Intro to Retargeting

First, we give you a bit of data called a Pixel to plant on your site. When someone comes to you website, that pixel drops a data “cookie” on that visitor’s browser. The cookie is completely anonymous – we gather no personal information on anyone. The cookie allows us to follow your site visitors as they leave and go on to other sites.

By placing the pixel on your site, it allows us to collect your visitors over time. We call that the Retargeting Pool. This is the group of all the people we can reach for you in your retargeting campaigns. We suggest you let the pixel work for at least two weeks before you start any advertising so you can build up your pool.

Best Practices convention is that Retargeting Pools expire in 90 days, so we will re-issue new pixels to you every three months.

What the recent Google AdWords changes mean for your business

Peter Barre, Thursday, April 21, 2016

You may have noticed some changes to the layout when you use Google to search on your desktop computer. If you run a small business, you need to be paying attention.

Google has been a great leveller when it comes to opening up opportunity for small business to tap into the potential of its traffic but it also means you have to be aware when it makes major changes. Although Google makes miniscule changes to its algorithm around 500-600 times a year, profound changes are few and far between. But that’s just what this latest AdWords change is.

Gone are the ads on the right hand side of the search results page – they’ve now moved so they appear at the top of the search results and sit above the organic (or unpaid) search results.

Given that 55% of search is desktop based, the net result of these changes is fewer ads. And fewer ads means fewer impressions, so if you’re a small business using AdWords, this affects you.

What may seem like a design change will actually see small businesses have to compete harder than ever for their place in Google listings, be they paid or organic.

With limited budgets and websites that aren’t always updated regularly, daily ad spend for small businesses will be very quickly exhausted, which limits the value you get from AdWords and will likely see you reassessing your digital spend strategy.

The new AdWords regime may see impression share plummet for advertisers with smaller budgets, as their ads will serve fewer times during the day. And this will lead to a rise in cost-per-click (CPC) across the board as advertisers compete more aggressively to be viewed.

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The Retargeting Pool

This is what Retargeting is all about. Once you have your Retargeting Pool, you now have the ability to put your ads in front of the people that have visited your site. Much of the rest of the decisions becomes how, when and where to reach them and with which messages.

When we say “put your ads in front of them” what do we mean? This is not email. Here’s where we look at the digital technology that allows us to reach and target so specifically.

First - Inventory Exchanges. Over the last few years, most of the larger commercial sites in the country found a way to sell lots of their unsold ad space – on exchanges created to do this. Many exchanges have been created where that inventory is sold. The selling is done via online bidding, like an online Commodity Exchange. The process is instantaneous – ads are purchased by the highest bidder, targeted to specific individuals, and the ad literally appears in front of them in one of the banner positions on the page as soon as the viewer opens the page.

Real-time Bidding

RTB is what brings the Retargeting Pool and the Inventory Exchanges together. It’s the backbone of all online advertising today. Online ad buying companies (Demand Side Platforms) execute campaigns you have created. First they locate the target group you have created from your Retargeting Pool for any given message. Those people may be surfing on any of the thousands of sites that sell inventory through an exchange. When one of them is located on a viable site, a bid is sent out to the exchange to buy a banner position that person is going to. If the bid is accepted, the ad is sent from the server for the viewer to see. All this happens instantly.

5 Reasons Why You Should Consider B2B Ad Retargeting in 2016

By Jennifer Robinson, November 18, 2015

A 2014 comScore study revealed that retargeted ads led to a 1046 percent increase in branded search and a 726 percent lift in site visitation after four weeks of retargeted ad exposure. These numbers mostly reflect B2C retargeting because most retargeting solutions aren’t flexible and sustainable throughout the entire B2B buyer journey.

But improved retargeting solutions are now able to accommodate the longer and more complex buyer cycles and B2B marketers are learning the many ways they can experience the same kind of success their B2C counterparts have enjoyed.

# 1 Cost-Effective Advertising & Improved ROI

Odds are, you’re putting the finishing touches on your budget planning for 2016 and you’re trying to figure out how to stretch those digital advertising dollars for the greatest return on investment (ROI). The sharp increases predicted for digital ad spending in 2016 can work hand in hand with ad retargeting to help B2B marketers increase sales velocity. According to Smart Insights, a digital advertising consultancy, the average click-thru rate across all ad formats and placements is 0.06 percent, but retargeted users are 70% more likely to convert according to Digital Information World. read more

The Key to Retargeting Success is Audience Segmentation

By Brenda Ton, February 26th, 2015

If your retargeting campaigns are not performing as you expect, there’s a good chance that you need to improve your segmentation. The biggest mistake a marketer can make in retargeting is to assume that all visitors are alike and show every visitor the same ads. By being lazy and not segmenting your visitors into pools, your results will be poor and a lot of your impressions will simply be wasted, irrelevant spend. For instance, it doesn’t make sense to target a user who has viewed a page about shampoo and show them a banner ad for cat litter.

The secret to successful retargeting is audience segmentation. By segmenting audiences, you will be able to identify and understand the different behaviors and intent of the users on your site. This is very important because it allows you to aggressively target users with relevant ad messages, making the retargeting experience personalized. read more

The Do's and Don't of Retargeting

By Emily Alford, December 3, 2015

Retargeting is quickly becoming a staple tool in most marketers’ arsenals, but according to experts, there’s a right way to retarget and a wrong way.

Recent research has shown that 64.3 percent of brands are planning on bumping up their retargeting budgets this year, while 54 percent of all marketers are currently retargeting on mobile. But as the popularity of retargeting rises, so do the pitfalls. No one wants to be chased around the Internet by products they don’t want, and bad retargeting could actually cost marketers money. That’s why we’ve rounded up some expert advice to help marketers make the most of their retargeting budget. read more

Retargeting As A Revenue Driver For Station Websites

Posted on June 26, 2015 by Brad Hill

Radio station websites have many attractions for listeners — contests, promotions, streaming players, and jock updates. But even if a superb station site gets 100,000 visitors a month, sales management still struggles with creating digital revenue. The low cost per thousand for display ads can turn an impressive visitor number into a minimal amount of sales, even though the visitors are valuable P1 super fans of the station. The problem is intensified with lower traffic.

Audience retargeting pixels offer a solution. Retargeting enables advertising to your listeners after they leave your station website by following them around the web. You could retarget a station listener with display ads, video pre-roll, or even Facebook targeting. Retargeting works by placing a pixel, or lines of HTML code, on every page of a station site, which then deploys cookies on the listener’s browser. How does this help monetize the website? The retargeting pixel can be set so it will now display your clients’ ads as they go to other websites after leaving the station website. read more