Winning Back Attention: How Retargeting Drives Results

Intent: that crucial signal in the marketing funnel. It's the moment marketers have been waiting for, the key to starting conversations, driving conversions, and building lasting customer relationships. But sometimes that fleeting moment of connection is lost, and the lead grows cold. Statistics are worse than you might think: according to Deloitte, 96% of people who visit your website never return to it again. But what if it were possible to recapture intent, even after it seems to have been lost? 

With retargeting, you can precisely target users who have previously visited your website, engaged with your ads, or abandoned their shopping carts, transforming moments of interest into concrete results.

In this article, we will examine how this form of digital marketing can help you reach previously untapped customers, enabling your brand to increase conversion rates and lower customer acquisition costs. We will also explore how retargeting fits into a precision brand advertising strategy with Agility.

What is Retargeting?

Retargeting is a marketing strategy for recovering lost leads. Studies show that only 2% of web traffic converts on the first visit, meaning that the other 98% of website visitors are potentially lost forever unless you can re-engage them. This is where retargeting comes into play. It focuses on showing ads to users who have previously interacted with your brand but didn't complete a desired action, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or subscribing to a newsletter. Unlike traditional advertising, which may target a broader audience with varying levels of brand or category awareness, retargeting enables businesses to focus on those who have already shown an interest, giving brands a second chance to convert these leads into customers.

How Does Retargeting Work?

Retargeting is a data-driven technique that uses cookies, pixels, and tracking technologies to identify users who have previously interacted with your website or digital content. Here’s how it works:

• User Visit & Cookie Placement: When a user visits your website, a cookie, or small tracking code is placed in their browser. This enables the system to recognize them when they visit other sites. The future of cookies for tracking is uncertain due to increasing privacy regulations, so many businesses use pixels to track visitors as an alternative or in addition to cookies.

• User Leaves Without Converting: If the visitor doesn’t complete a desired action, like making a purchase or signing up for a service, they are tagged for retargeting.

• Dynamic Personalization: Retargeting platforms can personalize the ads based on the user’s previous interactions. For example, if they viewed a specific product, they may see an ad featuring that exact item, possibly with a discount or incentive.

• User Returns & Conversions: By repeatedly seeing relevant ads across different platforms, users are more likely to return and complete the action they initially abandoned, resulting in higher conversion rates and increased revenue.

The effectiveness of your retargeting strategy begins with your tracking strategy. If users and their behavior are not effectively tracked, you may be targeting the wrong people with the wrong messaging. Agility’s measurement science team ensures that every key interaction and outcome is accurately tracked using best-in-class pixel and tag management.

Understanding Programmatic Ads and Their Role in Retargeting

What Are Programmatic Ads?

Programmatic advertising is an automated, algorithm-driven method of buying and serving digital advertising in real-time. Unlike traditional ad buying, which relies on manual negotiations and predefined placements, programmatic ads use advanced algorithms and real-time bidding (RTB) to instantly place ads in front of the right audience at the right time.

This automation allows advertisers to optimize their budgets, target specific demographics with precision, and continuously adjust ad campaigns based on performance data. Programmatic ads can appear across multiple digital channels, including:

• Display Networks: Banner display ads and video ads are shown on websites and apps.

• Social Media Platforms: Ads served on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social sites.

• Video Streaming Services: Pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll ads in online videos.

• Connected TV (CTV) and Over-the-Top (OTT) Advertising: Ads shown on smart TVs and streaming platforms.

By leveraging data-driven insights and automation, programmatic campaigns enable brands to optimize their ad spend in retargeting campaigns and ensure that messages reach highly relevant audiences at the most opportune moments.

How Can Programmatic Ads Help with Retargeting?

Programmatic advertising plays a crucial role in retargeting campaigns by automating the process of reconnecting with potential customers who have previously interacted with your brand. Here’s how:

Dynamic Creative Optimization

Show the right ad to the right person at the right time. Programmatic advertising enables brands to serve customized retargeting ads based on a user’s past behavior and online activities. A Google survey reported that 59% of holiday shoppers know what gifts they plan to buy heading into December. So, if a shopper viewed a specific product but didn’t complete the action, they might see an ad featuring that exact item, sometimes even with a limited-time discount or free shipping offer. 

Cross-Channel Retargeting for Maximum Reach

One of the key advantages of programmatic ads is their multi-channel approach, which means they're not limited to a single platform. Unlike traditional remarketing, which often focuses on a single channel, programmatic retargeting enables you to reach users across multiple digital touchpoints, including websites, social media feeds, mobile devices, and others. This cross-channel approach ensures that your brand remains top of mind wherever users go online.

Unfortunately, many companies use different platforms for different channels and different purposes. Agility creates a single source of strategy for open internet advertising and activates across channels. No more disconnected channels and strategies.

Audience Segmentation

Programmatic ad platforms use behavioral data to categorize users based on intent, engagement, and purchasing stage. This means you can tailor retargeting campaigns based on specific actions, such as:

• Users who abandoned their shopping carts.

• Site visitors who browsed specific product categories.

• Customers who previously made a purchase and might be interested in complementary products.

Agility goes a step further with layered first- and third-party data to ensure the people you’re retargeting to fit your ideal customer profile and will convert.

Cost Efficiency and Optimized ROI

Because programmatic platforms rely on real-time data to determine which ad impressions are worth bidding on, brands can optimize their spending. Instead of wasting budget on broad, untargeted audiences, programmatic retargeting ensures ads are only served to users with a high likelihood of converting, leading to improved return on investment (ROI).

• Automated Performance Optimization
  With continuous monitoring, programmatic platforms can analyze campaign performance in real time and adjust targeting, bidding, and creative elements automatically. This ensures your retargeting ads are continually optimized for the best engagement and conversion.

Ready to recapture lost revenue? Agility delivers data-driven retargeting solutions.

Agility’s precision brand advertising solutions not only helps create demand from new buyers, but also helps recapture those lost prospects and convert them into loyal customers. Our platform help brands maximize engagement, drive conversions, and optimize ad spend with precision.

• Smarter campaigns: Data-driven automation for performance optimization.

• Hyper-targeted reach: Connect with high-intent users across multiple open internet channels.

• Cross-channel presence: Retarget customers on websites, mobile apps, streaming platforms, connected TVs, audio .

• Maximum effectiveness: Ensure every ad dollar works harder by focusing on the personas primed to convert.

Stop losing potential customers–start winning them back.  Let’s build an effective retargeting within a precision brand advertising strategy that delivers real results. Get started with Agility today!