Retar­get­ing (or remar­ket­ing) is one of the most com­mon­ly used tac­tics for direct-response dis­play cam­paigns because it seeks to engage with con­sumers who have already expressed inter­est in a brand. How­ev­er, not all retar­get­ing should be employed in the same man­ner. For exam­ple, a user who has expressed slight inter­est in the brand shouldn’t be approached in the same man­ner that a user who has shown sig­nif­i­cant inter­est. Keep­ing this in mind, a use­ful tem­plate for retar­get­ing should have as its bedrock prin­ci­ples the mantra of Google’s Avinash Kaushik, the company’s Dig­i­tal Mar­ket­ing Evan­ge­list, as it relates to engag­ing con­sumers in three sep­a­rate stages of the their pur­chase path: See, Think and Do.

To ensure you are max­i­miz­ing impact with your tar­get, you must build your retar­get­ing strat­e­gy by seg­ment­ing audi­ences, bid­ding strate­gies and cre­ative mes­sag­ing accord­ing to the lev­el of brand inter­est a con­sumer has expressed.

You want to bid aggres­sive­ly and pro­vide high­er incen­tives to users who have demon­strat­ed the most inter­est.

How­ev­er, don’t neglect users who have demon­strat­ed slight inter­est. Be sure to engage them with per­son­al­ized mes­sag­ing as a reminder and, as the user express­es more inter­est in the brand, adjust the bid­ding strat­e­gy and cre­ative mes­sag­ing to dri­ve them down the path toward com­plet­ing a trans­ac­tion. This strat­e­gy can help nur­ture some­one who has expressed slight inter­est in the brand into one who has con­nect­ed with your brand and is ready to trans­act.

Also, it is cru­cial to build long-term rela­tion­ships, brand loy­al­ty, and reten­tion by active­ly engag­ing with users who have com­plet­ed pur­chas­ing and incen­tiviz­ing them to return.

Deliv­er­ing mes­sag­ing that is rel­e­vant to the user is essen­tial to run­ning a cam­paign that is both effec­tive in achiev­ing mar­ket­ing goals and is a favor­able expe­ri­ence for the con­sumer.

Addi­tion­al­ly, ensure that you’re set­ting fre­quen­cy caps — based on per­for­mance data that acknowl­edges the opti­mal fre­quen­cy at which a user con­verts — so that you don’t turn off peo­ple by over­sat­u­ra­tion.

Here’s a basic road map of how to tar­get con­sumers in the See, Think and Do stages.

See: “Quick Visitor”

Employ a Dynam­ic Retar­get­ing strat­e­gy to a low-lev­el inter­est seg­ment (users who have briefly vis­it­ed the site once) as a reminder to return to the site because there are products/services on the site in which they have demon­strat­ed inter­est. Make the mes­sag­ing par­tic­u­lar and cus­tomized to that user’s expe­ri­ence based on the con­tent browsed.

Employ dynam­ic mes­sag­ing spe­cif­ic to prod­ucts or ser­vices the user has browsed. The bid­ding for this user should not be as high as some­one who is a fre­quent vis­i­tor a cart aban­don­er.

If the mes­sag­ing has impact­ed the user to think/consider the brand once more by revis­it­ing the site and engag­ing with a length­i­er brows­ing ses­sion, then adjust the cre­ative mes­sag­ing and bid­ding strat­e­gy accord­ing­ly.

Think: “Frequent Visitor Or Cart Abandoner”

A “Fre­quent Vis­i­tor” who has vis­it­ed the site on sev­er­al occa­sions or has had a lengthy brows­ing ses­sion — perus­ing sev­er­al pages/products/services for an extend­ed peri­od of time — has clear­ly demon­strat­ed a lev­el of inter­est high­er than a “Quick Vis­i­tor” and is thus far­ther along the con­sid­er­a­tion stage and clos­er to a trans­ac­tion. They are in the “Think” stage.

These users should be pur­sued more aggres­sive­ly — plac­ing high­er bids to serve them — than a “quick vis­i­tor.” Also, because there was like­ly a delib­er­a­tion that pre­vent­ed them from tak­ing an action, an incen­tive should be pro­vid­ed to guide them far­ther down the path and con­sid­er trans­act­ing.

Deliv­er­ing mes­sag­ing to the “fre­quent vis­i­tor” with a spe­cial offer that is par­tic­u­lar to this audi­ence seg­ment (a dis­count, for exam­ple) can help quell the user’s delib­er­a­tion and make them more com­fort­able in com­plet­ing a trans­ac­tion.

A user per­haps far­ther along—though still very much con­sid­er­ing and still in the “Think” stage — is clos­er to the “Do” stage, hav­ing not only vis­it­ed the site and delib­er­at­ed between products/services but com­plet­ed cer­tain lev­els of engage­ment lead­ing to an pos­si­ble trans­ac­tion (a cart aban­don­ment is an exam­ple for a retail adver­tis­er).

For this audi­ence seg­ment, the bid­ding strat­e­gy should be the most aggres­sive of the three audi­ence seg­ments that have not yet con­vert­ed. This user should, sim­i­lar to the “fre­quent vis­i­tor,” be pro­vid­ed spe­cial offers to incen­tivize a con­ver­sion.

Do: “Site Converter”

Pro­vide incen­tives to the con­vert­ing user to make repeat con­ver­sions and become a loy­al cus­tomer. Serve spe­cial pro­mos spe­cif­ic to users who have already con­vert­ed on site. Be sure to lessen the fre­quen­cy at which a user is served an ad — com­pared to the fre­quen­cy used for non-con­vert­ing users — so as to not com­pro­mise their expe­ri­ence with the brand.

Rec­og­niz­ing audi­ence seg­ments — and how they apply to the See, Think, Do mod­el — and cus­tomiz­ing their adver­tis­ing expe­ri­ence to pro­vide the utmost rel­e­vance is a great way to max­i­mize the impact of your retar­get­ing cam­paign. Apply­ing a retar­get­ing strat­e­gy that incor­po­rates insights from user site behav­ior, effec­tive bid­ding, dynam­ic mes­sag­ing, and rel­e­vant cre­ative incen­tives can help dri­ve users from the “Think” stage to the “Do” stage.

Conclusion

Retar­get­ing should be a com­ple­ment to a holis­tic strat­e­gy that involves bring­ing aware­ness to your brand through prospect­ing. Once exposed, use retar­get­ing to nur­ture the new vis­i­tor.

Are you tar­get­ing con­sumers in the see, think, and do stages?