Small Ad Budgets Yield Big Results With Self Retargeting Tactics
What Is Self Retargeting?
We use the term “self retargeting” to talk specifically about targeting and serving ads to people who have already been to an advertiser’s physical location and/or website. There are two ways to do this: 1) Geofence targeting, which uses GPS tracking to identify user devices that have physically entered a specific location, like an advertiser’s store; and, 2) Site Retargeting, which uses pixels that are placed on the backend of an advertiser’s website to identify devices that have visited that website. Ads are then served to these users during their in-app, social media, and websites experiences. At Ethic Advertising Agency, we also take our targeting a step further by using cross-device matching technology to serve ads to additional devices that are linked to the device that was initially triggered. Ever wonder why you’re seeing ads for that big-ticket item you hinted to your spouse about wanting for your birthday? Chances are, he/she is doing their research; and, since you’re likely linked to each other’s mobile devices, you are both now seeing these digital ads.
Which Advertisers Benefit the Most From Self Retargeted Advertising?
Targeting visitors of your own website or physical location has a multitude of benefits, but we have found that the advertisers who get the most out of these forms of digital advertising are ones with:
1) a limited ad budget
2) a product or service that values repeat buyers
3) a product or service with longer research and sales cycles
Types of Advertising That Can Utilize Site Retargeting:
Over-the-Top (OTT)/Connected Television (CTV) Advertising (limited)
Digital Audio
Types of Advertising That Can Utilize Geofence Targeting:
Over-the-Top (OTT)/Connected Television (CTV) Advertising
Digital Audio
The Cons of Self Retargeting
There will be some wasted impressions with self targeted advertising. For example, you may end up serving ads to your staff, delivery people, and sales people; but, this happens with most all advertising. There are some optimization strategies to help minimize this type of waste (i.e. frequency and recency caps). You may also advertise to someone who has already made a purchase from you. While some may see this as a con, it can be a benefit for companies who like repeat buyers and who wish to ensure new customers feels good about their purchase.
The Pros of Self Retargeting
Increase Credibility: Self targeting through multiple mediums can make a smaller ad budget feel much larger to a consumer that has shown interest in an advertiser’s product/service. Someone who has been to your website or physical location will be served a variety of different advertisements, which will make the advertiser seem more established; this helps ensure a more desirable conversion rate. Having your message seen in multiple different formats will have a psychological advantage in consumers’ memory retention over a single source message.
Reduce Cost: The cost is a lot less to effectively self target using tactics like site retargeting and geofence compared to targeting an entire population.
The Ability to Upsell/Resell: It’s much easier to gain repeat business from someone who has previously purchased from you and received a good value out of their original experience. Self targeting simply brings the desire to re-buy to the front of the consumer’s mind.
Remain Top-of-Mind: The final pro of self targeted advertising is that it keeps an advertiser’s message in front of a consumer while they are in research mode. Remaining top-of-mind during the research/active buying process gives an advertiser a significant competitive edge.