Is your AdWords targeting strategy remarketing to existing customers? You could be squandering hundreds to thousands of dollars a month without even realizing it. If you use AdWords to remarket to all users who visit your website, chances are you are wasting ad spend by inadvertently targeting existing customers.

Imagine this scenario:

• I’m you customer.
• I visit your website to pay my bill.
• Sometime later, I go to YouTube to watch a video
• But first I’m served your ad telling me to switch to your service.
• I already have your service so I can’t switch.
• Now, I’m served this same ad multiple times a day for the next 30 days
• I start to hate being your customer.
• On top of that, you just spent $1-$5 a month on advertising to one person who already has your service.
• Multiply that by your thousands and thousands of customers.

If your digital marketing team is mismanaging your ad spend with this oversight, naturally you’re pretty upset right now. You could have mailed a check directly to Google and spared your existing customers from the negative emotions associated with ad burnout. Or you could hire an AdWords expert to fix this problem and uncover many other issues with your account that will save you money and headaches.

Tactical Solutions

Smart: serve your existing customers ads to upgrade their service or upsell them other service offerings they do not currently subscribe to.

Easy: Exclude your ads from showing to existing customers.

Efficient: Implement a frequency cap to prevent your ad from showing every time your potential customer visits YouTube or a Google AdSense affiliated site.

Final Words

The example above focused on YouTube advertising, but the problem of remarketing to existing customers is also pervasive on the Google Display Network (note: this mistake won’t cost you as much on the Google Display Network because you only pay when a user clicks your ad). Paid advertising is an incredibly powerful weapon, but a weapon is only as good as its wielder. Start utilizing your spend better with a remarketing strategy that makes sense. Your customers and future customers will thank you.