Retargeting (also known as remarketing) is a great tool for advertisers to continue to engage with a user that’s already visited their site. Strategically, we know that the user is already inclined to use their product or service. Many advertising services are offering the feature as the costs tend to be lower than traditional pay per click campaigns, and the audience has already self-selected their interest. Return rates can be as much as three times higher than a standard banner ad. How does it work? Let’s take a look.

How Does Retargeting Work?

Cookies. A cookie is set in your browser when you visit a site that’s using retargeting. When you navigate to another site that has an ad unit set to display retargeted ads, the ad for the site you’ve previously visited is served. There are a lot of fine controls that can be set depending on the service used. The expiration time for the cookie, the number of ads served, even controlling what other sites your retargeted ad appears on; are configurable for your campaign. In addition, the parameters for when a cookie is set can be key. You can set cookies based on actions or inaction that the user takes, cart abandonment for example.

Who Offers Retargeting?

Many advertising networks offer retargeting services. AdRoll, Criteo, and Steelhouse to name a few. As with most things advertising, Google also has an offering which they call Remarketing. In fact, the post was originally titled “Remarketing is Remarkable,” but traditional remarketing focuses on email campaigns as opposed to display advertisements. Given the size of Google’s network it makes perfect sense that they have a retargeting option. Facebook, Twitter, and Linked also have their own flavors of retargeting.

Resources to Learn More

Aside from the services above, you may want to read a little more about retargeting and what makes the most sense for you.

• Neil Patel has a great step-by-step article on setting up a Google Remarketing campaign.
• Hubspot has a lengthy blog post about retargeting that dives into the technical aspects.
• Crazyegg has written a post about setting up your first campaign.