Retargeting & Remarketing: The New Behavioral Ads

If attendance is any indication, this session proved to be one of the most popular of Tuesday with a full seated audience and standing room in the back.  The topic of remarketing continues to be one of the top buzz words and the case studies and data collected by major companies support its value.  In this panel, the speakers discussed the topic of retargeting today as well as what they saw as emerging opportunities in the near future.

The main points covered in the session included:

• Retargeting/remarketing is about audience segmentation
• Websites should also be segmented by user intent (i.e. casual browsers vs. “abandoned carts”)
• Analyzing the time elapsed from the initial website visit to purchase
• Aligning audience segmentation with average days to purchase using analytics
• Create defined lists or “ad groups” of guests/shoppers that fall within a certain segmentation/intent

In addition to retargeting potential customers, the panelists also agreed on the importance of remarketing to “converters”

Eshwar Belani also brought up the point that some audience segments can have negative impact – citing how certain campaigns had come off as “pushy” or “creepy” – leaving a negative impression of the brand with the audience.

Darrin Clement of Maponics described how retargeting might be applied to the mobile market in the near future.  Among the chief differences between online remarketing and mobile remarketing include:

1. Search (online) vs. discovery (mobile)
2. User behavior and location are practically inseparable
3. Social remarketing
4. Using “geofences” or invisible boundaries to define marketing audiences – instead of arbitrary search “radiuses”, the fences can be shaped by neighborhood to present a more authentic target market

At the same time, mobile retargeting also poses some unique challenges:

1. Time window for how long someone remains within a geofence could range from minutes or months
2. Not yet self-serve – needs support to create mobile campaigns
3. Greatest challenge in the mobile space will be concerns over privacy and security.

Speakers:

• Chris Sherman, Search Engine Land (Moderator)
• Eshwar Belani, Rocket Fuel
• Darrin Clement, Maponics
• Luke Coltrin, Overstock.com
• Brad Geddes, Certified Knowledge

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Contributed by Jonas Pauliukonis, Sr. eStrategist