Display and search are the most popular retargeting channels, with their popularity linked to Google’s AdWords offering through GDN and RLSA, according to [download page] results from a Marin Software survey of 233 enterprise marketers. Among the 88% of respondents using retargeting, roughly 8 in 10 are retargeting on display (81%) and search (77%), and about 9 in 10 retarget on Google. Social also emerges as a popular channel, with Marin benchmark data suggesting that those retargeting on Facebook and display enjoy better performance than those using only one of those channels.
Marin posits a “multiplier effect” from holistic campaigns across channels, but also finds that most of the time cross-channel retargeting strategies aren’t well aligned. Specifically, among the respondents who said they retarget across multiple channels, a majority said they have different goals for each channel.
Another challenge related to cross-channel marketing is attribution: indeed, respondents cited difficulties with attributing performance as their top challenge with retargeting (43%). That was followed by getting sufficient list volume (31%), results not meeting expectations (25%) and lack of transparency (25%).
Drilling further into that last challenge, the study reveals that marketers’ top concerns with the lack of transparency are:
- Not being sure if ads are viewed (viewability; 38%);
- Click fraud and suspicious traffic (37%); and
- Black box campaign optimization (34%).
Separately, roughly half of marketers reported that retargeting occupies 0-10% of their monthly budgets, and a similar proportion said they lack a dedicated budget for retargeting. Even so, a solid majority expect to increase their social retargeting (67.1%), search retargeting (64.3%) and mobile retargeting (62%) budgets in the next year, with display (58.4%) and video (56.2%) also set for increases.
Other Findings:
- Based on a subset of Marin Software users, the study determines that Google RLSA campaigns are seeing far better search CTRs than non-RLSA campaigns, in the order of 2-3 times higher. The performance gap between the two widened as the second quarter progressed.
- Also of note, search costs-per-click (CPCs) were lower for RLSA campaigns than non-RLSA campaigns, with that gap also widening during the quarter.
- Of the 12% of marketers not retargeting, 56% have plans to do so in the future.
About the Data: The search retargeting data was compiled by taking a set of Marin Software users and comparing RLSA campaign performance versus non-RLSA performance within that set. Social and Display retargeting benchmark data was compiled by taking a set of high-spend Perfect Audience customers simultaneously performing Facebook-only retargeting, Display-only retargeting, and combined Facebook and Display retargeting.
