Retargeting vs. remarketing: Two ways to reach users
Many people struggle to distinguish between retargeting and remarketing because the two are similar. Both approaches are online marketing strategies designed to engage users who have interacted with your website or products. The difference lies in how they deliver your message to those users.
Remarketing centers on nurturing known users using your own data, such as email lists and CRM systems. It applies whether you’re trying to re-engage your customers via email, social media, SMS, or push notifications, with goals such as retention, repeat purchases, upselling, and cross-selling. It’s all about engaging customers in channels that you own.
In contrast, retargeting refers explicitly to online ad placements on display networks. The primary goal is to put products in front of anonymous users that they might be interested in. This includes people who have already converted, those who have added products to a cart, or even those who have left a website without doing either. Retargeting is more about meeting users where they operate online, on channels you don’t fully control.
With the initial definitions, let’s take a look at some specific differences and similarities.
Key differences: retargeting vs. remarketing
Different channels of communication and data
One major difference is in the channels of communication. Retargeting typically uses online ad placements on third-party sites, whereas remarketing typically uses direct communication channels like emails or push notifications.
Remarketing helps you re-engage users who have previously converted via a sign-up, app download, or purchase. Retargeting lets you reach users who have engaged with your site but have not yet provided any information you could use to contact them directly.
While retargeting and remarketing use data for personalization, they use different data types. Remarketing tends to rely on explicit data, such as email addresses or usernames, collected through a company’s marketing efforts or provided directly by customers, for example, when they create an account after placing an order.
What a retargeting company delivers instead relies on data gathered via tags on a client's website, stored cookies, or other anonymized sources, which are then used to display ads to users or user groups on the web. While universal third-party cookie deprecation didn’t come to pass, there remains an appetite among users for a more privacy-focused online environment. Consent requirements, signal loss, and a user push for privacy mean that for many brands, diversifying their technology stack to be less reliant on third-party data remains a priority.
Personalization: Which wins?
Both remarketing and retargeting campaigns can be personalized and can even use the same data types. For example, you might send an email campaign to registered users with a new product offer based on their previous purchases (interests), while using the same data to create personalized ads to connect with existing customers as they browse the web.
The main difference is that retargeting can also be used to connect with users for whom you don’t have very much data. For example, connecting with visitors who didn’t leave any contact details is possible using personalized ads, building connections as they browse.
Risks and considerations for retargeting vs. remarketing
As far as risks and considerations are concerned, remarketing and retargeting have two main things in common. The first is a potential fallout from adopting a high cadence of messaging—that of user fatigue.
With remarketing, if you blast email or SMS too frequently, there’s a risk your contacts will simply unsubscribe or press the “Report Spam” button. With retargeting, there’s a delicate balance to strike with your frequency capping. You want your brand and products to be top of mind for users, but you don't want to overexpose them to the point of ad fatigue.
The other commonality is strict legal compliance. As remarketing relies solely on first-party data, there’s a strict legal obligation to comply with privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA. Because retargeting leverages tracking pixels, cookies, and device identifiers to transmit behavioral data to third-party ad networks, it is subject to intense regulatory scrutiny.
The differences are more numerous. For example, there is a perception that measuring the true incremental value gained through retargeting is more difficult and complex than with remarketing and that the results are tough to parse. Measuring retargeting value, does not need to be difficult, however. It all depends on the measurement method and the transparency between the parties involved.
Concerns and risks: retargeting vs. remarketing
When executing these strategies, you will inevitably encounter a major industry-naming contradiction.
Internally, marketers separate retargeting (paid web ads) from remarketing (owned direct messaging). However, Google Ads uses "Remarketing" as an umbrella term to describe its entire suite of behavioral re-engagement tools.
Where RTB House fits
RTB House has experience leading retargeting campaigns, either as the sole retargeting provider or as part of a multi-retargeting strategy. There are clear benefits to engaging multiple retargeting providers, even if you have your own in-house team. This is because you can take advantage of technological differences that enable broader reach and intensify competitive pressure among providers. When done correctly, this approach can double your campaign’s effectiveness.
People might assume that remarketing, because it engages known contacts, is more personalized than retargeting. But in reality, retargeting enables deeper levels of personalization than many remarketing campaigns, especially when underpinned by Deep Learning-powered solutions offered by RTB House. This approach helps us identify which content is most likely to engage an individual user.
We have already used this to help our clients achieve and outperform their KPIs. For example, we helped Ray-Ban achieve 11% year-on-year ROAS growth in their retargeting campaigns.
Our work is not limited to the open internet. Our team has also successfully supported our clients in an in-app environment in their re-engagement efforts. Take our work with Huuuge, a leading gaming company, where we helped them boost ROAS by three to four times and increase average revenue per player by 2.6x over the course of the campaign.
To learn more about how RTB House can deliver compelling results for your brand, fill our contact form, and our team will reach out directly.
Conclusion: When should you use retargeting, and when remarketing?
Choose remarketing if your primary goals are nurturing relationships, boosting repeat purchases and loyalty, and increasing customer lifetime value. Target known contacts that you have gained through your own channels, such as SMS, email, and push notifications, using first-party data.
Consider retargeting if your main goals are to win abandoned carts, get potential customers back to your website, and lower customer acquisition cost (CAC). Target anonymous website visitors by way of third-party cookies, through paid ads, social media ads, and search ads.
Of course, many brands combine remarketing and retargeting into a messaging sequence that covers more of the funnel. After an anonymous visitor sees a retargeting ad, they convert by providing their email address during the transaction, and later receive remarketing emails that encourage a repeat purchase. It all depends on your brand's strategic goals.
