Site retargeting is a
display advertising
Digital display advertising is online graphic advertising through banners, text, images, video, and audio. The main purpose of digital display advertising is to post company ads on third-party websites. A display ad is usually interactive (i.e. ...
technique used by marketers to display advertising to people who have previously visited their website. The marketer includes a
pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
within their webpage which sets a
cookie
A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, n ...
in the user's browser.
That cookie allows the marketer to target the website visitor with advertising elsewhere on the internet using
retargeting
In software engineering, retargeting is an attribute of software development tools that have been specifically designed to generate code for more than one computing platform.
Compilers
A retargetable compiler is a compiler that has been designed ...
.
A related technique used by retailers involves
dynamic creative
Behavioral retargeting (also known as behavioral remarketing, or simply, retargeting) is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous internet behaviour. Retargeting tags online ...
, which allows the marketer to customize the ad displayed to any site visitor, for example displaying a picture of a product the visitor was viewing earlier, but did not purchase.
Site retargeting is now commonly considered a "standard practice" among digital marketers.
Social Media & Site Retargeting
The ability to "retarget", or sell ads on different websites to visitors of certain webpages, lays at the heart of most social networks business models.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
,
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
,
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Pinterst & more all allow and have detailed guides on how to run retargeting ads on their platforms.
Google's business model is also built on retargeting - both in their
search engine
A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
and in their
display advertising network.
Personalization
Another common use of site retargeting has been to deliver
personalised content to users. A common idea in marketing is the "
buyer persona", where marketers create fictional characters of potential customers and think about the "
customer journey
Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described the ...
" - the process that each fictional customer needs to make until it decides to buy the product. Site retargeting makes it easier to keep track of where each user is on their customer journey - and thus personalize the content that is shown to the user accordingly.
See also
*
Behavioral retargeting
Behavioral retargeting (also known as behavioral remarketing, or simply, retargeting) is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous internet behaviour. Retargeting tags online ...
*
Personalization
Personalization (broadly known as customization) consists of tailoring a service or a product to accommodate specific individuals, sometimes tied to groups or segments of individuals. A wide variety of organizations use personalization to improv ...
*
Dynamic creative
Behavioral retargeting (also known as behavioral remarketing, or simply, retargeting) is a form of online targeted advertising by which online advertising is targeted to consumers based on their previous internet behaviour. Retargeting tags online ...
*
Email retargeting Email retargeting can refer to either:
* Retargeting an audience with display ads after they have read an email from the advertiser (Display-Ad Based)
* Emailing a website visitor after their website visit (Email-Based)
Email retargeting is a com ...
*
Personalized marketing
Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies leverage data analysis and digital technology to deliver individualized messages and product offerings to current or pr ...
*
Search retargeting
Search retargeting is a form of retargeting employed by online marketers that target an audience based on the previous searches they conduct on other websites. Unlike site retargeting, search retargeting is designed to find new customers which ha ...
*
Web beacon
A web beaconAlso called web bug, tracking bug, tag, web tag, page tag, tracking pixel, pixel tag, 1×1 GIF, or clear GIF. is a technique used on web pages and email to unobtrusively (usually invisibly) allow checking that a user has accessed s ...
References
{{Reflist
Behavioral retargeting
Online advertising methods