What is Retargeting in Media Buys & Advertising?

Retargeting

Retargeting with media buys is a type of RON campaign; a campaign in which your ad(s) will be shown to users that visited your site previously.

Typically, you would retarget users that did not convert after they visited your site. Your ads will tend to also get a high CTR since users will recognize your banners. Many times the user just did not have time to complete your lead or sale. This is a good way to give them another chance, and likely have a high conversion rate.

How Retargeting Works

An ad network will usually give you a tracking pixel to place your landing page and another pixel for your “Thank You” page.  If the user did not convert, then the user did not end up on your “Thank You” page. The ad network would have recorded their IP address and have set a cookie in their browser that will later trigger your advertisements when the potential customer visits another site in the ad network. Here was an interesting post on CPM bidding:

Leadback.com would be a good place to start…Run by AOL which means broad reach (holds inventory that reaches 95% of US unique’s). It is pay per click so it abstracts away some banner CTR risk. They also offer credit terms for new accounts.

Regarding bids for ad networks operating on exchanges (rightmedia, doubleclick, openx, adbrite, adsdaq etc.) any retargeting CPM should be dynamic…meaning the cost of each singular impression changes based on competition for that impression. A higher bid (i.e. $4 avg. cpm) will ensure you get most of the available impressions in most cases, and I believe you received that $4 quote with that point in mind. That said you can still pick up CPM’s for under a buck…especially on rightmedia…but volume isnt guaranteed… (via dave4943 at WickedFire.com)

This technique is more effective for high traffic sites and a high traffic ad network.