Have you been noticing online ads a lot more lately? If so, it’s possible that you’ve been the target of a retargeting campaign. Retargeting (a.k.a. remarketing) is a way for online businesses to simply remind potential customers where they’ve been. The goal is not just for brand reinforcement but also for browsers to ultimately become buyers.

For example, I was searching one day on Macys.com for a swimming suit. I clicked on a few styles to view them in detail, but I decided I wasn’t ready to buy anything quite yet. The next day, I was reading an article on a news website, and guess what popped up in the right-hand column of that very webpage? It was a Macy’s ad that featured the exact swimming suits I had viewed the day before!

What just happened here?!

When you visit a certain website that uses retargeting, a “cookie” will capture your IP address and track where you go on the site. In the example above, Macy’s served me a highly-targeted ad that related to the pages I had visited. Those ads can appear on any other website that hosts online ads.

Retargeting can be a very cunning way to reach a potential customer who has — at one time or another — expressed interest in your business. With any online marketing campaign, it takes testing and analysis to discover what works best.

For more information, watch this video from Google: