p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }
A somewhat controversial but successful marketing strategy generating a lot of buzz these days is retargeting. This is the practice of targeting display ads to consumers based on their prior online browsing behavior. So if you're looking at handbags on Coach.com but don't make a purchase, you'd be served up a display ad on another site promoting Coach's handbags. The whole goal is to bring back these shoppers to the retailer's website to complete a purchase. In a session yesterday at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in San Diego, Brandon Proctor, vice president of marketing at Build.com, and Jared Blank, vice president of e-commerce at Tommy Hilfiger, discussed how their brands have benefited from retargeting.
“Consumers are easily distracted and oftentimes can't remember the site they were shopping on earlier in the day,” said Proctor. “We remind them with display ads to help close the sale that day. Don't risk the competitor doing another search and buying from a competitor.”
Build.com attributes retargeting for a significant spike in its website conversion rate. The company's retargeted display ads are consistently seeing clickthrough rates of 2 percent to 3 percent, much higher than previous standard display ad campaigns. Retargeting, whether measuring it by last click or linear allocation, moves the ROI needle for the retailer, said Proctor. And more sales today means more budget tomorrow for additional marketing initiatives, he added.
For Tommy Hilfiger, retargeting's ROI is on par with its search program (search does lead to more sales volume). The apparel retailer views retargeting as an insurance policy — it's willing to pay the $6 to $7 cost per action to have a consumer come back to its site to make a purchase. As Blank noted, it costs money to get consumers to convert.
