Retargeting is a method by which e-commerce marketers can ‘re-attract’ online visitors who did not buy on their first visit on a website.

Why using retargeting?

Some sources say that only 2% of the web traffic converts on its first visit on a website. Some people perhaps abandoned a shopping basket before completing their purchase or they may have browsed some product pages but then left the site for elsewhere. This is the kind of thing that happens all the time online. But with retargeting, e-tailers can go behind the 98% who came, browsed and left. If you are not familiar with services offered by Criteo, Google Remarketing or Sociomantic you may want to throw an eye to it.

How does retargeting work?

Retargeting technology is based on Javascript. It’s a fairly straightforward cookie-based practice in which you actually place a tag in the footer of your website which leaves a ‘cookie’ in your visitors’ browser evey time they stop by. Once a visitor has left your site, his browser still have its « preferences » in the cookie ans he is likely to be re-targeted with theoretically relevant ads when he visits other websites later.

Types of retargeting :

There’s more than one type of retargeting methods out there, ‘site retargeting’ discussed above is juste one of them, Here is a few other types :

• Search retargeting is a form of ‘behavioural retargeting’ where a user of a search engine is targeted with display ads based on their previous search queries. This type of retargeting works even if the searcher didn’t visit the advertiser’s website previously.
• Email retargeting: sends emails to visitors if a basket has been abandoned by a registered user of a site,saying : « Hey, why don’t you come back and buy that stuff you wanted? »
• Contextual retargeting requires websites with similar customers to partner up and share their cookies so if a visitor leaves one site and later visits the site of a partner, adverts for the first site will be displayed on the second one.

Pros & Cons of Retargeting :

Pros of retargeting :

1. Retargeting techniques remind visitors of their former desire to purchase
2. Retargeting helps to create brand awareness and traction through repeated exposure

Cons of retargeting :

1. Retargeting can lead to awkward situations as described by dozens on the web, which leads to users angriness
2. Retargeting participate to ad blindness as 60% of consumers do not remember the last display ad they saw

Conclusion :

There are many reasons to consider Retargetting as the hottest area of the AdTech at the moment and specialists estimate that around 26% of customers will return to a site through retargeting while A/B testing shows that 8% of customers will return to a site anyway.