I’ve been reading a lot lately about search retargeting. We’ve already explained how plain old retargeting works, but search retargeting is a bit different. Instead of showing follow-up banner ads to people who have visited your website, you’re showing follow-up ads to people who have searched for specific terms on search engines.
To demonstrate how search retargeting works, let’s assume you own an online store that sells telescopes:
1. Your prospect performs a Google search for “telescopes.”
Of course there so many telescope retailers that most people will miss your company when they perform a search. This is to be expected.
2. The search for “telescopes” places a cookie on your prospect’s computer.
The cookie essentially “tags” the prospect so you can find them later. Don’t worry, the cookie is anonymous—it’s not tracking personal information.
3. The cookie allows you to show your telescope banner ads to the prospect as they continue surfing the web.
The prospect is obviously interested in telescopes, so your ads are actually relevant to them and more likely to be noticed.
4. Prospects click your awesome telescope banner ads and visit your store!
Once they visit your website, search retargeting has done its job—it’s up to you to close the sale. And now that they’ve visited your website, you can show them more follow-up ads using basic retargeting.
Who offers search retargeting?
Here are a few search retargeting companies you can check out:
- Magnetic—They claim to offer self-serve search retargeting, but you’ll have to contact them first to get an account set up.
- Chango—They offer tons of useful blog content, white papers, and other search retargeting resources.
- Simpli.fi—Check out their handy list of the top 7 reasons to use search retargeting. Simpli.fi also has a self-serve interface and an API…muy interesting…
Questions? Just contact us.
Dax Hamman
/ January 21, 2011Thanks Myles. Indeed, Chango does offer search retargeting.
You did pick up on what I think is the most important point – that because the ad event is triggered from the search term then it is likely to be more relevant to the prospect seeing the ad. That relevancy comes from granularity in the data, and so a successful search retargeting campaign uses ‘exact match’ for a lot of core terms, just like a SEM program.
Milan
/ May 4, 2011Great explanation, appreciate it.
One quick question?
Where does the cookie come from. From my understanding the ‘telescope’ cookie is dropped into Google’s cookie pool not the advertisers. Does that mean you buy the ‘telescope’ cookie from Google ?
Thanks
myles
/ May 5, 2011Milan: great question! Thanks for asking. We actually just learned this the other day.
When you click through any Google search result, the website you land on knows which keyword you searched on (you can see this in Google Analytics). Some websites add this keyword data when they cookie the visitor. A search retargeting network then buys access to these third-party pools of cookies, which they use to target banner ads. So this is different from “regaular” (aka “site”) retargeting. In site retargeting, the ad network itself puts a cookie on the viewer’s browser. In search retargeting, the ad network is using access to pools of cookies provided by other websites.
Cheers,
Myles Younger
Co-founder, Canned Banners
Dermot Gording
/ May 17, 2011When you click through any Google search result, the website you land on knows which keyword you searched on (you can see this in Google Analytics). Some websites add this keyword data when they cookie the visitor. A search retargeting network then buys access to these third-party pools of cookies, which they use to target banner ads. So this is different from “regaular” (aka “site”) retargeting. In site retargeting, the ad network itself puts a cookie on the viewer’s browser. In search retargeting, the ad network is using access to pools of cookies provided by other websites.
+1
James Moore
/ August 27, 2012Thanks for the mention of Simpli.fi. We are in fact experiencing rapid growth as a technology provider that can execute keyword level search retargeting campaigns. Just one point of clarification. Our services are available via fully managed campaigns or SELF SERVICE. Our platform is used by several hundred advertisers, agencies and networks via our user interface or APIs. We are a 100% transparent bided platform who never arbitraging our fees to withhold the actual media costs.
Myles Younger
/ August 28, 2012@James: thanks for the heads-up regarding self-service on the Simpli.fi platform. I think when I originally wrote the blog post, Simpli.fi either didn’t offer or didn’t publicize your self-serve offering. I’ve updated the blog post so that it stays current.
Cheers!
Myles Younger
Co-founder, Canned Banners