Remarketing is a digital marketing strategy used to reconnect with people who have already visited your website or app. It serves as a reminder to users who demonstrated interest but did not complete a specific action, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. By creating additional touchpoints, businesses increase the likelihood of converting these potential customers.
What is Remarketing?
Remarketing identifies users who interacted with your brand and serves them personalized ads or messages across different platforms. While the terms "remarketing" and "retargeting" are often used interchangeably, they originally had distinct focuses. Remarketing historically prioritized re-engaging customers through email, while retargeting focused on paid advertising.
In modern practice, remarketing is viewed as a broader strategy that includes retargeting. Its primary distinction is a reliance on first-party data (information you collect directly from your own visitors) to reach customers who already have a relationship with your brand.
Why Remarketing matters
Most shoppers do not complete a purchase during their first visit. Because [at least 50% of the buyer’s journey happens via third-party sources] (Gartner), brands must stay top of mind during the research phase.
Benefits of a remarketing strategy include: * Recovering lost traffic: It allows you to nudge visitors back to your site after they leave to browse elsewhere. * Improved campaign performance: One experiment showed an [11% increase in click-through rates and a 38% increase in product revenue] (Harvard Business Review) when using remarketing. * Higher brand awareness: Consistent messaging ensures your brand is the first choice when the customer is finally ready to buy. [95% of marketers say video ads increase brand awareness] (Wyzowl). * Budget efficiency: Because users are already familiar with the brand, click-through rates are typically higher, often leading to lower costs-per-click and a better return on ad spend (ROAS). * Enhanced personalization: Since [more than 70% of shoppers expect personalized experiences] (McKinsey), remarketing provides the data needed to show relevant products.
How Remarketing works
The process relies on tracking technology to follow a user's journey after they leave your site.
- Tracking Installation: You place a pixel tag (a small piece of code) on your website.
- Cookie Placement: When a visitor arrives, the pixel drops a "cookie" in their browser.
- Data Collection: As the user browses, the cookie creates a digital trail of their interests and actions.
- Ad Delivery: Remarketing platforms (like Google Ads or Facebook) use this data to serve your ads to that specific user while they visit other websites, apps, or social media.
- List Building: Alternatively, you can use a remarketing list to record visitors who performed specific actions, such as visiting a specific landing page, to serve even more targeted content.
Types of Remarketing
- Standard Remarketing: Displays ads to past visitors as they browse through sites on a display network.
- Dynamic Remarketing: Shows ads featuring the exact products or services a user viewed on your site. This is effective because [businesses that personalize the shopper experience generate 40% more revenue than those that don’t] (McKinsey).
- Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA): Customizes search engine bids and ads specifically for past visitors when they search for related terms on Google.
- Video Remarketing: Serves ads to people who interacted with your videos or YouTube channel. [91% of marketers say video ads lead to an increase in traffic] (Wyzowl).
- Email Remarketing: Targets users who opened or clicked an email but did not convert.
- Social Media Remarketing: Displays ads to users on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn who previously engaged with your content.
Remarketing vs. Retargeting
| Aspect | Remarketing | Retargeting |
|---|---|---|
| Data Focus | Uses first-party data and site interactions. | Focuses on online browsing behaviors and ad data. |
| Primary Channels | Email, direct mail, and ad networks. | Display networks, social platforms, and web publishers. |
| Strategy Goal | Re-engaging people who have a brand relationship. | Re-engaging visitors via automated ad triggers. |
| Example | An email sent after a cart is abandoned. | A banner ad showing a product recently viewed. |
Best practices
- Be transparent about data: Staying honest about how you use shopper data increases consumer trust and improves conversion reliability.
- Use frequency controls: Adjust how often a user sees your ads to prevent user fatigue and avoid wasting your marketing budget.
- Align creative with intent: If a user read an educational blog post rather than viewing a product, show them more informative content rather than a high-pressure sales ad.
- Bid aggressively on warm leads: Use RLSA to bid higher for past visitors who are actively searching for your products, as they are more likely to convert than new users.
FAQ
What is the difference between remarketing and retargeting? Remarketing traditionally focuses on re-engaging users through first-party data and email, while retargeting is a subset of marketing that uses paid ads to reach people based on their digital behavior. Today, the terms are frequently used interchangeably to describe any tactic that reconnects with past visitors.
What channels support remarketing? You can execute remarketing across most major digital networks including Google, Facebook/Meta, TikTok, Microsoft Advertising, and LinkedIn. It also extends to non-ad channels like email and direct mail.
How does remarketing improve ROI? By targeting users who are already familiar with your brand, you focus your spend on "warm" leads. This generally results in higher click-through rates and lower customer acquisition costs compared to standard, broad-reach display campaigns.
What is dynamic remarketing? Dynamic remarketing creates a hyper-personalized experience by showing a user the specific product or content they previously viewed on your website, rather than a generic brand ad.
Do I need cookies for remarketing? Remarketing traditionally uses third-party cookies, but due to increasing restrictions, modern strategies favor pixel tags and first-party tracking methods to maintain connections with past visitors safely.
