword management, a well-set-up remarketing campaign runs almost on its own. Set it up once, check it monthly, and it quietly recovers warm visitors around the clock for a fraction of the cost of other paid channels.
What you need
- A Google Ads account — set up in Course 06 (you'll add this campaign to the same account)
- Google Tag installed on your website — this is what tracks visitors. If you set up conversion tracking in Course 06, it's already there
- A display ad image — minimum 1200×628px, high quality destination photography. No text overlaid on the image
- Your logo in PNG format — used in Responsive Display Ads
Your audience needs to reach 100 people before ads show
Google requires a minimum audience size of 100 people before a remarketing campaign can start delivering ads. If your website is brand new with very little traffic, it may take a few weeks to reach this threshold. In the meantime, focus on driving traffic through Course 06 (Search Ads) and Courses 01–05. The remarketing audience will build in the background as visitors arrive.
Setting up your remarketing campaign
Confirm your Google Tag is installed and firing
Log in to ads.google.com. Go to Tools → Conversions. Check that you have a Google Tag listed and that its status shows as "Tag active" or "Recording conversions."
If you're not sure, visit your own website in a browser, then come back to Google Ads and check Tools → Tag Diagnostics — it should show a recent "Page view" event from your visit.
Create your remarketing audience
Go to Tools → Audience Manager → Audience Lists → +(the blue plus button). Select "Website visitors."
Configure it as follows:
- Audience name:"All Website Visitors – 30 days"
- List members: Visitors of a page — leave URL as your homepage (captures everyone)
- Membership duration: 30 days (visitors stay in the audience for 30 days after their last visit)
Click Save. Google will now continuously add every new site visitor to this audience automatically.
Create a new Display campaign
Go to Campaigns → + New Campaign. Select "Sales" as your goal. Select "Display" as the campaign type.
Name it clearly: "Remarketing – All Visitors". Enter your website URL when prompted.
Set your locations, budget and bidding
Locations: United Kingdom. Set to Presence only (same as Course 06).
Daily budget: £1.50–£2.00/day (£45–£60/month). For a tighter budget, £1.00/day still works — the audience is small so spend will be modest regardless.
Bidding: Select "Target CPA" if you have conversion tracking set up from Course 06. If not, select "Manual CPC" with a maximum bid of £0.50. Display clicks are cheap — this keeps your cost per click very low.
Set your audience targeting — this is the critical step
In your ad group settings, scroll to Audiences. Click "Browse" → "How they have interacted with your business". Select your "All Website Visitors – 30 days" audience.
Now look for the targeting setting. It will show "Observation" by default. Change it to "Targeting." This is essential — "Observation" means Google can still show your ads to anyone, using your audience only as an observation layer. "Targeting" means your ads show exclusively to your remarketing audience. Without this change, you are not running a remarketing campaign.
Create your Responsive Display Ads
Google's Responsive Display Ads automatically assemble different combinations of your images, logos, headlines and descriptions to find what works best. You provide the building blocks — Google tests the combinations.
You'll need to upload:
- Images: at least 3 landscape images (1200×628px) — destination photography, beautiful scenery, lifestyle travel shots. No text overlaid on the images
- Logo: your logo in square or landscape format
- Headlines: up to 5 (30 chars each)
- Long headline: 1 (90 chars)
- Descriptions: up to 5 (90 chars each)
Write for a warm audience — not a cold one. These people already know you. Your messaging should pick up where they left off, not introduce yourself from scratch:
❌ Cold messaging — wrong for remarketing
"Sunshine Travel Co — Award-winning travel agents offering holidays to 50+ destinations. Book now."
✅ Warm messaging — right for remarketing
"Still thinking about that holiday? Our specialists are ready when you are — let's make it happen."
Headline ideas for remarketing:
- "Still dreaming of that holiday?"
- "Your perfect trip is closer than you think"
- "Pick up where you left off"
- "Speak to a specialist today"
- "Ready when you are"
Publish and set a monthly check-in reminder
Click Publish. Your remarketing campaign is now live and running in the background. Unlike your Search campaign, this one needs very little ongoing management.
Set a monthly calendar reminder to review it. At each monthly check-in, look at:
- Impressions: how many times your ads were seen. A low number usually means your audience is still small — it will grow as site traffic builds
- Clicks: how many people clicked through to your site
- Conversions: if you have conversion tracking, how many of those clicks became enquiries
- Average CPC: should be well under £1.00 for display remarketing
If your click-through rate drops below 0.3%, refresh your images or headlines — your audience has seen them too many times. This is called ad fatigue and typically happens after 6–8 weeks with a small audience.
Stack remarketing for maximum effect
Running this Google Remarketing campaign alongside the Meta Retargeting campaign from Course 08 means past visitors will see your brand across the entire web — Google's network AND Facebook and Instagram. The combined effect is significantly greater than either alone. Together, these two campaigns for roughly £60–£90/month represent the highest-ROI paid investment available at this budget level.
Travelgenix tip
Ask your Travelgenix account manager to confirm your Google Tag is correctly installed across all pages of your website — not just the homepage. A tag that only fires on the homepage misses everyone who arrives directly on a destination page, a blog post, or an enquiry form. Full-site coverage means a much larger remarketing audience and better campaign performance.
For more experienced marketers
Create destination-specific audiences for targeted remarketing
Once your main remarketing campaign is running, create additional audiences for specific pages on your site. Anyone who visited your Maldives page gets a Maldives-specific ad. Anyone who visited your Ski Holidays page gets a ski ad. This level of relevance dramatically increases click-through and conversion rates because the ad matches exactly what the person was looking at. Set these up in Audience Manager using "Visitors of a page with specific URL" — for example, any URL containing "/maldives."
Set a frequency cap to avoid ad fatigue
Without a frequency cap, the same person might see your ad dozens of times a day — which damages brand perception rather than helping it. In your campaign settings, find "Frequency management" and set a cap of 3–5 impressions per person per day. This keeps your ads feeling like a gentle reminder rather than a relentless chase. Small remarketing audiences are particularly susceptible to frequency burn-out because the same people see the ads repeatedly.
Exclude people who have already enquired
Once someone has submitted an enquiry, continuing to show them remarketing ads is at best wasted spend and at worst mildly irritating. Create a separate audience for people who visited your "thank you" page (the page shown after enquiry form submission) and exclude that audience from your remarketing campaign. In your ad group, go to Audiences → Exclusions → add your "thank you page visitors" audience. This keeps your budget focused on people who are still undecided.
Common remarketing mistakes
- Leaving targeting set to Observation instead of Targeting — the most common setup error; your ads will show to everyone, not just past visitors
- Using cold messaging for a warm audience — people who've visited your site don't need an introduction, they need a reason to come back
- Never refreshing ad creative — ad fatigue sets in after 6–8 weeks with a small audience; rotate your images and headlines regularly
- Not excluding recent enquirers — showing ads to people who've already contacted you wastes budget and creates a poor impression
- Mixing remarketing into your Search campaign — keep them separate so performance data remains clean and readable
Your monthly 10-minute campaign check
- Check impressions — low numbers mean your audience is still small, which is fine early on
- Check average CPC — should remain below £1.00 for display remarketing
- Check click-through rate — if below 0.3%, refresh your images or headlines (ad fatigue)
- Check conversions if tracking is active — how many returning visitors became enquiries?
- Confirm your monthly spend is within budget — adjust daily budget if needed
What to expect and when
| When | What to expect |
|---|---|
| Week 1–2 | Campaign live but audience may still be below the 100-person threshold. Ads may not deliver yet — this is normal. Audience builds silently in the background. |
| Month 1 | Audience reaches threshold and ads begin delivering. First impressions and clicks. Past visitors start seeing your brand as they browse the web. |
| Month 2–3 | Campaign in full flow. Combined with Search Ads, you're now covering both new intent-driven traffic and recovering lost visitors. Brand recall in your audience improves. |
| Month 3–6 | Measurable increase in direct return visits to your site. Enquiry rate from returning visitors typically 3–5× higher than first-time visitors. Campaign running almost autonomously. |
| Ongoing | One of your best-value ongoing campaigns. Every pound spent goes to people who are already warm. Refreshed creative every 6–8 weeks keeps performance strong indefinitely. |
Lesson completion checklist
📄 Download the Course 07 Workbook
Setup checklist, audience configuration guide, ad copy planner, and monthly review tracker.