Retargeting

Retargeting is a form of online advertising that helps you keep your brand in front of bounced traffic after they leave your website.

Definition

Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a form of online advertising that can help you keep your brand in front of bounced traffic after they leave your website. For most websites, only about 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit. Retargeting is a tool designed to help companies reach the 98% of users who don’t convert right away.

Usage and Context

Retargeting works by keeping track of people who visit your site and displaying your retargeting ads to them as they visit other sites online. It uses a tiny piece of code, sometimes referred to as a pixel. The pixel is unnoticeable to your site visitors and won’t affect your site’s performance. When a new visitor comes to your site, the code drops an anonymous browser cookie. Later, when your cookied visitors browse the Web, the cookie will let your retargeting provider know when to serve ads, ensuring that your ads are served to only people who have previously visited your site.

FAQ

What is the difference between retargeting and remarketing?

While often used interchangeably, retargeting is mostly about serving ads to potential customers based on cookies while remarketing is mostly about re-engaging customers with email.

What platforms offer retargeting?

Most advertising networks, including Google and Facebook, offer retargeting services.

There are several software solutions available for retargeting. Some of the most popular ones include Google Ads, AdRoll, Criteo, and Retargeter.

Benefits

Retargeting can increase brand awareness, improve conversion rates, and provide a higher return on investment. It allows businesses to stay connected with their audience, even after they leave their website, and provides multiple opportunities to convert the audience into a customer.

Conclusion

In conclusion, retargeting is a powerful branding and conversion optimization tool, but it works best if it’s part of a larger digital strategy. Retargeting works best in conjunction with inbound and outbound marketing or demand generation. Strategies involving content marketing, AdWords, and targeted display are great for driving traffic, but they don’t help with conversion optimization. Conversely, retargeting can help increase conversions, but it can’t drive people to your site. Your best chance of success is using one or more tools to drive traffic and retargeting to get the most out of that traffic.