Why retargeting is crucial in marketing

Also known as remarketing, retargeting is a type of advertising on the internet that can help a brand retain traffic once it reaches its website. It can be appropriately described as the advertisements that are displayed online in front of the users who visited your website but navigated away without acting. It is done with the help of tracking ‘cookies’ or ‘pixels’ that follow the user around after they leave your website.

Retargeting advertisements are served through networks from third parties such as Facebook and Google Display Network that give you a platform to reach out to prospects on a multitude of websites. Therefore, it refers to reaching out to visitors who are lost. They can be reached via email. Hence, you need the visitors’ email addresses.

You position a brief and unobtrusive piece of code, often referred to as a pixel, on your website. It will not affect the performance of your website. Every time a user visits your website, it drops an anonymous browser cookie. Later on, when that visitor browses the web, the cookie will let the provider who is helping you retarget know when to display advertisements. This will make sure that some of your advertisements are served only to people who have come across your web pages.

Digital marketing strategies such as AdWords, content marketing, and targeted display are good to drive traffic but they do not help with conversion optimization. On the other hand, retargeting increases conversions but it does not drive people to the website of your brand. Retargeting is greatly effective as it a robust conversion optimization and branding tool. But it works best only if it is a part of greater marketing and advertising strategy. It can be put to work effectively and efficiently with demand generation or outbound and inbound marketing.