Have you ever shopped online with Amazon, Ebay or similar website only to not end up making a final purchase? Now when you go back to surf the web, you’ve probably noticed these same items or similar ones show up on your news feeds or on sidebars of other websites you visit. It sort of feels like those items are following you around every corner you turn. kind of creepy, right? Well that’s no coincidence, it’s called retargeting or otherwise known as remarketing.

What is Retargeting?

You’re probably curious now but its not that complicated, really. Retargeting a simple form of online advertising that helps your company make more points of contact with potential customers after they’ve visited your website (in most cases). These potential customers will scan through various items they may want only to get to the checkout line and leave your page. There’s clear indication they have interest in these items but they may have not purchased it for various reasons. Nevertheless retargeting is a cookie that is planted into your potential customer’s computer. It uses simple javascript coding to track them all over the web after they’ve left your website. When surfing the web at a later time, they will be reminded of their interest in your page and products which will increase the likelihood of either having them come back, or running for the hills.

What kinds of retargeting are there?

There’s three kinds of retargeting and they all work just a bit differently.

1. Email Targeting: As described above, when you leave a cart empty online, you will either see advertisements on other sites or you will get emails asking you to come back and make that purchase. Some may give you incentive by offering a limited time offer special or percentage discounts.

2. Search retargeting: As part of a larger digital strategy, search retargeting sends advertisements to potential customers based on their search engine queries. That means any time you Google, Yahoo, or Bing something you’ll start to see related advertisements to your search interests. This type of retargeting has been known to ruin marriage proposal or pregnancy surprises, oops!

3. Contextual retargeting: This is a more complicated version of retargeting but to keep it simple, websites partner up to share the cookies with each other. That way, when you’re on website A you’ll get Website B’s advertisement and vice versa. This is effective because the websites that partner up usually have customers that share similar interests. So if you’re on Amazon, you may also get advertisements for products other people purchased after purchasing the product you recently viewed.

Example of retargeting

In one scenario, a customer didn’t have enough funds to buy the items they wanted so they left the page. Later in the week they used their computer to surf the web and an advertisement for those same products appeared on a different page they were visiting. The advertisement reminded them of their interest in the products and they purchased them because they now had the funds to do so. Without the use of retargeting, they would have forgotten about their items and never would have gone back to make the final purchase. In another scenario, customers have been scared away from making the purchase due to diligent or aggressive advertising.

Benefits of retargeting

Retargeting definitely has many benefits and its one of the most profitable ways to advertise since you are promoting products of interest to people who are already aware of your brand. As creepy as it may seem, retargeting is a great tool to help your business increase its brand awareness as your potential customers will be seeing you almost everywhere they go. This in turn improves your conversion rates because it opens up an opportunity to bring the customer back to the checkout line. Retargeting becomes even more powerful when combined with an overall digital marketing strategy.

Options for retargeting

There’s several companies you can go with to help you retarget. There’s Adroll, Retargeter, Meteorea, and a few more out there that offer these services, however some of them may give you a free trial before making an actual purchase. Each service has a different model, data integration and reporting features available. If this is something you’d be interested in checking out, we recommend you to determine which is best suited for your business.

1. Adroll
2. Retargeter
3. Meteorea

Retargeting is a powerful tool for marketers, e-commerce managers, companies, and business owners alike. However, customers may feel like they are being spied on to make a purchase. What have your experiences been with retargeting? Can you think of other ways retargeting affects the company or the consumer? Share it with us and leave a comment!