Thought it might be interesting to start a discussion on the increasingly popular phenomenon of retargeting ads. The damn things follow me around everywhere these days!

Anyone had any success with a particular type of retargeting ad...

- behavioural retargeting
- personalised retargeting
- search retargeting

...over another?

Any retargeting ad firms people recommened?

Is retargeting here to stay or will it likely be outlawed in the next couple of years?

Ed

>- personalised retargeting

One type that caught my eye was a "related items" skyscraper based on products previously viewed on a merchant site.  Since I had been looking for rather obscure plumbing parts the fact that someone was tracking me was obvious (and creepy) though I have to admit I was impressed with the technique.

>outlaw

I think you'll see more transparent ways required for users to be able to turn off persistent supercookies but no real changes in defaults or the results.

personalised retargeting gives massive improvement in conversions - its not my dept but I know we get something like a 300% uplift over standard (targeted site) banners.

Cookie law could of course have a big impact..... doesn't outlaw it, but it outlaws it without explicit approval, which I don't see people giving very often unless we can find clever ways to package it.

http://collusion.toolness.org/

holy crap - that is really cool - love it

This is an interesting discussion -- let me add that today, search ads are the highest performing ads on the Internet, perhaps the world. Yet, only 4% of consumer's time is spent in search engines. Search retargeting enables advertisers (including small to large size businesses and enterprises) to do is to take the power of search and apply it the remaining 96% of ad inventory (includes news and content related sites, social networks, etc.) where users spend there time. This allows advertisers to capture the search of a user and follow up with that particular consumer who has already shown interest in a product or service. In a recent automotive campaign, search retargeting outperformed a non-targeted display campaign by 150%. If you need more information on search retargeting, let me know.

Hi JSM,

How is the european cookie stuff going to impact you, do you think? I would be relieved to hear at least one intermediary has a plan in place!

There is some scary stuff going on out there.

I have been meeting with guys who are cross referencing the cookie data to an email. From there they can cross reference to mobile and your home address.

Once they have that data they cross reference into Mosaic and Cameo

http://www.experian.co.uk/business-strategies/mosaic-uk-2009.html
http://www.callcredit.co.uk/products-and-services/database-solutions/cameo-online

They now feed all the data into a pot and start predicting your future behaviour based on the behaviour they have seen people with similar profiles as you. They then will be following you round on desktop and mobile and presenting things to you sublimally....think Tom Cruise and minority report. Some of this is already live and they have over £100 million in VC funding....welcome to the future.

Doug

As a publisher consider this an absolutely awful development - makes a complete mockery of being strong in a niche, especially when the clicks used to pay well - as now CTR has gone right down and the ads are often for lower paying niches.

As a user, what I find especially frustrating is when I visit a website for research and end up with their ads following me everywhere - or even worse, I've already bought, but the ads still follow.