Native ad networks offer retargeting platforms, and setting up retargeting in your campaigns is surprisingly easy on Taboola, Outbrain, and Yahoo Gemini.
Through the effective use of retargeting platforms, it’s possible to convert customers who have previously shown interest but not taken action.
There are many stages in a typical online purchase journey, and attrition occurs at every step. Even when people click on a native ad, they might abandon your site for a whole host of reasons, as Deloitte recently highlighted.
Retargeting platforms can bring them back and increase the chance of a conversion by serving your ads to a customer who has already shown interest in your material but didn’t convert. All the major native advertising platforms support retargeting.
What is retargeting?
Imagine a customer clicks a native ad and finds themselves on your ecommerce site. So far, so good. However, they might not complete a transaction for various reasons:
- They think the price is too high, and they hope to find what you’re offering at a cheaper price elsewhere.
- They want to see what product alternatives are available elsewhere.
- Their browsing session is interrupted.
- They need some time to decide before making a purchase.
Once they’ve left your site, it’s easy for customers to forget what they were doing. Life is hectic, and the internet is full of distractions.
Retargeting platforms promote products and services to customers who’ve already clicked through native ads to reach your site. Cookie tracking allows retargeting to be used in different ways, from simply serving up the same ad again to displaying new information in a sequence, such as following an initial ad with third-party reviews or pricing information.
A strategic retargeting campaign should ideally display supplementary content that reinforces your product or service’s appeal, by solving pain points that may have prevented the transaction being completed. Yet because it’s often unclear why someone left your site, effective retargeting campaigns often involve trial and error, until trends emerge from the data.
Although there can be benefits to displaying original content a second time, it’s generally advisable to create supplementary material to get customers over the line. MarTech Advisor explained how Roomba used different headlines and customer testimonials in retargeting campaigns, going above and beyond the original product/price/place ads that piqued people’s attention but didn’t lead to sales.
How to get started with retargeting on 3 native ad platforms
Brax works with all the major native ad platforms. Setting up retargeting campaigns is surprisingly easy, since there’s no need to generate new tags or other tracking data when retargeting previous audiences.
Taboola
You need to specify one or more campaigns at the outset, so Taboola can compile a list of people suitable for future retargeting. Then, choose the Campaign Clickers option in the Audience section of your dashboard, and select the relevant campaign/s to begin compiling a retargeting pool.
Taboola recommends setting a comparatively high CPC, since fewer people will be targeted than through conventional campaigns. However, they say clients will see a higher ROI because people being targeted are already close to converting in many instances.
Dive into more details on using Taboola for retargeting. If you’re new to Taboola, learn more about the Taboola native ad platform first.
Outbrain
Outbrain offers a number of retargeting solutions, and there’s a detailed analysis of the various options in their blog. These are the three main options:
- Audience retargeting, which lets you create a rule for specific campaigns using Boolean qualifiers.
- Story sequencing, where people see a chronological sequence of native content intended to steer them towards an outcome – first the product, then reviews, then a discount offer, for example.
- Converters Segment, which aggregates everyone who converted on your site, including people from native ad networks other than Outbrain, to help drive repeat custom or related purchases.
Learn more about Outbrain here if you’re new to the platform.
Yahoo Gemini
Yahoo Gemini offers retargeting too, including in its Search on Native (SoN) network. You can retarget search phrases with your native ads for an incremental boost. This means that your retargeting native ads can show in search results displayed by the Yahoo! search engine as well as within editorial content on partner websites.
Retargeting is easy to set up for the Yahoo Gemini platform, but it’s only available for managed accounts currently. If you’re using the self-serve option with Yahoo Gemini, get in touch with Brax for help with this. If you’re new to Yahoo Gemini, you’ll find it useful to start with our guide: How to Use Yahoo Gemini.
Hitting the target
There are many advantages to using retargeting on native ad networks. An effective native ad campaign that makes use of retargeting can significantly improve your sales by persuading wavering customers to convert.
Returning audiences are more likely to complete a transaction because they’re already familiar with your brand and site, and transactions are generally completed more quickly on a second visit.
Brax can help you manage multiple retargeting campaigns at once. Find out how we can help make your ad spend more cost-effective today.
