Retargeting
Retargeting is showing ads to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your brand but didn't convert. It's a way to stay top-of-mind and bring them back to complete a purchase or desired action. CMOs care because retargeting typically has higher conversion rates and lower costs than acquiring entirely new customers.
Full Explanation
Retargeting solves a fundamental marketing problem: most website visitors leave without converting. In traditional marketing, once someone walks out of your store, you have no way to follow them down the street with a reminder. Retargeting is digital's answer to that problem—it lets you follow interested prospects across the internet with relevant ads.
Here's how it works in practice: A visitor lands on your product page, browses for two minutes, then leaves. Using a small tracking pixel (a piece of code on your website), you can show that person an ad for that exact product when they're browsing Facebook, reading news articles, or shopping on other sites. It's like having a billboard that only that person can see, reminding them of what they almost bought.
In marketing tools, retargeting appears as audience segments. For example, in Google Ads, you might create a "cart abandoners" audience—people who added items to their cart but didn't check out. You then run a campaign specifically to that audience with messaging like "Complete your purchase" or "We're holding your items." Similarly, in Meta (Facebook), you can retarget website visitors with carousel ads showing the exact products they viewed.
The practical implication for buying AI tools: many modern marketing platforms now use AI to optimize retargeting automatically. Instead of manually setting up separate campaigns for different visitor behaviors, AI can identify which visitors are most likely to convert, what messaging resonates with each segment, and when to show ads for maximum impact. When evaluating marketing platforms, ask whether they offer AI-powered retargeting automation—it can dramatically improve ROI without requiring your team to build complex manual workflows.
Why It Matters
Retargeting is one of the highest-ROI marketing channels available. Visitors who are retargeted are 70% more likely to convert than cold prospects, and retargeting campaigns typically cost 50-70% less per acquisition than new customer acquisition. For a CMO managing budget efficiency, this is critical: retargeting lets you squeeze more revenue from existing traffic without proportionally increasing spend.
From a competitive standpoint, retargeting is table stakes. If your competitors are retargeting and you're not, they're converting your website visitors into their customers. The business impact is measurable: a 2% improvement in retargeting conversion rate can translate to 15-20% incremental revenue with minimal additional spend. When evaluating marketing tech stacks, prioritize platforms with sophisticated retargeting capabilities and AI optimization—they directly impact your ability to defend market share and improve marketing efficiency metrics that boards care about.
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Related Terms
Programmatic Advertising
The automated buying and selling of digital ad space using software and algorithms instead of manual negotiations. It lets you target the right person at the right time with minimal human intervention, making ad spending faster and more efficient.
Behavioral Targeting
Showing ads or content to people based on their past actions—what they've clicked, searched for, bought, or watched. It's how platforms know you looked at running shoes and suddenly see running shoe ads everywhere. CMOs use it to reach the right person at the right moment with relevant messages.
Dynamic Content
Content that changes based on who's viewing it, when they're viewing it, or what they've done before. Instead of showing the same message to everyone, dynamic content personalizes itself in real-time to match each person's interests, behavior, or stage in the buying journey.
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Courses, workshops, frameworks, daily intelligence, and 6 proprietary tools — built for marketing leaders adopting AI.
Trusted by 10,000+ Directors and CMOs.