Search retargeting is the future of marketing, but with so many companies around it can be difficult to find the best solution for your website.

Retargeting in a nutshell

The aim or retargeting is to create lists of users who have already been to your website and carried out certain series of actions (tracking is key here).

These users can then be targeted on an ongoing basis as they visit different websites which serve display ads, i.e. websites with Adsense, Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Users can be targeted different based on their past behaviour.

There are many remarketing companies around, all with slightly different services.

Below is a comparison of the best remarketing platforms to help you choose the one that best suits your individual business:

Comparison of the Leading Retargeting Solutions

Platform	Audience Reach	Bidding	Cost	Support	Advantages	Disadvantages
Adwords	Google Adsense sites, Youtube, Android apps etc	CPM, CPC, CPA	No min spend & no set up fee	24/7 phone support	Best option if most of your traffic comes from Google. Can choose ad placement on each page.	Only can target users on Google’s partner sites: those with Adsense etc.
Retargeter	Google, Bing, and Yahoo, Facebook, email, twitter	CPM only	$500 upfront commitment	Personal account manager	High level segmentation based on behaviour, pages visited and demographics etc.	Intended for high traffic and high monthly spend.
AdRoll	Google, Bing, and Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter	CPM only	Most expensive CPM ($1-$2.50) – no min spend	Online and phone support	Great user interface and reporting options, making it easy to use.	Not designed for search retargeting/optimising based on visitor search terms.
Perfect Audience	Google, Bing, Newsfeeds, Facebook, Twitter, email	CPM	No min spend & no set up fee	Slow support	Most versatile and comprehensive targeting and segmentation. Integrates with email marketing.	More difficult to set up, esp with various ad formats for social media advertising.
Bizo	Linkedin & Facebook – b2b only	CPM & CPC	Minimum $150/pm ($5/pd per campaign)	Online support	Great for targeting businesses, with demographic info on companies.	Designed exclusively for B2B marketing; and not for search retargeting.

Summary

Although there are some key differences between each of these remarketing services, they all have some important features in common:

Integration

All retargeting options work by placing a piece of code on each page of your page website. When a user hits your site a tracking cookie will be uploaded to their computer which records their behaviour on your site.

Segmentation

All of these solutions give the ability to segment your retargeting lists based on demographics of your visitors and their behaviour. This should be done based on the goals of the campaign, specifics of your website, or business. For example, users that visit a particular product/service page can be served ads that are specific to that product/service.

Frequency of Targeting

All of these platforms give you the ability to control how often you advertise to your list of users. It is important not to bombard users with your brand – 15 – 20 times per month is a good rough number of times to target a user once they have left the website. If users continually see your ads, they may perceive it as being predatory and/or they may become numb to the site of your ads.

Message

Trying to give the user an ad which answers a question which was not answered within their first visit is a good idea. I.e. not feeding them the same information that they received the first time they visited your website. Offering them with a PDF download with advice is a good approach, and could be done based on which service they were looking for.

You can track pages visited; actions taken; time on page; number of pages visited; keywords used to enter the site; the device they used; location; organic versus paid (and more).

You can then target visitors based on a combination of any of these behaviours.

Think carefully about what you want to accomplish from your retargeting campaign, who your audience is, your budget, and the main channel you derive your site traffic through, and this will help with selecting the retargeting solution that best suits your needs.

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