Re-targeting is a core digital marketing service made to reconnect with passive visitors of your website. They will be reminded of your website and the product they had shown interest in. This is done through the use of cookies that collect information on the actions the user performed on your site. Through a re-targeting campaign you can target users that viewed or interacted with a specific page and therefore concentrate your resources on a particular group. Re-marketing on the other hand is done using email and allows you to cross-sell or upsell more products to a consumer who has already purchased from you.

Re-marketing and re-targeting is a way of reconnecting with passive visitors who have visited your website without performing an action. While they are browsing other websites, they will be reminded about your website and the product that you had shown interest in.

The connection funnel has been broken and re-marketing and re-targeting allows you to start it back and it works for mobile and desktop.

How does it work? You have surely heard of cookies. A cookie is a piece of data that collects information on what sites a user visited and the action the user performed when on those sites. Similar to your browsing history, it tracks any action users make.

A client that is implementing a re-targeting campaign can decide to target only the users that visited a specific page. For instance, they have started filling a form but didn’t finish sending their details, or if they add some products to their baskets but then proceed to leave the website, etc.

Retargeting campaigns imply that you are developing creative ideas specifically for this campaign and they should encourage the visitors to go back to your website. For instance, you can display a special offer on your website or on a product the user was interested in buying.

Although both tactics allow you to continue the conversation with a user, they are not exactly the same. Re-targeting using cookies in order to re-create your needs on other website while re-marketing is mainly done through email. It is mainly used after purchases to upsell or cross-sell. After a purchase, you often receive a personalized email with recommendations for your next purchase; this is re-marketing.