The business case for ad retargeting is intuitive: if someone looks at an item but doesn’t buy, follow up later to see if he or she might still be interested. Yet the online version of this concept has never really taken off.
A study last year by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) found it to be one of the most under-utilized forms of online marketing technology.
1,046% Lift
New figures from comScore and ValueClick may spur marketers to try out the technology: The study, which measured the relative effectiveness of six major online targeting strategies: audience targeting, contextual targeting efficiency pricing, premium pricing run-of-network and retargeting, found the latter to offer the most lift – at a whopping 1,046%. (via MarketingCharts).
Certainly there is anecdotal evidence available to support these findings. An online travel company testing Yahoo's Enhanced retargeting saw a 230% increase in total bookings and a 651% increase in click-through rates, after offering consumers searching for flights on the Yahoo Network special deals based on the cities they were traveling between, according to Yahoo, which rolled out several retargeting tools last year.
Vendors Jump In
Yahoo is not the only vendor to have revived its offerings in this product category. Earlier this year Google rolled out a new AdWord remarketing feature to be used throughout its Content Network. It allows AdWords advertisers to pitch an ad to consumers anywhere they happen to be in Google's Content Network - based off of either where the consumer recently visited or as part of an integrated search ad campaign.
Other vendors are turning their attention to retargeting technology. Magnetic received a total of $5.25 million from Charles River Ventures, Ron Conway, NYC Investment Fund, Founder Collective and IA Capital Partners. The company plans to use the money to further develop its search re-targeting technology for all types of media buyers. It also announced a new option for advertisers - search re-targeted campaigns for advertisers and agencies. Criteo also recently landed $7 million in Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, bringing its total funding to $24 million. Criteo, which offers display ad retargeting using a performance-based CPC model, is using the capital to build out new data centers and other infrastructure. GSI Commerce is using its recently acquired FetchBack's retargeting technology to expand its marketing services and reach into new vertical markets.
Banner Blindness
That all said, there are reasons why marketers have not gravitated to the concept - reasons that statistical evidence or new tech offerings may not completely address.
One is that display ads technology in general has been lackluster, although that is changing as well. "People who end up on special interest sites are not going to pay attention to banner or display ads," Rodney Mason, CMO of the digital agency Moosylvania, told the E-Commerce Times. "What they will respond to are tools that allow them to continue to spread the word and interact with the company." Then there is very fact that ad retargeting is aimed at a consumer that has already bypassed a product or advertiser. Shown an ad for the same product or site too many times, it has the potential of becoming annoying. "With all advertising, there is the law of diminishing returns," said Jarvis Coffin, CEO at Burst Media. "After a while, it doesn't make sense anymore to keep trying." (via the E-Commerce Times).
