The Media Planner'S Guide To Retargeting

M ED IA
THE ’S
A NN E R
PL
ID E T O
GU T ING
E TA R GE
R
The Global Leader in Retargeting

The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting Table of Contents
Table of Contents
3 Introduction
What is Retargeting
Flavors of Retargeting
6 Four Steps to Building A Succesful Retargeting Foundation
Understanding the Customer Journey
Scale Ad Creative for Every Situation
Re-engage Across All Platforms
Track Performance
12 Choosing A Retargeting Vendor
Technology
Reputation
Reach
Flexibility
Transparency
Service
Pricing
Native Dynamic Ad Solution
16 Case Studies
20 Conclusion
21 About the Authors
972 Mission Street, 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA 94103 1.877.7AdRoll press@adroll.com www.AdRoll.com 2
INTRODUCTION
3
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting Introduction
What is Retargeting?
Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is the strategy that lets advertisers serve online ads to visitors who’ve
previously visited their website. Over the past few years, retargeting has become a must-have marketing channel, in
addition to search engine marketing and email marketing, for reaching and converting customers.
Retargeting often performs better than other forms of display advertising, and adding it into the digital marketing mix
can help drive incremental conversions, increase customer loyalty, and raise brand awareness. In a recent survey of
AdRoll’s customers, 87% of respondents indicated that retargeting is important to their overall marketing strategy, and
76% expected to increase their retargeting budget in 2014. With retargeting seeing mass adoption across the industry,
agencies are learning the nuances of retargeting and developing a better understanding of best practices.
This guide lays out the basics of setting up a successful retargeting strategy and offers tips for vetting a retargeting
partner based on your objectives.
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting Introduction
Flavors of Retargeting
To give you a better understanding of the types of retargeting, here’s a summary of a few popular forms:
Site Retargeting Retargeting on Social Mobile Retargeting

On average, 98% of website visitors Recently the largest social media Consumers are shifting their digital
leave the site without completing a networks have opened up their browsing and buying behavior to
desired action. With site retargeting, ad platforms and launched ad mobile, but many marketers are
often shortened to “retargeting,” exchanges. Facebook has been still struggling to reach their mobile
advertisers can display ads to this leading the movement with the audiences effectively. To keep up with
group as they visit other websites announcement of Facebook Exchange this shift to mobile, agencies have
across the web. This keeps the brand (FBX). Facebook Exchange is a new begun recommending mobile-specific
top-of-mind and encourages the way of buying ads on Facebook marketing strategies like mobile app
user to come back and complete the through the use of real-time bidding. marketing and mobile retargeting.
transaction. Advertisers can work with an FBX, With mobile retargeting, advertisers
qualified partner to retarget their can retarget desktop site visitors
This strategy works well with
website visitors on Facebook with ads as they’re browsing Facebook and
e-commerce businesses, retailers,
placed directly into the News Feed as Twitter on their mobile devices, or
auto, tech B2B, travel, media and
well as on the Right-hand Side. Initial retarget mobile site visitors directly
entertainment—anyone interested
reports from Facebook reveal 20-40x as they browse other mobile sites.
in engaging current or prospective
higher CTR with these retargeted
customers online. If you’re just A popular use case for mobile
ads than standard FBX ads. AdRoll’s
getting started with a retargeting retargeting is driving mobile app
advertisers have seen a 16x return
program, this is where to begin. downloads by retargeting desktop
on their ad spend, making new FBX
audiences on mobile devices with
campaigns a high-value complement
App Install ads. Agencies can
to traditional retargeting.
also help clients increase mobile
Twitter also recently announced the conversions by driving desktop-
capability for advertisers to retarget and mobile-optimized visitors to
their website visitors through tailored their mobile eCommerce site and
audiences. According to twitter, dedicated landing pages.
alpha test advertisers increased
engagement by as much as 170% and
reduced customer acquisition costs
by up to 74%.
FOUR STEPS
TO BUILDING A
SUCCESSFUL
RETARGETING
FOUNDATION
6
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting 4 Steps to Building a Successful Retargeting Foundation

Marketing is all about reaching the right customer with the right message at the right time. In order to accomplish this,
agencies often start by working to understand a client’s potential customers, how they behave, and the most effective
way to turn them into sales. The first step in building an effective retargeting strategy is to understand your clients’
customers and help them establish goals.
Every advertiser with a website can collect data on visitor behavior known as “intent signals.” An intent signal is
something the potential customer does that signals, “I’m interested in this product or service.” It could be that she
visited a specific product page, watched a certain webinar, or placed an item in a shopping cart.
AdRoll segments and scores A different message is

2
Place the AdRoll SmartTag
1 across your site visitors by their web actions 3 delivered to each individual
← ←
← ←

cont.
Begin by defining each client’s objectives and the types of intent signals that indicate high-potential customers. Each
website visitor may have a different value to your advertiser. A user who places an item in their shopping cart and
leaves without purchasing may be more valuable than a user who visits the home page and doesn’t browse any further.
Retargeting allows you to create audience segments to reach these visitors by defining and filtering by their intent
signals. For example, if a retailer is looking to increase online sales, you might create a segment for website visitors
who placed an items in their shopping carts, but abandoned prior to completing the purchase. Another example is a B2B
client looking to drive free trial sign-ups: you may want to create a segment for website.
You can take this approach to the next level by breaking out additional custom segments based on the number and type
of products viewed. See the table below for frequently used retargeting strategies by industry.
Examples of Intent Signals and Retargeting Campaigns by Industry

The IAB lists 16 standard ad sizes, and some websites add their own unique ad sizes, making creative asset production
a labor-intensive or cost-prohibitive effort. We’ve yet to meet a creative team who has the free time to handle endless
cycles of resizing ad creative, so getting the most out of a few assets is key to making a retargeting campaign
successful.
To start, make sure that every retargeting campaign has ads in the three most popular sizes: 300x250, 728x90 and
160x600 (referred to as a “rectangle,” “leaderboard,” and “skyscraper,” respectively). You’ll find that the vast majority of
websites use at least two, if not all three, of these ad sizes. Having at least these three sizes will help generate view-
through conversions and prevent ad blindness.
Here are the three most widely used ad sizes:
300x250
728x90
160x600
For more information on creative best practices, please visit: http://support.adroll.com/topics/creative/

*http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/508767/displayguidelines

cont.
When planning creative, agencies are already well versed in thinking about how to influence the buyer beyond the
first impression. With retargeting, it’s easy to set up a multi-stage campaign with sequential messaging to guide
potential customers through the purchase funnel and tailor promotional offers to specific customer segments.
Creating customized ads across a handful of segments and buying stages can be a lot of work. Thankfully, dynamic
ad solutions automate the process of creating thousands of custom ads that scale across an entire product suite.
Check with your retargeting provider to see if they offer dynamic ad solutions, like AdRoll’s LiquidAds.
product page A relevant website displaying your ad
*http://www.iab.net/guidelines/508676/508767/displayguidelines
Re-Engage across All Platforms

Don’t limit yourself to just one or two inventory sources, or you’ll miss out on opportunities to reach users during the
time-sensitive retargeting window. Your efforts should reach across the open web on exchanges like Google’s AdX,
Yahoo, AppNexus, and AOL as well as social networks like Twitter and Facebook’s FBX. Make sure your ads appear on
Facebook in the News Feed as well as on the Right-hand Side, and on Twitter with Tailored Audiences. This will not only
give you cross-platform reach but also cross-device reach on mobile, tablet, and desktop.
Track Performance
Once you’ve identified your segments and have creative in place, you’ll want to track performance so you can measure
the success of your retargeting program and optimize accordingly. Any transaction that results from an ad could be
counted, so it’s up to you and your client to determine what actions you want to optimize against. Common examples of
performance goals include purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or registering for a new account.
CHOOSING A
RETARGETING
VENDOR
Despite the growth and adoption of retargeting, there is still a notable lack of information about
how the technology actually works. There’s also very little to be found regarding best practices
for advertisers and agencies who want to vet a partner.
Our goal is to unlock this information so that agencies can make more informed decisions
about how to implement a best-in-class retargeting strategy. It can be difficult to choose which
retargeting platform is the right partner for your agency. The following are some things to
consider.
12
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting Qualifying Questions for a Retargeting Vendor
Technology
Does the retargeting platform have their own technology or do they license someone else’s,
simply acting as a middleman?
In response to the emergence of
ad exchanges in the past decade, real-
time bidding (RTB) was born, offering
an automated, artificial intelligence
solution for valuing and purchasing
ad impressions across the web. RTB
allowed advertisers to evaluate a single
impression at the exact moment it
renders, determine its value, and then
bid in an open auction for the right to
serve an ad. It also allows the advertiser
to take into account everything they know about a given internet user to determine how valuable that user is to the brand.
What makes RTB powerful is that it allows an agency to make informed decisions about every impression that’s available
to buy. It allows an advertiser to serve the right message to the right user at the ideal time. If a retargeting vendor is
only licensing someone else’s RTB technology (commonly referred to as using a “white label solution”), then they won’t
be able to deliver top performance on retargeting campaigns through website audience segmentation and dynamic ads
personalized to what a user last viewed.
Reputation
How long has the retargeting platform you’re considering been around? Does it align with your
business goals? How big is their team? How many customers do they support?
Whether you’re a Madison Avenue agency or a two-person shop, you will benefit from a company that is known for
customer support and has a track record of customer success.
It’s also important to know what industries they’ve worked with in the past. If your agency tends to focus on a specific
industry, you may prefer a retargeting provider who has experience with brands in that same industry. Great providers
offer advanced strategies and best practices tailored to a specific category without additional legwork on your end.
Reach
Who are their partner exchanges?
Ensuring that your prospective retargeting platform has a seat on all major ad exchanges allows your ads to appear
where users are actually browsing. Your ads will reach the right customers, in the right place, at the right time.
Flexibility
Do you have minimums or contracts? Are there setup costs?
Budgets can fluctuate, so many agencies are looking for a retargeting platform that can accommodate flexibility with no
contracts, no minimums, and both insertion order and credit card payment options.
Transparency
What types of reports do they offer? What metrics do they track? Does the provider give insight
into campaign metrics and performance, then optimize accordingly? Do they integrate with
third-party analytic companies?
Maximizing ROI is crucial, so if your ads are not converting well on a particular site, you’ll want to exclude that site
from your campaigns. You might also need the ability to monitor where ads are served so you can meet your client’s
brand safety guidelines. Many agencies look for a retargeting platform that can offer granular, site-level reporting to
give deep insight into campaign performance and control over messaging and creative testing.
Service
Do you have a dedicated agency support team or is there a minimum
spend to qualify for account management? Is there someone you
can call if you have questions or a problem?
With clients to juggle and a shortage of hours in the day, agencies often look for a
retargeting provider that has the resources to act as an extension of their internal
team. Having a dedicated account team will save you time by optimizing campaign
performance and implementing best practices.
Pricing
Is there a dynamic pricing model?
Since all RTB media inventory is auctioned on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, a pricing model based on
dynamic CPM is the best way to ensure the retargeting platform’s goals are aligned with yours.
Fixed pricing can hide a vendor’s inventory priorities in a black box and often leads to campaigns they are optimized to
lower-quality traffic sources. When a retargeting vendor prices by CPC, they will tend to hide where they run your ads
and what costs are associated. Over time, the vendor is incentivized to optimize your campaigns to low-quality inventory
sources in order to maximize their profits.
A pricing model based on dynamic CPM exposes the actual price of the inventory throughout the life of the campaign.
This ensures your campaigns are optimized to the most effective inventory sources that will meet your campaign
objectives at scale, long-term. It also passes value back to the agency and offers control over campaign parameters,
including 100% transparency on where each impression is being served. A dynamic pricing model best aligns your
retargeting provider’s priorities with your business goals.
Native Dynamic Ad Solution

Can you create dynamic ads or custom ads that scale? Are your dynamic ads templatized?
Designing new ad creative can be very time consuming, so finding a provider who offers the technology to create custom
ads at scale will conserve your campaign creation and management resources.
A good retargeting provider has built-in technology to create ads that populate messaging based on what the customer
viewed, and can also generate ads that recommend similar or complementary products. This will drive higher
performance and prevent ad fatigue. On average, AdRoll’s advertisers see a 15% lift in click-through rates and a 45%
decrease in CPA costs with dynamic creative.
CASE STUDIES
16
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting Case Studies
CPC Search Elevates Their Clients’

Pay-Per-Click Strategy
CPC Search’s seasoned experts excel in strategic pay per click (PPC) campaigns that dramatically increase ROI. As
their clients’ go-to experts on PPC, CPC Search partnered with AdRoll to provide cost-effective, performance-driven
retargeting campaigns. CPC Search collaborated with vertical specialits at AdRoll to home in on the goals of their
individual clients and provide advanced retargeting techniques that optimized for bottom-of-the-funnel conversions and
integrated seamlessly with their SEM strategies.
RESULTS
75% of CPC Search’s Clients Leverage AdRoll
50x ROI
AdRoll brings a lot to the table here, with ease of use, very good functionality,
great service, and reach. Over 75% of our clients are AdRoll customers and
are seeing successful results through retargeting. As an agency, we view
retargeting as essential.
— Terry Whalen, Founder and CEO
Clinique Appreciates the Beauty of AdRoll

Clinique, one of the premier beauty and skincare brands, understands the importance of advertising to their customers
at the right time with the right message. With a constant flow of new product lines, seasonal promotional items, and
their classic beauty products, Clinique can easily target disparate customers. When Clinique wanted to provide their
online shoppers with personalized online experiences, they partnered with AdRoll to leverage their dynamic ad solution,
LiquidAds. AdRoll created campaigns that served ads with images of the exact products or recommendations based on
the products that each Clinique website visitor had viewed. The custom ads were displayed to the site visitors as they
surfed various other websites.
RESULTS
8.5x ROI for overall campaign
14x ROAS for LiquidAds campaign
265% increase in online sales from retargeting after starting FBX
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting Case Studies
Tableau Software uses Data to Define

Prospective Customers
Tableau Software, a leader in data visualization and analytics, helps advertisers see and understand their data. As a
B2B company with a 3-4 month sales cycle, Tableau needed to re-engage website visitors and nurture them through the
marketing funnel. AdRoll helped Tableau create a multi-segment campaign based on visitor behavior on the Tableau
website. Low-intent users who recently hit the home page saw broad ads on current trends in data analytics and the
importance of adopting an analytics company. Mid-intent users who had visited a page on business obstacles saw ads
promoting content on that topic. Lastly, high-intent visitors who viewed a specific product or the free trial page (but
didn’t sign up) saw free trial reminders or content about the specific products they’d viewed.
RESULTS
Performed 40% better than CPA Target
Accounts for 14% of Tableau Software’s monthly free trials and white paper downloads
Scaled campaign by 2.8x while maintaining a steady CPA
We’re so impressed with how instrumental AdRoll has been in maximizing

our online lead generation efforts with their lead nurturing platform.
— Allison Perry, Online Marketing Manager
Hipmunk Takes Flight with AdRoll

Hipmunk, a fast-growing travel search site, excels at offering a seamless experience in booking travel. Hipmunk wanted
to determine if retargeting could drive incremental conversions from potential customers, they leaned on AdRoll to
conduct a five-week A/B test comparing conversions among users and similar users who did not convert. AdRoll also
implemented a segmented retargeting campaign for Hipmunk’s flight and hotel products. Performance was optimized
by adjusting cookie duration and retargeting flight product users with the hotel product.
RESULTS
75% lift vs control when retargeting users who search
50% lift vs control when retargeting users who book
66% improvement in CPA for hotel campaign
CONCLUSION
When creating successful retargeting campaigns for your clients, make sure to take a
long-term approach to selecting a vendor, determining budgets, and establishing KPIs. Look
for a retargeting vendor who offers reach and transparency, industry expertise, pricing that
aligns with your business goals, and dedicated resources to support your team.
19
The Media Planner’s Guide to Retargeting About AdRoll | About the Authors
About AdRoll
AdRoll is the world’s largest retargeting platform, with over 10,000 active advertisers worldwide. The company’s inno-
vative and easy-to-use marketing platform helps brands of all sizes create personalized ad campaigns based on their
own website data, ensuring maximum return on online advertising spend. With a 97% customer retention rate, AdRoll
provides unmatched transparency and reach across the largest display inventory sources, including Google AdX, Twitter,
and Facebook Exchange.
The company is backed by leading investors such as Foundation Capital, Accel Partners, Merus Capital, and Peter Thiel.
For more information, please visit www.adroll.com.
About the Authors

Lauren Vaccarello
VP of Marketing, AdRoll
Lauren is AdRoll’s in-house marketing guru and author of the highly regarded book, Complete B2B Online Marketing.
Lauren holds her BS in Marketing Communications from Emerson College, where she graduated Magna Cum Laude.
Kexin Chen
Associate Marketing Manager, AdRoll
Kexin plans and executes integrated marketing for AdRoll’s global office launches and drives advocate marketing
programs. Kexin graduated from Tufts University with a BA in International Relations and Economics.

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M ED IA

The Global Leader in Retargeting

6 Four Steps to Building A Succesful Retargeting Foundation

Understanding the Customer Journey

Scale Ad Creative for Every Situation

Re-engage Across All Platforms

12 Choosing A Retargeting Vendor

Native Dynamic Ad Solution

21 About the Authors

Site Retargeting Retargeting on Social Mobile Retargeting

Understanding the Customer Journey

AdRoll segments and scores A different message is

Understanding the Customer Journey

Examples of Intent Signals and Retargeting Campaigns by Industry

Scale Ad Creative for Every Situation

Here are the three most widely used ad sizes:

For more information on creative best practices, please visit: http://support.adroll.com/topics/creative/

Scale Ad Creative for Every Situation

product page A relevant website displaying your ad

Re-Engage across All Platforms

Native Dynamic Ad Solution

CPC Search Elevates Their Clients’

Clinique Appreciates the Beauty of AdRoll

Tableau Software uses Data to Define

We’re so impressed with how instrumental AdRoll has been in maximizing

— Allison Perry, Online Marketing Manager

Hipmunk Takes Flight with AdRoll

50% lift vs control when retargeting users who book

66% improvement in CPA for hotel campaign

About the Authors

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