What Is Retargeting? Definition of Retargeting, Retargeting Meaning and Concept

Retargeting is a digital marketing technique whose objective is to impact users who have previously interacted with a brand with advertising, either through visits to its website, opening an email or clicking on a company ad on social media. , among others.


Retargeting arises from the need to convert user interest into effective purchases. Most people who visit an ecommerce store or product website do not buy the first time. More than 98% of users do not convert on the first visit, and therefore retargeting is an online advertising strategy that returns that 98% of customers to the web, to remind them of the interest they have felt in a certain product or service. .


What is the goal of retargeting?


Retargeting brings up to a 300% return on ad spend, creates brand-specific branding without a huge investment, and also strengthens the marketing funnel. Within this last point it contributes to the following:


  1. Brand awareness: Most users who are looking for something open many websites and only look at the information without noticing the brand behind it. Retargeting allows users to be impacted during their purchase cycle so that when they definitely go to buy, they take the company into account.
  2. More consideration: In addition to generating conversions, retargeting is a good assistant for the purchase consideration of a product. This, especially in long purchase cycles.
  3. Increased conversions: The strong point of retargeting. Many times a lead is obtained, or a sale is closed thanks to an offer designed for this strategy. An example is the rescue of abandoned shopping carts in the online store.
  4. Improve loyalty: You can sell complementary products, encourage the return of customers or even reinforce the effect of newsletters with retargeting.
  5. Advocacy: It is used in social networks to show relevant and viral content to users in a medium where many can share and spread messages.

How does retargeting work?


Retargeting basically works with the famous cookies, which are small pieces of information sent by a website and stored in the user's browser so that the website can check the user's previous activity.


It is important to understand the implications of the fact that cookies are saved in the browser:


  • If multiple browsers are used, each will have a cookie saved.
  • If cookies are deleted or disabled, that user is lost.
  • Retargeting cannot be done in this way in apps, since they are not browsers.
  • Mail clients like outlook do not save cookies, so email retargeting only works in principle with webmail, gmail and hotmail.
  • If the user browses in incognito mode, the cookies will not be saved.

Despite these limitations, retargeting has a very wide scope. There are many companies today that are working so that these cookie dependencies do not limit this very effective marketing technique.