Ever get on Facebook and an advertisement pops up for the website you were just on? Then you think, “Well, I really could use those new bike tires, mine are really flat. I’ll just go back and get them now.” Congratulations, you’ve fallen captive to retargeting ads!

These sneaky ads are put in place so that once you visit a website, your browser collects cookies with specific information such as pages you've visited, time, frequency and other data from that website (no personally identifiable information). These cookies are later read by Google through other websites who sell advertising space. This takes a developer going into the back-end of your website and adding what’s called a “Pixel Code” so Google knows to add a cookie to your visitors' browser.

Retargeting ads are a great way to get creative and get your audience back to your website. The ads can be general to the entire website, or target a specific item. For example, Target might place a retargeting ad for a bag you were looking at for your next beach trip!

There are various options for implementing retargeting advertising. The first is going through Google AdWords to place digital advertising through their retargeting platform. Unfortunately, with AdWords you can’t retarget to Facebook. We’re big fans at Red Shark of AdRoll and use their integration system for our clients. AdRoll has a lot on integrations and ad-ons so we can do Facebook, Instagram, Safari and more.

Understanding Retargeting Statistics

Retargeting is a pay-per-click (PPC) style of advertising which generates great statistics on how your campaign is performing. Most commonly retargeting gives a client clicks, impressions, cost-per-click (CPC), click-through-rate (CTR) and conversions. Conversions are important because they represent the customer coming back to your website via a retargeting ad and then actually making a purchase or an inquiry.

We hope you consider implementing a retargeting campaign. Our team would love to help you examine your target market and the potential efficacy of retargeting ads for your business. Contact us so we can help you connect with your customers through a different avenue of advertising today!