If you spend any amount of time on the web you’ve probably noticed images on the side bar and across the top advertising one thing or another. How does the internet know which ads to show you? A common practice, named remarketing/retargeting/display advertising, of companies is to place tracking codes, called pixels, on their site for the purpose of displaying ads to the user at a later time.
For example, I’m training for the Spartan Race this coming June. From the time I originally visited spartanrace.com I’ve been seeing ads for the Spartan Race and similar races in the form of banners on sites that have nothing to do with the race itself. This is a perfect example of remarketing. When I visited the Spartan Race site the tracking code tagged my computer and now they have the ability to show ads to my where ever I go on the web.
In the last half of 2014 Facebook introduced a similar service. Business pages now have the ability to place Facebook tracking codes on their site. When a user visits their site from any source on the web the tracking code will tag the users computer. The next time the user visits his Facebook feed he will see ads on his his news feed, or side bar.
Remarketing is a great tool for business to remind users who have expressed interest in their product/service to come back and make a purchase.
Have a great week,
Bryce Thomas
