If it were up to you, when someone visited your site for your product or service, they wouldn’t leave.  They’d go right to your phone number, or contact form, read your bio, like your Facebook, and start commenting on your blogs relentlessly.  Unfortunately, most consumers are fickle, picky, and impatient.  They will browse many different websites for what they’re looking for, and possibly even forget about yours.

So what does Retargeting have to do with any of this?  Let me ask you if you’ve ever had this scenario:

You checked out a website for let’s say, ice skates, left the page, and started browsing around some of your favorite sites.  Before you know it you’re on the Huffington Post, and you see an ad for those ice skates pop up.  You think “holy crap!  I didn’t know they advertise on this site.  Not bad”.  Then you go to another site, and the same thing happens with a different ad.  It’s as if they advertise all over the world.  And now they’re in your head too.

This is the power of retargeting, and no they are not technically advertising all over the world.  Essentially they are following you around with ads in the places those sites have reserved for display networking advertisement.  And this is all possible because of a cookie your browser accepted when it arrived to the website in the first place.  So why do we like it?  Because of the implications set forth in the scenario we had.

Retargeting kind of has the ability to “follow you” around the internet to provide multiple impressions on your decision making process.  Hopefully sometimes in a more subtle way, because you don’t want to reach the level of annoyance.  Most advertisers will command the cookie to display about 7-10 ads before ending their quest for impression dominance.  Some may go far longer, possibly until you actually have to clear your cookies.

Now why do we REALLY like retargeting?  Because you can get very specific with it.  For example, you have a site that sells sporting goods.  If someone does a Google Search, lands on the home page, and leaves, they’ll get ads that say “BIG FRANKS SPORTING GOODS.  ALWAYS THE BEST PRICES”.  Which is good.  But what if you have a great Football Shoulder Pads section on your site that is optimized and landed on apart from your home page?  Then you can put a cookie on that page that will display “BIG FRANKS FOOTBALL SHOULDER PADS.  WONT FIND THEM ANYWHERE CHEAPER”.  I’m thinking the conversion of that can be quite a bit higher.

Retargeting has potential of a higher caliber than many other marketing sources because of its ability to provide creative strategies.  It’s all about being granular.  And granular is applicable across the entire PPC/SEO spectrum. For more information on how retargeting can be an essential help to your business goals, contact us!