Behavioural retargeting, commonly referred to as ‘retargeting’, has proved an explosive branch of web marketing over the last 18 months or so with retailers keen to trial, agencies wanting a slice of the pie, and new retargeting providers appearing every other day. So what is it and why’s it so popular?

Web marketing is maturing at a rapid pace, were it a child it would’ve jumped straight from nappies to borrowing your car in a matter of weeks. Due to the industry’s new-found maturity, display advertising is not so much thrown at users randomly by ad networks – as it was back in the glorious dawn of the web – but rather are targeted based on site content, geographic location etc, ensuring users are served relevant adverts in the attempt of increasing click through rates.

The rise of retargeting has taken this pinpointing of potential customers to a whole new – somewhat stalker-ish – level. Let me build a scenario for you; you’re vaguely interested in buying a ring for your girlfriend so you idly flick through a few jewellery retailers on the web looking at specific types, sizes etc, one of these retailers has deployed a retargeting program, although the browsing experience doesn’t differ in any way. You give up on your hunt in favour of, well, anything else and forget about it.

It’s forgotten right? Wrong. The retailer engaged in retargeting dropped and modified the cookie for each product that you browsed, storing it all up for later. Days later you’re off browsing the web, doing your thing when you’re served up an ad for all the products that you viewed. Is it handy that your memory is jogged and products remembered? Or is it horribly invasive to your privacy as you weren’t even told about it?

Retailers are more than happy to trial and deploy as standard RoN (Run of Network) banners achieve an average CTR (Click Through Rate)of approximately 0.1%, whereas retargeting boasts CTRs of 0.8% – 1.5%, thus highly optimising campaigns.

Retargeting providers love the increase in interest as it enables them to not only sign up more retailers and increase revenues, but also to relentlessly advance the retargeting technology deployed, leading to more and more sophisticated systems.

Some users enjoy the system as they are served relevant ads, can be informed of price drops etc, others despise the practice as it’s currently automatic opt-in. Although potentially all will change depending on how the EU gets along with passing their new ‘idea’ on how to deal with cookies , read more at the BBC – New net rules set to make cookies crumble.

Update

Due to incoming KWs on this article, I’ve taken it upon myself to write another article on retargeting, and how much it can cost; looking at both CPC and CPA agreements. I’d love any feedback.