Retargeting ads allow you to send ads to a specific audience (or exclude a specific audience) of people who have visited your website. We’ve all had the experience of shopping for a new item, only to see ads for the very same item in the following days and weeks—that’s because the e-commerce site you visited had a tracking pixel placed on their website. This tracking pixel allows them to collect a bit of data about your digital footprint—a combination of cookies, mobile device IDs and IP addresses. Then, they can provide you with retargeting ads so you don’t forget to buy the product.
In short, tracking pixels allow you to run new ads to users who have been to your website, apps, donation or store pages, social media pages and more.
There are some limits to what we can do with retargeting ads. Tracking pixels do not let you know specifically who your ads are targeting—so there is no way to export a list of personally identifiable information (PII). There are strict data privacy laws that do not allow as tracking systems to report results for specific users (so we can’t say whether John Doe saw your ad or not, nor can we say why Jane Doe went to your site but didn’t get retargeting ads); we can only treat the retargeting group as one large data set. Tracking pixels also do not let us retarget visitors who have gone to websites other than those you own/manage. Without the ability to place a pixel on the website, there is not a way to capture or track visitor information.
Retargeting ads work through a tracking pixel. The system will generate a pixel for you, and you should place this code snippet into the header data of your website. It will be invisible to website visitors if placed correctly. Once your pixel is in place, you can use the ads platform to test your pixel and ensure it is placed correctly and data is flowing between your website and the ads platform.
Then, you can build a campaign in the platform that either targets the data flowing from this tracking pixel or excludes the data from this tracking pixel—just like you can add or exclude any other data in the platform.
There are so many ways retargeting ads can benefit you. For example, a tracking pixel placed on your newsletter sign-up Thank You page can be used to send retargeting ads to solicit next steps or exclude those who have already signed up. Retargeting ads can also be helpful to provide a bit more information to people who have shown interest in learning more about you. With a little creativity, you can use retargeting ads for countless purposes.
Before you can retarget voters who visit your website, you'll need to embed a small piece of code, known as a "pixel," onto your website. Although the pixel remains invisible to website visitors, it plays a crucial role in gathering essential data that enables your ads to effectively reach your audience. To initiate this process, begin by accessing the ads platform. Click on "My Audiences" found in your tabs menu on the left hand side of your screen.
This will open your Audience tab, where you will choose to 'Create Audience'.
Next, you'll be taken to a screen to choose which type of audience you want to target—to use retargeting ads, you'll choose "Re-targeting" from the list of audience options.
This action will prompt a new page to open, allowing you to configure and test your pixel.
In Step 1: Name your audience something that will be familiar to you and your team so you know what it is. If you're just planning to use one re-targeting pixel, something like "Reese Davis- Retargeting Audience- website" should be fine; but if you want to use multiple re-targeting pixels over several ad campaigns, you may need to be more specific.
In Step 2: Click "Generate" to create your pixel—a line of code will appear in the line in Step 3.
Step 3: Use the "Copy" button to the right to copy the code to your clipboard. Do not close this window, because we will return to it in
Step 4: Once the pixel is copied to your pixel, you will need to place it in the header code of the page you want to retarget on your website:
Use a different site platform? Try Googling the name of your platform + "Edit Header Code" to find information about how to add your pixel.
Don't forget to come back to Step 4: Once you've placed your pixel, go back to the open ads platform and verify your pixel is working. Just paste the URL of the web page where you placed your pixel into the blank and click "Verify." You will get a notification that the verification process has begun, and an email confirming whether your pixel is working within 24 hours.
Lastly, click "Save Audience" in the top right corner to create your audience. You can go ahead and attach it to a campaign as normal once it's saved. Within the next 24 hours, you can expect to receive an email confirming the successful setup of your pixel or, alternatively, notifying you of any errors if it was set up incorrectly.