What Are Retargeting Ads And How Do They Work?

Avatar for Matthew Matthew 14th December 2022 0 Comments

If you’re not familiar with retargeting or remarketing ads as a marketer, you may recognise them from your experience as a customer. Have you ever visited an ecommerce website, not bought anything, and then a little while later noticed that you’re seeing adverts for that website when browsing elsewhere on the internet? That’s no coincidence, and it’s remarketing at work. Sometimes I’ve even seen remarketing ads when I did actually buy something from the website in question!

That is perhaps the easiest way to explain what retargeting ads are, as so many people have seen them – and some even find them a little disconcerting. Regardless, remarketing ads can be very effective. Essentially, they are a way of showing ads to people who have already visited your website but haven’t converted, in the hopes that they will return to the site and complete a purchase. Therefore, these are very warm “leads” you’re advertising to, and retargeting ads tend to have high click-through and conversion rates. It’s also a great way to increase brand awareness by keeping your name and products in front of users. Let’s take a look at some of the different forms they can take and how you can add retargeting ads to your digital marketing strategy.

How Do Retargeting Ads Work?

Whichever platform you’re using to run retargeting ads, they all work through cookies. You can set up retargeting ads by placing a small piece of code on your website which tracks users’ cookies and adds anonymous user information to your list. When a user has left your site, the cookies alert your chosen platform, such as Google Ads, to display ads to the user. The most relevant of the ads you created will be shown.

Google Ads Retargeting

When you run retargeting ads through Google Ads, you’ll be able to create your own retargeting lists, and these can be as customised and specific as you need them to be. You could target customers who left your site without buying, or who even had something in their basket but didn’t complete the checkout process. You could also target people who spent a long time looking at a particular product. Choose how long a user stays on your list so you’re not advertising to people who have since lost interest.

Google makes it easy to create retargeting ads as you can create multiple image and video ads using Google’s Ad gallery. These ads appear on websites within Google’s network, of which there are thousands – it’s essentially any website that runs AdSense ads, as well as various Google-owned properties.

There are two types of Google retargeting ads – pixel-based and list-based.

Pixel-based retargeting ads are the most common and they work as explained above. With these, Google Ads is able to display very specific ads based on the page or product the user was looking at – so they may see ads for the very product they were considering purchasing. However, it can be trickier to add this code to your website.

List-based retargeting ads are used less often, and they require using a list of email addresses that you provide. For example, you might gather email addresses from people who have filled in a form on your website. These ads are shown to a more specific group of people and are good for small budgets, but can take some time to set up.

Microsoft Advertising Retargeting

You can also set up retargeting ads with Microsoft Advertising if you’re running Bing campaigns as part of your marketing strategy. These ads are served to users when they are searching on Yahoo or Bing after visiting your website. You can set them up using Universal Event Tracking (UET) tags and create remarketing lists based on user activity or pages they visit.

Social Media Retargeting

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn all offer remarketing functionality so you can serve ads to your previous website visitors through these platforms. They work in the same way as Google Ads retargeting, either through a pixel that places a cookie on the user’s browser, or by uploading lists of email addresses. Retargeting ads on social platforms can offer an excellent return on investment and tie in nicely with the rest of your social media marketing strategy.

Whichever platform you decide to use for running your retargeting ads, we’re here to help. Get in touch!

Wait... Before you go…

We're hosting a FREE WEBINAR on the steps you need to take to avoid failure and how to grow your business using digital marketing.

On the 25th May at 10:00 am

Wait.. Before you go…

We're hosting a FREE WEBINAR on Why HR and Marketing have to run hand-in-hand

On the 6th May at 10:30am

Wait.. Before you go…

We're Crunching the Numbers on the 2021 Budget in our next Webinar!

Interested?

FREE January Content Plan

Writing Social Media posts and blogs can often seem like a mountainous task - our free January Content Plan will help you to take the first steps for the new year.

With our Calendar, you'll be writing Social Media posts like a pro in no time! Plus, check out our blog for monthly tips & Social Ideas.

DOWNLOAD NOW

FREE Marketing Consultation

Our clients tell us that their number one headache isn’t in selling their products or services, recruiting staff or keeping up to date with their industry; it’s the age-old problem of marketing their business!

Whether you need help with marketing planning, web/graphic design, content writing, blogs and social media help, SEO & PPC reviewing or a combination of all of the above, book your FREE no-obligation marketing consultation with Steve now!

BOOK NOW

Our FREE Secret Links

Most agencies won't tell you, but a lot of the tools they use on a day to day basis are actually FREE!

We've put together a handy guide to the free tools we use every day to make our lives easier - and we're giving it to you!

DOWNLOAD NOW

Perfect Blog Post Template

A frequently updated Blog is one of the best ways to create extra content for your website; it also keeps your visitors coming back regularly, attracts new visitors and Google loves fresh content!

But did you know that how you structure your blog post can make all the difference?

Download our FREE Blog Post Template to see how to make your content stand out from the crowd!

FREE BLOG POST TEMPLATE

TikTok Guide

TikTok is a social media channel that is growing very fast. It has more than 3 billion downloads.

As a marketing agency that specialises in social media, we’ve put together our very own TikTok guide for you to use.

FREE HubSpot Consultation

At Square Media we specialise in helping businesses to make the most of their inbound and outbound promotional opportunities – working as a HubSpot CRM Partner we can help you to automate and analyse your business to the nth degree.

Why not let one of our HubSpot experts have a quick chat with you and get you started with a FREE account – no obligation, no pressure and no hard sell tactics (it’s not our style).

BOOK NOW

Image Size Cheat Sheet

When it comes to Social Media, visual content always works better than just text. But it's a bit of a headache keeping on top of all of the sizes you need to use to get the best from each channel.

Download or print our handy Image Size Cheat Sheet and keep it by your keyboard, so you know what size image to use whatever the situation.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Our Marketing Tips Infographic

Considering 2021 has been eventful with new trends and new marketing techniques arising we’ve made 2022 a lot easier for you!

We’ve put together our own marketing tips infographic especially for you to make your new year a little bit less stressful.

Download our FREE infographic here to find all of our best tips and watch your marketing rocket.

DOWNLOAD NOW

Get your Guide to Google Ads!

Everyone knows that SEO is important to any website, but often we forget about the power of paid Google Ads.

It needn't cost the earth, can be targeted well and can bring in business easily from Day 1!

Our FREE downloadable Google Ads Guide will help you to hit the ground running.

DOWNLOAD NOW

5 Killer Marketing Emails!

One of the most valuable tools in your online arsenal is your email/newsletter subscription list, yet it’s one of the ones that is most easy to ignore.

Simply put, if someone has signed up to your email list, they have given you permission to contact them, and how you use the first few emails that you send can be the deciding factor in whether they stay on your list and eventually become a customer, or hit the unsubscribe button so fast that you never get a chance to pitch your business.

So let’s look at 5 killer e-marketing email types, what they do and how to use them!

DOWNLOAD NOW

Start 2022 as you mean to go on!

Every great marketing campaign starts with the basics of getting your brand focused and clear.

Use our free brand guideline template to ensure that your brand is consistent across all of your content!

DOWNLOAD NOW

Christmas fun with Dino Bounce!

It's Christmas Day so let's start with some fun - how far through Dino Bounce can you get?

Don't forget to share your score at the end with the hashtag #dinoBounce (our convenient Twitter button will do this for you)

PLAY NOW