5 Retargeting Strategies and 2 Cheat Sheets to Help You Get Started

Retargeting is one of best ways to re-engage shoppers who’ve left your website and remind them to complete a purchase.

Updated on January 3, 2024

As we already know, shopping carts get abandoned all the time. For the most part, actually. The vast majority of shoppers (98%) will leave your site without buying anything at all. At least the first time they visit.

If you’re doing research on how retargeting works, one of the simple answers is that it’s one of best ways to re-engage shoppers who’ve left your website and remind them of the products they were interested in to get them to complete a purchase.

Below we’ve collected five actionable retargeting strategies which can help you do that.

What is a retargeting strategy?

Retargeting strategy is about re-engaging consumers who’ve previously shown interest in your products or services. Imagine a store visitor who picked up a couple of items but didn’t check out. Retargeting is your way of reminding them about those items. Your strategy is how you achieve that.

With definitions done, let’s focus on those 5 actionable strategies.

1. Retarget based on shoppers’ site navigation.

Targeting users based on the specific pages of your site they visit allows you to deliver personalized, hyper-relevant ads.

For example, if a user puts a Nespresso machine in their shopping cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, you can target them with ads for that coffeemaker on various sites that they visit in the future. If someone else buys that appliance, you can serve up ads for complementary products they’d be interested in, like cappuccino pods, cups, and a milk frother.

2. Segment your audience.

Whatever you do, don’t be the brand or retailer who drops a single pixel on your site and retargets all the shoppers who’ve visited in the last 30 days with “The Exact. Same. Message.” There are lots of ways to segment your audience (cart abandoners, recent visitors, recent buyers, recent bouncers, to name a few), that could each benefit from different content.

3. Focus on search terms.

Retargeting shoppers after they’ve searched for keywords or phrases that pertain to your business is an easy way to get more sales. For instance, if you’re a jeweler in the Midwest and someone does a Google search for “diamond necklaces in Chicago”, you could target that person with ads for “discount diamonds Chicago”. The main difference between search retargeting and other types is that this strategy reaches users who’ve never visited your website and whose email addresses you didn’t collect.

4. Utilize your CRM.

Most of what’s inside your CRM is probably offline data, meaning you didn’t collect it automatically through dropping a site cookie but more likely through a loyalty program or other means (like product giveaways or sweepstakes). That makes your CRM a rich source of valuable info about who your shoppers are and what they’re interested in.

5. Connect all the data dots.

In today’s competitive retail marketplace, it’s more important than ever to reach shoppers with content that’s ultra-personalized. That means collecting and unifying data across all devices, channels, and platforms to get the full picture of their product interests and purchase intent.

Finding a partner that utilizes real-time data to optimize all creative, for both display and video ads, is paramount. Retailers and brands who win will master dynamic delivery of the right ad design for every device, every context, and every stage of the shopper journey.

For more retargeting tips and tricks, check out the retargeting terms every marketer should know.

Michelle Pruett

Michelle is Senior Director of Global Brand Marketing at Criteo, where she leads a high-performing team that spans content, design, and campaigns. A copywriter through and through, her work has been featured in notable publications.