By Aleksandra Drozda, Head of Sales Development and Efficiency, RTB House
After a shaky 2023, the global ad market rebounded in 2024, reaching $1 trillion, and that figure will reach $1.24 trillion by 2026. This is, of course, great news for media owners, and reflects a confidence among advertisers that bodes well for economic growth.
The growing competition for attention
But as spend continues to boom, competition for audiences among brands will only become fiercer. That means an even greater need for advertisers to adopt effective strategies across all their channels – not least in how they approach performance solutions, including retargeting.
It is understandable that some people – including marketers – still feel hesitant about retargeting due to its past associations with overly frequent ad exposure. The figures speak for themselves though, as RTB House research found that retargeting ads, which seek out users who have previously engaged with the brand, enjoy a clickthrough rate ten times higher than that of other display ads. Retargeted ads also increase branded searches by more than ten times, and data shows they are three times as likely to view retargeted ads positively than negatively.
To get the best results, though, it is vital for brands to do something that may not be completely intuitive: work with multiple retargeting partners. That’s because while major retargeting providers have access to similar inventory, they use a wide range of technological approaches, using and prioritising the many data markers available in different ways. Thanks to this, there are benefits from experiencing the unique advantages of using different solutions simultaneously.
Best practices for multi-retargeting strategies
There is a popular notion that using a single retargeting provider will deliver better results by avoiding the phenomenon of overbidding, where a brand’s providers bid against each other and drive the price of impressions up. This was a bigger concern when second-price auctions predominated, which often resulted in retargeters bidding more than they wanted to, in the hope they would win, but pay less. This effective gambling on price has disappeared since the shift towards a first-price auction model by major players such as Google.
A well-planned multi-provider retargeting campaign can offer significant benefits for brands, including improved reach, higher conversions, and increases in overall revenue. Leveraging multiple providers allows advertisers to tap into diverse technological approaches and data utilisation strategies so that no potential audiences are overlooked.
Ensuring success
Of course, brands may face risks when changing their media investment approach without the right guardrails. For advertisers bringing on a second or subsequent retargeting partner, it is essential they create equal operating conditions for each partner to ensure a fair comparison of their performance. A last-click attribution model is vital for ensuring the advertiser does not pay for the same conversion multiple times, maintaining consistency across all partners.
The best retargeting algorithms often use Deep Learning, which can generate insights that lead to much stronger campaign performance. As with all forms of digital advertising, marketers should work with their partners to continuously test and adapt their strategies. By taking these points into account, they can ensure retargeting delivers the maximum possible impact for their brand.
*RTB House is a client of Bluestripe Communications, owned by Bluestripe Group, publisher of NDA
