So retargeting will cause my ad to follow people? CREEPY!

There is a fine, fine line between being creepy and being, let’s say, involved. Marketers love the idea of retargeting. It’s personalized advertising! You are following someone around online who recently visited your website and showed an interest in your product. What could go wrong? Well, to those who don’t have an understanding of retargeting, it can be a little strange to see the clothing website you visited the other day appearing and reappearing on every website you’ve visited since then. It’s like the internet is reading your mind! You’re in luck though. There are a few strategies to keep these retargeting conversions in check:

• Modify your current strategy. This may seem obvious, but it is not unusual for a company to use multiple types of retargeting on every potential customer. When it comes to ad presence, it’s important to be available, but not overwhelming. You don’t want to scare your customers away! If you focus on the strategies that are working in a campaign, and eliminate the ones that aren’t, it is less likely that you will attack your customers with information they already know.
• Use Frequency Caps. Although customers will stop getting retargeted after 30 days (link), impression caps will allow businesses to stop retargeting customers once they’ve been exposed to an ad a certain number of times. This is mutually beneficial. It gives your customers a break and doesn’t over-expose them and it saves you money.
• Change your ads. Variety is the spice of life! Everyone knows that, especially your customers. If your potential consumers see the same ad over and over again they will train themselves to ignore it. Research studies have proved this and there is even an official name for it - "Banner Blindness". A variety of different ads will make it much more likely for customers to take notice of them, and more likely for these ads to be effective.

Retargeting may seem creepy to some, but it is actually a very effective marketing strategy. However too much of something is never good. Be sure to implement these strategies when running retargeting in your campaign.