Retargeting is an action that allows advertisers to target consumers according to their previous interactions with a website. Retargeting is also known as behavioural remarketing or behavioural retargeting.
How does retargeting work? When a user visits a website, but doesn’t make a purchase, retargeting is a way to remind that visitor that they’ve been to the website before. This reminder will usually come in thr form of ads on other websites they visit. This is done to keep the website and the product they considered purchasing in the front of your mind. How are ads for the exact website placed on other ads for users to see again and again? An invisible (the user’s eyes) pixel is placed on websites and tags each visitor, adding them to a list. From there, a campaign can be set up and using the pixel ID, it will track the visitors. It will also note what stage of sales funnel they are in. The users that are most likely to be retargeted are ones who have put something into a website’s shopping cart, but have not yet made the purchase. Retargeting is an attempt to remind the user of their almost-purchase and drawn them back to complete the action.
In addition to making a sale, the benefits of retargeting include increasing brand aware. It can take a user up to seven times of seeing your brand online to build trust and feel that they know you enough to answer a call-to-action such as signing up for something or making a purchase. Retargeting can help to speed up this process as they will be exposed to the brand more often in a short amount of time. Another benefit of retargeting is that it is a cost effective menthod of getting a brand in front of users eyes. It’s already known that these users have been to a specific website before, so the odds of them returning after seeing more ads are increased. Retargeting is also a tool that evolves as technology advances, which makes it a reliable form of advertising.
The cons of retargeting mainly revolve around the idea that users feel as though they are being spied on and followed. Users may also become annoyed if they are seeing the same ads over and over again. Despite these downsides though, retargeting is proven to be a successful form of advertising and leads to increased sales, which is the end goal for most businesses online.
To combat the cons of retargeting is to put a frequency cap on ads seen during a retargeting campaign so they aren’t seen too often (or too little). Burning is a term used to describe when a user makes a purchase or answers another call-to-action they will be removed from the retargeting campaign. Burning also takes place when a user hasn’t converted within a certain amount of time, say 30 days, they will also be removed from the list.
Retargeting is an effective method of advertising that can not only help a brand become known and trusted, but result in more conversions and revenue as well.
