Use audience extension to reach your target audience online

Audience extension advertising campaigns, also known as retargeting, are advertisements that are placed online on sites other than the client’s own.  These ads can be targeting specifically to the client’s target audience and show up on top web sites such as CNN and Auto Trader.

Website browsers such as Google Chrome use cookies to track user data including demographics such as age and location, as well as interests, purchases and more.  When an audience extension campaign is set up, digital marketers can assign certain parameters to the ads, such as show to people in zip codes A, B and C, display to people ages 18-40, etc.

Audience extension campaigns ensure that only people in the client’s target audience are being exposed to their message, which is cost and time efficient. And, because the campaign is charged only when the ad is served, no advertising dollars are wasted on people who would most likely not be interested or being charged regardless of if the ad is actually displayed or not.

And the client picks the budget, so they are guaranteed not to spend more than they want.

What is retargeting?

One of the most common terms heard in digital marketing is "retargeting." But what is it? To put it simply, it's a powerful tool that allows advertisers to keep their brand or service in the minds of potential customers after they've expressed interest.

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: