Using WordPress to build a website is a great decision. As many regular readers of this blog should know, there are many advantages to using the old blogging standard. One of those is a relatively new concept called Twitter Remarketing. Its ability to connect your Twitter account to your overall online marketing goals can not be ignored.

The new Twitter Remarketing plugin is all part of Twitter’s larger goal of becoming a profitable company. As every social media giant has shown, helping their advertisers get a better cost per acquisition (CPA) is the surest way to a profit. You, as someone with a WordPress website to promote, can benefit from this.

Twitter Remarketing works by bringing three powerful online tools together:

1. WordPress websites
2. Twitter Ad Campaigns
3. Google Tag Managers

Are three of the most powerful online companies working together enough to get your attention? Read on if so!

What can you actually do with Twitter Remarketing?

To start, Twitter Remarketing creates a link between a Twitter Ad Campaign and your WordPress website. At the core of it, you’re recording who visits your WordPress website via a Google tag, then using this data in your Twitter Ad Campaigns. How it uses this data is by displaying ads to those who visited your website more frequently during your Twitter Ad Campaign.

The thinking behind this is that instead of showing an ad to everyone who is remotely related to a loose ‘target demographic,’ you can appeal to specific Twitter users who are already interested in your website. The extra push provided by remarketing to these people can drive them back to your website for that second or third look so that they finally click ‘Buy.’

For an even more advanced user, you can use this technique for specific pages within the website, not just the website as a whole. For instance, say you’re having a sale on an item that’s being promoted with a promoted Tweet campaign. If you had set up a remarketing tag on the specific page for the item right from the start you could target those who had already visited that page. This will bring them back and capture those who weren’t quite ready to buy at the higher price point.

To do this, follow the steps exactly as below for each new webpage. The difference will be in Part 1, step 4.  You obviously won’t be choosing the pop down menu item for “Create Your First Website Tag,” and you’ll want to give it a new name in Part 1, step 5, and Part 3, step 2.

Keep in mind that this can not be your only Twitter marketing technique. This will be a smaller part of a larger Twitter follower growth campaign. It can’t be your whole plan!

The steps to install Twitter Remarketing on a WordPress website

Most of the regular readers of this blog won’t have too many problems following these steps. All you have to do is follow the correct order, there’s no alteration to code or anything complicated. Give it a read through once before starting and you should be fine!

Part 1: Start on your Twitter business account

1. From your Twitter account, click on the Settings option in the top right of the page. It is your profile photo.
2. Choose “Twitter Ads” from the menu that comes down. Choosing this takes you to the Twitter Ads dashboard for that account.
3. Select the “Conversion Tracking” option from the top toolbar.
4. Choose the “Create Your First Website Tag” from the window that opens.
5. Name your Twitter Remarketing tag. Make it easy to remember by keeping it relevant to the overall goal of the campaign.
6. Choose “Website visits” as the conversion you want to track.
7. “Create a Tailored Audience for Remarketing Purposes” is the next option from the menu.
8. The last step is to click the “Create Tag” button. This creates your Twitter Remarketing tag, it pops up in a box. Copy and paste this into another document for safe-keeping.

Part 2: Go to your Google Tag Manager account

All that you need here is your assigned website ID. Create an account if you don’t already have one, it’s a simple process. Take this assigned website ID and paste it into the document with the Twitter Remarketing tag in it. Label them both.

Part 3: Link everything in your WordPress dashboard

1. From your WordPress editing dashboard, click on “New” on the top bar. Choose “Tag” from the menu.
2. Choose a name for the generated tag.
3. “Custom HTML tag” is the type of tag you want to choose from the drop-down menu.
4. Now copy and paste the Twitter Remarketing tag from the backup document into the field.
5. From the Plugins area of your dashboard, select “Add New.”
6. Put “Google Tag Manager” into the search field and select it when it appears.
7. Once you have installed the plugin, use the website ID that you got from your Google Tag Manager account above.

If you followed along perfectly you’ll be all done! Now repeat the steps above if you want to do specific pages for future campaigns as I was saying earlier.

Are certain Twitter Ads better for Twitter Remarketing?

You will ultimately have to base this on the needs of your particular marketing campaign. My advice on which Twitter Ad Campaigns you’ll want to consider are:

1. Twitter Cards: These ads will gather email addresses for your email marketing. This can help you cross your Twitter Remarketing over with another important online form of advertising. The more connections you make with potential customers across digital platforms, the more chances you have of reaching them for that sale.
2. Twitter Promoted Tweets: You’ll have more flexibility with these in comparison to Twitter Cards. You won’t get the email address data though. Promoted tweets can help promote nearly anything else that you want to push out.
3. Twitter App Cards: Anyone with an app to promote would be a fool to ignore App Cards. Twitter Remarketing via an App Card can is another chance to make sure everyone who has visited your website also downloads your app. This allows you to gain exclusive levels of their attention, like the new adidas sneaker booking app.

Each one of these will be sure to give you a more targeted and efficient Twitter Ad Campaign. Your results will vary depending on which you choose, but you’re sure to have a better CPA than if you had never used Twitter Remarketing at all.

Content Management System Roulette

Recently, I stumbled across this helpful article, detailing the differences between Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal, the big three when it comes to content management systems (CMS).  If you're wondering which CMS to choose, you should give the article a read.

We've used all three, with about 80% WordPress, 15% Joomla and 5% Drupal. Here's the basic rules of thumb I've developed to help guide client work.

Should you choose Joomla, WordPress or Drupal for your next project?

• Choose Joomla if you plan on running an integrated online community (forum, members-only areas, access control groups, etc...). Intermediate tech skill needed if the client will be maintaining it.
• Choose WordPress (the self-hosted flavor) if you plan on publishing a ton of content (i.e. blog), or a web portfolio - its responsive Themes are also way better than the other two options, though load time can be an issue. Best platform for clients with low technical aptitude.
• Choose Drupal if you plan on creating an searchable online directory, or need to build something with complex data relationships. The trickiest of the bunch, but most powerful in terms of handling large data sets.

I've also used Ruby on RAILS ... fantastic capability for creating web apps. Support is tough for this one - RAILS is in high demand ... meaning 'simple fixes' can cost a lot. Not territory for amateurs (I hired my development out).

What's your go-to CMS?

To be clear, I'm not a web designer.  I'm not a web developer.  I'm just a marketing guy who has broken my WordPress site ... well ... a LOT.  Over the years and countless late night, "please help me for the love of god" calls to my savvier friends, I've come up with a list of must-have WordPress Plugins.

Installing all/most of these will provide you with a good balance of security, ease of use, stability and peace of mind with some marketing juice for good measure. It will *really* help.

Why so many plugins?
Well, a small biz website is usually designed to help you make money. And comment and contact form spam costs time (and money) to moderate and clean.  And poor SEO makes it harder for your customers to find you (more lost money).  And most importantly, a hacked WordPress site can cost hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours to fix.  Last time I was hacked, it took $150 to hire a programmer and 30+ hours of my time piecing everything back together - manually.

Did I mention (more…)

CHALLENGE:

Small Biz Triage was approached by a talented young tea maker who wanted to start a business.  Initially we discussed securing a booth at the NW Tea Festival.  The catch: the business had no name, no website, no packaging, no brand, no strategy, no budget ... you get the picture.

SOLUTION:

The three things the client had going for her was:

1. Her blended teas were fantastic
2. She had no desire to be like everybody else
3. She realized that she needed our help

We culled together our zaniest team members for a marathon brainstorming session over about a 10 cups of tea and decided on "Otaku Tea". From there we took the client's interests (cosplay, anime, vintage gaming, etc) and worked at creating a brand that would appeal to both anime and steampunk.

Many wondered how we did all this on a micro budget on a 4-week schedule. The client was kind enough to give our creative team a LOT of elbow room, and dammit we loved it.

The days were definitely blending together the closer we got to the festival, but it was worth it.  All of that raw passion shined in through in the product and presentation, gave them a truly different experience. The lack of budget forced a refreshing level of creativity ... couldn't secure hot water for the tea, so it was brewed cold.  Packaging was a combination of envelopes with homemade anime 'postage' stamps, and chinese takeout containers. 

The booth display was culled together from Home Depot parts, and scrap metal.  The website was customized from a free WordPress theme, with free fonts.  We cashed in trades with friends, family, second cousins and ex-girlfriends to secure all of the booth decorations.  Facebook, Twitter and a MailChimp account were put to good use.

The stripped-down computer monitor in the display and laptop to play anime clips were also procured via trade with a local computer repair shop. In return, we pushed a lot of their marketing collateral at the Festival.  Hell, even the lightbox was a re-purposed busted Clear sign.

RESULTS:

The Otaku Tea Booth was clearly the crowd favorite at the festival. Sales were fantastic. A little too fantastic – we ran out of tea on the first day!  The client was stoked, we were stoked and their first customers were stoked.  The festival drew over 1,500 people over two days.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

They are making their next batch of tea for sale and regularly blogging (give it a read here) about anime.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Prepping their first email newsletter (MailChimp), and attending the National Steampunk Convention in November to network with some of the target demographic.

CREDITS:

Concept      Nate Wright, Aaron Calzado, Niki Desautel
Name:         Aaron Calzado
Logo:           Billy Gold
Display:      Billy Gold
Packaging:  Nate Wright
Setup / Teardown: Lucy Kee, Kris Pendelton