WHAT IS RETARGETING AND IS IT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

After visiting the website for a food-delivery service called Deliveroo, a big competitor of UberEats here in Dubai, I suddenly started noticing display ads for Deliveroo on every social media application I would open. From my Facebook news feed on my phone to my IMO account as I was placing a call, scrumptious meals were consistently displayed with a link to Deliveroo. So, the next time I found myself with a desire to order some take-out but not sure about what I wanted to eat, the first thing that came to my mind was to go to Deliveroo’s website and order any food which looked appetizing. What does this mean for a business? A good strategy for your business to take up in advertising is to “retarget” people who have once visited your website before. How can you do this? First, here are a couple of tips you need to know:

Retargeting is a marketing technique that allows your business to market itself to people who visited your website but did not make any purchases or who left the website after a few minutes (ie.-bounced website traffic). It uses website cookies to identify people who visit the website. A “cookie” is a small table containing pairs of data values that are particular to your website and are added to the website when it is originally coded. Hence, every time a person visits your website, an anonymous browser cookie is dropped in the coding, called a “pixel”, which alerts ad services and specific retargeting providers that this person has visited your website.

As a company, if you would like to specifically retarget these potential customers, it is advisable to see a special retargeting providing. Four popular retargeting providers are:

• • • Adroll
    • Retargeted
    • Fetchback
    • Chango

In order to access these companies’ services, you have to subscribe to them or buy packages. There are different ways to retarget an audience, for example via social media or on google display network. Based on which kind of retargeting you would like to pursue, one of these products would be your best choice. Learn more about these services by clicking on this link.

Later on, when the potential customer is surfing the web, your company’s ad will appear on the web page. In the case of social media, it can reappear in the banners of the main page, or in the potential customer’s Facebook Newsfeed among other examples. The goal is that seeing the ad of a brand that a person has already become somewhat familiar with will attract more of their attention than the ad of a brand they do not know.

Retargeting is a good way to get more customers because studies show that 98% of visitors that visit a website leave without converting. These are people who are now familiar with your brand but did not give it a second thought. By retargeting these potential customers, you increase the odds of them thinking of your brand when they need a good or service that you may be offering. However, it is important to note that retargeting is most effective when it is a part of a planned out digital marketing strategy as it does not yield direct results.