Remarketing: Is Remarketing the New Marketing?

Imagine that you enter a webpage and see an ad on the right sidebar for something you want. It could be anything you’re interested in, from a niche anime DVD to a popular sports car. The point is that you want it and your browser knows you want it. It seems odd though. You’re on a car dealership website but the sidebar ad is for the anime DVD. This goes beyond a simple Internet cookie that gives you suggestions while you browse a site or return to the same site at a later time.

“Remarketing” is such a simple word for the relatively complex process that allows this to happen. This process involves installing a 35- to 40-day lasting cookie that recognizes the user. Sites then give this cookie to advertisers such as Google. The ad can then follow the user even when he/she is doing something unrelated and has left the original site. Users can activate this process in many ways, whether it is a YouTube video they watched that related to a topic or in an article where they read about a product or service (it becomes more simple if the user found the content via a Google search).

People with privacy concerns have the same choice they do with more basic forms of cookies. They can accept the targeted ads as helpful or change their browser settings so Remarketing does not occur. Ultimately, it depends on how users define privacy and how important it is to them. The success Remarketing has had also raises questions for the future of online advertising. Should advertisers still bother with banner ads and other forms of relatively untargeted advertising? Should Remarketing and other forms of targeted advertising take over completely?

The best approach is to use a combination of targeted and untargeted advertising. Remarketing is great for closing sales. However, it doesn’t introduce anything groundbreaking to the consumer since it plays off of previously established interests. This can be limiting since a key part of advertising is introducing new areas of products to consumers and seeing if they engage. If they engage these new products, advertisers can subsequently broaden their use of Remarketing to include targeted ads for both previous and new interests.