What is ReMarketing (ReTargeting) Advertising?

Have you been on the web searching for something, landed on a website, considered their product or service – only to become distracted and leave the website?

Then slowly and subtly – perhaps overwhelmingly so – you begin to see advertisements for that same company ALL OVER THE WEB.

You start to check around your desk. You flip over the lid of your laptop, looking for the microphone or tiny man-spy that’s hiding in your office. But, there’s no MI6, NSA, or CIA to blame.

Instead the company whose website you visited has deployed one of the MOST EFFECTIVE forms of digital marketing known to man – ReMarketing.

What is ReMarketing (or ReTargeting)?

It’s actually rather simple. When a visitor lands on your site you can tag them and then follow them with advertisements throughout the web.

At Atilus we like to choose messages that really speak to the implied desperation inherent in this form of marketing with lines like “Why did you leave us… PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE come back” accompanied by pictures of sobbing babies and sad puppies.

In all seriousness – the modern web, and modern man, is overwhelmed by options, by hectic day-to-day life, and remarketing has proven to be a great tool in increasing the effectiveness of other forms of marketing by allowing you to re-get-in-front of people that have come to your website.

Basically it allows you to capitalize further on everything you’re doing to drive visitors to your online retail location (your website).

Imagine This in the Real World

Imagine you have a store front at a strip mall. One day, a bored couple walks in – having been driving for hours just looking for something to do. They come through the door – ask some questions, flip over the price tags for a few products, turn and wave and exclaim “thank you,” as they walk out the door.

At millions of tiny shops and strip malls this is happening.

But what if you could – as they drive away in their all-too-well-taken-care-of 1989 Crown Victoria (I mean seriously do they even drive the thing!?) – present them an ad for your company on the radio as they drive home?

Then the next day – they open their mailbox only to find an attractive flyer about the exact products they were looking at.

And on day 3 – they awake abruptly feeling an itch at their ankles. Removing the covers from their cold groggy bodies your potential customers discover you as a business owner staring up at them from the depths of the tightly tucked sheets, smiling. Your wide maw, agape with sterile-white teeth reflecting back the sun rays penetrating the master-bedrooms’ eastern exposure. You’re speechless. They’re horrified. And that weird wide grin that says from the darkest corners of your soul “buy from me or else…” is clearly, but quietly communicated.

This is Remarketing. 

Okay, not EXACTLY like that – but close. Pretty amazing huh? You don’t actually know who they are, but through technology and the cooperation of advertising networks and your website you can present your ads to your visitors throughout the web. And the coolest part? At least to me… you can show them ads based on what they did on your website. Exactly like I just illustrated with the product example – you can say as a business “I want an ad for headsets to be shown to all of those visitors that came to my website and looked at our headsets for sale page.”

Does Remarketing Work?

Overwhelmingly yes. According to multiple reports and surveys around 92% of digital marketers feel Remarketing works as well or better than search marketing (which is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing).  And just under a third of clicks lead to a recovered purchase back on site.