Retargeting is a huge benefit, if you know how to use it. If you don’t, you might end up paying more money to actually lose customers! Retargeting tries to match your messaging with customers who have visited your site. It’s great for branding too. Retargeting often costs less than using standard targeting methods, but it’s very easy to break your retargeting efforts. If you find retargeting isn’t delivering the response you had hoped for, you might want to try adjusting a few parameters.

Frequency

The biggest change you can make is to the frequency with which your ads show. If your ads are presented to users too often, your “effective” messaging comes across as intrusive badgering. Be sure that you set a frequency cap, or a limit to how many times your display advertising will show to a certain person on a certain day, so that you’re not bothering people with your ads.

Messaging

The best kind of display advertising, especially on mobile, is succinct. Think about what you want your advertising to say, like benefits of your product or service, and highlight that in banner form. Try to distill what you want to say into one sentence, or even better, just a few words. Also, be sure that you adjust your messaging. If you are retargeting customers who bought from you already, for instance, showing them the same banner would be redundant. Instead, try to focus on a new benefit or product they have not seen and you might score an upsell.

Bio: Ted Dhanik is the CEO of engage:BDR, a digital marketing company that offers real-time bidding. Ted Dhanik has been in direct marketing for over 15 years. Find out how to generate leads for your business with advice from Ted Dhanik.