If you’re about to get started or have a campaign already running, consider these retargeting optimization tips for getting the most out of your retargeting campaigns.

1 – Network Optimization – Google Content Network is indeed a good place to start thinking about advertising, but to take it to the next level you need more reach. There are 5 major content networks that are all larger and you need to be able to optimize your campaigns across all of them as they can perform very differently for various campaigns.

2 – Product Specific Ads – Since you have a tracking pixel on your site, you know which URLs your visitors have gone to. If you run a travel site, you might know that they’ve searched for a trip to Mexico. So, serve up segmented ads for promotions on trips to Mexico rather than just generic ads for your business.

3 – Frequency Cap – This is an important tool that many don’t think about. It’s easy to setup and should be used and tested at various levels to see how often impressions should be served to each prospect. For some businesses, the frequency cap should be set very long, eg, only serve an ad once every few days. For more impulse type buys, perhaps it makes sense to have a shorter frequency cap, eg, show an ad 6 times per day.

4 – Retargeted Landing Pages – Marketers nowadays can rapidly create new landing pages. These are fairly simple to launch and you shouldn’t just use your same old landing pages for retargeting campaigns. You know more about the user now, so give them a more custom experience and have some fun. Deliver messages on the page like “Couldn’t stay away?” or “Glad to have you back”.

5 – Filter out Conversions – It’s typically best to stop advertising to visitors once they’ve converted to customers, but as always, it depends on your campaign objectives and your business.  Add a conversion URL to filter out converted visitors and take them off your prospect list.

6 – Cookie Length – On some ad networks, you can set the length of time that you’d like to advertise to potential prospects. For example, you might know that you have a 60 day buying cycle. Make sure you set the cookie length to be the maximum 90 days so you can take advantage of that. Have a shorter cycle and know that people don’t buy after 15 days? Save your money and curtail your advertising after 15 days.

7 – High Quality Flash Ads – Invest some time and energy into creating high quality Flash ads for your campaigns. If you’re like most SMB advertisers, you’ve probably never invested much in creative development because the ROI has never been there. Well now it is and it’s time to invest. If you don’t have a good Flash designer, here are some good Flash templates that you can customize (and they are still currently free). And in case you were wondering, Flash ads do perform significantly better than plain image ads.

8 – Pixel Placement – Frequently, you have a lot of website visitors that might not really be interested in buying. It’s often easy to focus in on your target prospect list by honing in on pages that are visited by promising prospects. For example, if you have a signup funnel you could place the pixel just within that funnel rather than site-wide. This dramatically limits your potential reach but can increase your ROI.

9 – Time of Day Targeting – Did you know you can target the time of day your impressions get served? Do your customers typically buy on their lunch break? Or are they buying games at night? If it makes a difference for your business, set an appropriate time of day target.

10 – Negative Filters – Consider your entire visitor base and what might indicate that a visitor is not a likely candidate to buy. Don’t ship your product to the UK? Then filter out traffic from there. It might not save you much, but this is the last tip after all.

We encourage advertisers to contact us to discuss your specific situation and how you might be able to optimize your retargeting. A consultation is free. Give us a shout at info [at] urekamedia.com.