As you are probably more than aware, retargeting is a digital advertising strategy that allows advertisers to anonymously ‘follow’ audiences all over the web using cookie-based data from pixels placed on landing pages, CRM lists or even within ad units. Retargeting helps your brand stay in front of an already engaged audience and is an important strategy for every digital campaign. In fact, many call it the conversion engine.

But, when does retargeting work best? Too many marketer fall prey to a lazy approach of one-size-fits-all retargeting. By following some basic best practices, you can increase business performance, protect your brand’s reputation and showoff your digital skills to peers and your boss!

For starters, think about using retargeting in conjunction with other digital strategies, such as account-based targeting, prospecting and paid search. In addition, think about these factors:

• On sites and pages with at least 500-1,000 monthly page visitors
• When appropriate time windows are set up for products/services based on the buying cycle
• When visitors are segmented and the retargeting message can be tailored for each group
• When the landing page is optimized for further site navigation or conversion

Now that you understand when it works best, we would recommend you put together a check list.

• Have you built out your customer base?
  • Creation of audience segmentation
  • Retargeting works best when there are at least 500–1000 monthly page visitors or 5K+ emails for CRM.
• Is there navigation that gives the site structure?
  • Functional navigation helps to promote conversion, accessibility to additional business information, and makes it easy to create targeted audience segments down the line.
• Do you have creative resources for retargeting ads?
  • Retargeting ads should be on-brand and relevant to the campaign or the different audience segments.
  • Determine if resources are available to produce personalized or dynamic creative.
• Is your creative aligned with the retargeting channel?
  • Move beyond just display retargeting and develop content for retargeting through channels such as social, video and native.

After you have covered the basic checklist, make sure you avoid any missteps during execution.

Follow these retargeting best practices:

1. Avoid Negative Brand Impact: Add a frequency cap to avoid showing too many impressions with your ad.
2. But Don’t Do Too Little: Avoid not showing enough impressions. For B2B think 3-6 impression per unique. For B2C you can go higher.
3. Ensure a Clear Call To Action: Don’t neglect the creative and forget a clear and concise call to action.
4. Don’t Sell What’s Already Been Sold: Avoid retargeting current customers with the wrong message.
5. Date Rules: Review the data to measure success & make necessary optimizations. Do this often.
6. Segment Creative: Always segment your audience & tailor your creative to each group.
7. Digital Nurture: Sequence your creative and messaging so you don’t show the same ad over and over. You can also nurture across digital channels.

Effective retargeting strategies have helped Just Media clients improve conversion rates, decrease CPAs and close more deals.  We highly recommend all clients incorporate retargeting as a part of their “always-on” strategy. Retargeting is a cost-effective strategy that helps keep brands in front of an already engaged audience and can ultimately be the pay off for all of the other marketing activities you work so had to deliver.

V I O L E T   R E P P
Media Account Supervisor, Austin