An innovation that many advertisers appreciate and utilize very much is the famous retargeting ad. It allows for marketers to gather data and motivate consumers to actually purchase something that they’ve recently viewed online. Retargeting is used by companies like Spotify and Pandora as well, to find out exactly what it is that their listeners are interested in listening to. Many advertisers are afraid to use this method, however, for they fear how consumers will feel about being watched, in a sense. It doesn’t seem likely that consumers would feel comfortable with advertisers finding out their interests to target them in specific ways, with the slight privacy invasion.
However, on the other hand, there’s the advantage of only seeing advertisements for things that you are interested in. Surfing the web, there are far more advertisements pertaining to things that an individual has no interest in whatsoever than the opposite. With retargeting, most of the ads that particular consumer sees pertain to their interests or lifestyle. So, you can see why certain advertisers have trouble judging just how consumers will feel about retargeting ads. It seems as if they can only go one of two ways, and with a 50/50 risk of failure and consumer backlash, many chose to avoid them.
To set things straight, Bizrate has released an Online Consumer Pulse, giving advertisers an idea of just how consumers feel about these retargeting ads. According to a data chart in the report, 25% of consumers responded in the category of, “I like it because the ad reminds me of what I was looking at previously.” Only 15% were against the retargeting ads, and the highest percentage, 60%, said that they really had no opinion on them at all, and that they don’t think about the retargeting ads except for noticing them.
Giving some more back-up to those confused about reactions to retargeting advertisements, Bizrate also notes the reasons why people click on online advertisements in a chart. At the top, 38% of women and 36% of men said that they click on ads because they like what they see in them, be it a product or service. It’s common knowledge that if someone sees something they like, they will probably go for it. With the retargeting ads that many advertisers hesitate to use, people will always see what they like. How could anybody be opposed to that?
Basically, what Bizrate’s information tells us is that retargeting ads will not put you in a hole with consumers. When advertising a product, the main goal is to target those that will be absolutely interested. Retargeting will save a lot of research hours, and get marketers the results they are looking for. Bizrate released the information knowing that it would surprise some advertisers, and they intended to reassure those same advertisers that retargeting ads can be okay to use. Consumers don’t care much about the privacy of what toothpaste or shampoo they like to use, so there’s not much need to worry about it anymore.
