What Is Retargeting In Digital Marketing?

In this article I will share with you what is Retargeting and how you can avoid the mistakes while placing your first retargeting campaign.

what is retargeting in digital marketing

One thing I want tell you that the idea to write about Retargeting came to my mind when I got an email from Justin Broke about Retargeting.

So after reading this email I found this full of value and then I thought that I must share it on my blog.

If you don’t know about Justin Broke then let I tell you a little bit about him.

Actually he got started with just $60 in Adwords in 2007.

Within a year he turned that $60 into 6 figures. He later built IMScalable.com, a digital ad agency, with his wife Chaunna.

They both build IMScalable into a 7 figure digital ad agency, and have made millions for their clients.

They are both certified by Hubspot in Inbound marketing and have spoken on stage all over the world,

After launching Adskills they grew their virtual team which now includes members that live all across the world.

The team is made up of some of the best product developers, customer support, data analysts and writers that all strive daily to deliver amazing training and support for our students.

Ok, now let’s move to the point of Retargeting.

But, tell me one thing…..

Have you ever experienced that when you’re on Amazon or Ebay or any other website searching for any products and for some reason you didn’t buy the product that you were looking for?

And thereafter, you left this website and moved to other website or blog and there all of the sudden, you saw an Ad with the same product that you were looking at Amazon or Ebay with new offer or discount.

That’s we call a Retargeting in digital marketing.

In other words, you go to a website and there you saw an ad and then you click on that ad.

After watching that ad, you left this particular website and then you move to the other website.

And there you saw the same ad with the same product or service that you saw at the first website where you first time landed on from your browser. Got it!

Now question comes how Retargeting does work?

Let I tell you in short!

How Does Retargeting Work?

Actually what happens when you go to a website or blog or click on the ad placed on the website or blog then a string of small code i.e. Java Script or HTML or cookie or pixel is placed on your browser.

Or you can say, you are tag with the cookie. See below and example of java script. java script retargeting

And due to this reason wherever you go on the web whether it’s a Facebook, Twitter or any other website, you are retargeted with the similar ad or with some other ad having new offers or discount.

Now you might be thinking about what Cookie I am talking?

Or You might be also thinking what the heck Pixel is?

If so, then don’t worry, I will explain about these in the post below.

Even I will also tell you some other terms that are used while placing Retargeting Ads.

And yes, if you’re a digital marketer then you must know about what is retargeting and what are the common terms that are used in Retargeting. Ok!

Let’s know about them!

1. Pixel

Pixel is a tiny bit of javascript or html code that fires a message back to the ad network or tracking tool a few bits of information. It also tags the user with a cookie.

2. Cookie

Here I am not talking about the cookie that you eat on breakfast or brunch but a little piece of code i.e. javascript or html code that gets saved in your browser to identify you later.

Identifying does mean that you are identified personally, but as the same user who did x actions on last visit.

Where x is equal to whatever info you are tracking in your ad network.

Note: – Actions can be something like visiting to the website’s product page, adding the product to the cart but didn’t hit the order button, visiting to the pricing page of website or any other page of website or blog etc.

3. Pixel Pool

This is a group of users that you have tagged with pixels and cookies. Sometimes also referred to as your retargeting audience.

4. Burn Pixel

This is a pixel you are placing to create a pixel pool of users that you do NOT want to retarget with ads.

For example, customers or group of people who unsubscribed from your list.

5. Lookalike

Look-a-like, meaning a user that is similar to the users in your pixel pool or email list.

Ad networks may call these lookalikes or similar audiences or close match audiences.

All the same thing. They are all expansions of your pixel pool.

Now you know some common terms that are used while placing retargeting.

Let’s move further and know how to avoid some mistakes especially when you’re at just starting point or thinking about placing your first retargeting campaign.

But before that tell me who smart person is?

A person who commits mistakes?

Or a person who learns from the mistakes of others and doesn’t commit those same mistakes that a person has already done?

Now, here if I had been on behalf of you then I would have chosen the second option where a person learns from the mistake of others.

So below I am going to tell you the mistakes that you shouldn’t commit while placing your first retargeting ad campaign. Right!

Retarketing Mistake #1

Don’t retarget too many people in your retargeting campaign. The point of retargeting is to have a really high quality pixel pool to show ads.

If you are retargeting everyone the same, then you lose the effectiveness of retargeting.

Just like with your email list, you don’t want crappy leads that buy nothing, right?

You have to keep in mind that with retargeting, you are paying for retargeting those crappy users.

So what you can do here…..

Instead start with the smallest most likely to buy audience.

For example, dropping a pixel on your shopping cart page for those users or visitors who didn’t buy your product or service.

And further putting a burn pixel on your thank you page for those who have now become your customers.

Now you can retarget just the people who almost bought but didn’t quite pull the trigger.

This is one of the easy money recipes that you can apply.

Retargeting Mistake #2

Don’t make your ads creepy. Consumers get a little creeped out if your ads say “Hey remember me from yesterday” or “Hey I saw you visited this page last week.”

If you do that this type of creepy trick then the customer thinks “OMG what else were they tracking. Who else is tracking me. I feel like a piece of meat in a lion’s cage.”

Instead, be subtle. They already know they were on your page yesterday. You don’t need to say that.

Save all that space to tell them the benefits of your product. You know, the one they looked at yesterday.

Retargeting Mistake #3

Don’t overdo it.

Just take an example, if I leave your website and then everywhere I go I see 5 ads for your product, it gets offensive and smells of desperation.

Also, same goes for retargeting for too long.

Just because the ad network saves the pixel for 540 days does not mean that’s how long you should show your ads to the pixel pool.

According to Justin Broke after 30 days there is a diminishing return on investment.

Instead, set your frequency cap to 3 per day and campaign flight date to 30 days.

You can adjust these settings a little to fit your needs, but let it be a starting point.

Besides if they are seeing your ad 3x a day for 30 days and still don’t buy, then it’s time for a new ad anyway.

Which, by the way, doesn’t mean that you never show them ads past 30 days, just not the same ad for 30+ days.

So that’s it.

If you avoid those above said 3 mistakes then you would do better than most Retargeters.

Ok, now you know what is retargeting and how to avoid the mistakes while placing your retargeting campaign.

If you have any questions or queries then let me know in the comment below.

Yes if you found any value with this article on what is retargeting then please share it with your friends or with somebody who you know will get benefit from this article.