What Is Retargeting?

Jan 2, 2018

<a href="https://www.ewrdigital.com/author/geoffcampbell" target="_self">Geoff Campbell</a>

Geoff Campbell

Geoff Campbell is a PPC and Paid Media Manager for eCommerce, Industrial, and Enterprise brands.
retargeting explained

What is Retargeting?

In today’s business world, more customers are looking for solutions to their problems online. That’s where search engine marketing like remarketing comes in.

Companies are devoting resources towards establishing useful and responsive websites that adapt to the needs of their customers. To take this marketing strategy even further, these businesses have realized that they need to maintain stronger connections with their website visitors.


Businesses need to maintain stronger connections with their website visitors.


Retargeting offers a great opportunity for businesses to design ads that can be targeted towards people that have previously visited their website. This makes it possible for the company to design targeted and higher quality content that can appeal to previous website visitors.

It’s all about reminding your target audience about your brand, your company, and your best offer, so they can be enticed to further engage with your products/services – and make a purchase.


30% of consumers have a positive reaction to retargeted ads.


Defining Remarketing/Retargeting

  • Take a more personal approach
  • Spread brand awareness

The terms remarketing and retargeting are often used interchangeably. Both words refer to the designing of specific ads that are directed towards people who have visited your website before. Retargeting allows your business to use the information that IT has about previous website visitors in order to design targeted ads.


Retargeting allows your business to use information about people who’ve already visited your website to design ads targeted for them.


These ads often contain information that is relevant and attractive to your target audience.

In addition, the ads can be strategically placed in various areas of the user’s browsing experience (most often on other partner websites) to allow for easy viewing and greater outreach.

It also gives people who have visited your website the sense that you are everywhere. This can be especially fun when a competitor visits your website.

New to Retargeting?

Are you new to remarketing? No problem. We’ll break it down for you. Read on below to find out more or call us at [phone number=”713-597-4065″] to discuss your retargeting strategy with an expert!

Talk to an Expert Now

How It Works

With retargeting, you can position your targeted ads in full sight of your previous website visitors as they browse through other websites. Most businesses that have implemented remarketing campaigns have been able to reap multiple benefits from this strategy, among the top ones being saving on marketing costs.

The concept behind remarketing is actually quite simple. It involves placing cookies on the browsers of your website visitors whenever they access your website. To make the approach more targeted, you can set specific criteria that a visitor has to fulfill before you decide to add them to your remarketing list. For example, you can set the criteria to be dependent on a certain amount of time a visitor is on the website, or if they accessed specific webpages.

The browser cookie allows you to track the browsing pattern of your site visitors and to design targeted ads that they are bound to encounter during their website browsing experience. You can manage your remarketing list in many different ways. For instance, you can set multiple lists that are defined by different criteria, or you can even specify how long you would want a specific cookie ID to remain in the list.

How does retargeting benefit your business?

Retargeting is a powerful marketing technique that poses numerous benefits to most businesses. If you design and implement a retargeting campaign, you can expect to experience the following benefits for your business.

Raise brand recognition

  • Visitors better connect your business and overall message
  • Increase awareness
  • You stay TOP of MIND with your visitors

Remarketing is one of the best strategies for raising brand awareness. In fact, marketers have found that retargeting results in a significant increase (an increase of up to 1046%) in trademark search behavior.


Retargeting results in increases of up to 1046% in trademark search behavior.


When visitors land on your website and leave, the targeted ads they see afterwards will remind them of your products and services and your brand. They will make a better connection between your business and the overall message on your branded website. As a result, your prospects will become aware of your brand, your business and what your products/services represent.

Increase conversion rates

  • Customize ads based where a lead is at in the sales cycle
  • Nurture your leads

Retargeting is also critical in helping the sales team with conversions. Remarketing ads can be designed for specific audiences depending on where they are in the sales cycle. Your business can establish separate lists that are categorized according to the connection that prospects have with your brand.

Prospects who are closer to making a purchase can be targeted with product-specific ads, pricing information, and buying options. Those early in the buying cycle can be targeted with a general brand and product information that will raise awareness and interest.

This targeted marketing approach leads to increased conversion rates, where more prospects are turned into leads for nurturing and eventually into customers.


93% of B2B marketers use remarketing as a content marketing strategy.


Better understand your target audience

Retargeting ultimately leads to a better understanding of your target audience. This is because your business cannot design effective ads without a solid understanding of the pain points of its customers.

For remarketing to be effective, you will need to dive into the thought process of your target audience and to see things from their point of view. This makes it possible for you to design ads that have attractive and relevant content. With a better understanding of your prospects, you will be able to adjust your business processes to fit the needs of your customers.


Dive into the thought process of your target audience to see things from their point of view.


Improve marketing ROI

Because remarketing is such a targeted approach when the campaign addresses the specific pain points of your customers, it leads to a higher return on investment for your marketing campaigns. In addition, the success of your remarketing initiatives can be tracked by measuring conversion rates, increase in website traffic, and generation of leads for nurturing.

It is important to realize that most content marketing strategies cost 62% less (as compared to other traditional marketing methods) while generating 3 times as many leads. As a result, the retargeting approach is an effective marketing strategy that is reliable and yields a solid return on investment.

Discuss Strategy With a Marketing Expert

What to Keep in Mind When Designing a Remarketing Campaign

In order to design successful remarketing campaigns for your business, there are several important factors you should keep in mind.

Raising awareness

If your main goal is to raise awareness about your brand to potential customers, you can use a remarketing technique referred to as pixel-based remarketing. This process uses a more random approach for targeting website visitors.

When anyone visits your website, a cookie is placed on their browser. Therefore, the pixel-based approach allows for a timely and behavior-based tracking strategy. This is because the criteria that is set relies mostly on how your potential customers behave on the website, and the targeted ads can be sent out soon after they leave the site.

Converting the target audience

On the other hand, if you’re at the next step and are aiming at converting website visitors into leads for nurturing, a more specific remarketing strategy is necessary. This is often referred to as list-based retargeting. It occurs when you already have defined lists of your website visitors as well as some form of their contact information.

The list-based approach even allows you to upload email addresses for use in targeting very specific ads. The ultimate goal is to entice your audience to take the next step; such as filling out a form that takes them to a specific landing-page.

Talk to an Expert About Your Remarketing Strategy!

EWR Digital has been providing business all over Houston and the US with exceptional internet marketing services since 1999. Want a FREE 15-minute conversation with one of our experts? It’s easy. Just call us at (713) 592-6724 or contact us online to request a call!

Talk to an Expert!

What Is Retargeting? | EWR Digital – Houston, TX