Being somewhat raven-like when it comes to lovely home goods catching my eye, I was immediately captivated by the gemmy aquamarine-colored shower curtain Google recommended for me at Wayfair. I spent a few minutes coveting the thoughtfully-styled pictures and well written descriptions, reading the user reviews of the supplely-woven fabric, and upon seeing the final price with shipping, promptly closed my browser.
Within a day or two, my search continued, but thoughts of that ever-so-perfect shower curtain never left my mind. And then magically, there she was (shower curtains are girls, right?) – winking at me and toying with my affections through a banner ad that displayed on another site. And then again the next day on yet another site. By the second time, I knew it wasn’t coincidence; my shower curtain was following me around the internet. I was being retargeted.
The concept is simple: users are fed advertisements based on their online interactions (for example, clicking on links in an email, searching for products online, visiting websites, adding items into a shopping cart) that did not result in a purchase. The goal of retargeting, or remarketing, is to attract the user back to the site to complete the transaction they started previously.
This little feat of online marketing magic can be accomplished through tracking pixels that allow marketers to anonymously follow users with which they’ve interacted as those users move about the web. And if you’re wondering, yes, it works. A study by comScore and ValueClick Media showed that retargeting created the most lift out of any other media placement strategy at an outstanding 1046%.
Oh, and as for me, she was delivered the following week. Thanks, retargeting!