There are several types of retargeting, but for now I am going to talk about site retargeting. Let's say you run a shoe store and you have a website that allows people to purchase online. With retargeting, a code, called a pixel is placed on the back end of your site. When a potential customer visits your web site this code adds what's called a cookie, a small information file, onto his or her browser. So now the browser, be it Google Chrome, Firefox etc. "knows" that the user was on your site.
When the user leaves your site the pixel "fires," triggering your ads to appear on the next web site(s) he or she visits.
So what about the other advertisers who are also retargeting? Don't their ads compete for space? Say your potential customer visits another shoe store website that is also set up for retargeting in addition to yours before leaving for another site. Which ad will appear? That's done with a process called bidding. When the user goes to another page, retargeting bids the available ad spaces out. This is called Real Time Bidding or RTB. The ad that has the highest bid wins the space.
The bid provided depends on how much the advertiser is spending on the retargeting campaign. The higher the budget, the higher the bids.
This happens in nanoseconds and only saves the visit, NOT sensitive information about the user.
Did you ever wonder how the ads on the websites you've visited seem to know what you're interested in or the sites you've recently visited? It's not coincidence, it's retargeting.
It sounds complicated, but ISJ Media makes it simple. Just tell us what you want to spend, what ads you'd like your users to see and what website you'd like to target, we'll take it from there and provide your monthly reports on impressions (the number of times your ads were viewed) and clicks.
This graphic from retargeter.com shows how it works:
