Creating brand buzz through retargeting

Brand buzz opportunities are often viewed in a broader sense as accessing large groups that would influence each other in making a brand popular. This is normally through word-of-mouth, commonly known as WOM. It is, however, also possible to do so through retargeting solutions to create a buzz that is targeted at an individual who would have shown interest in a product or service.

What is retargeting?

Retargeting is when the behaviour of a visitor to your site is anonymously observed. After the consumer leaves your site, specific adverts can be displayed as he visits other sites within a set of publishers. Unknown to him, he is the only one receiving these adverts.

Here's an example: John is directed to a telephone company site. He goes out for lunch, comes back and he goes on to chat with his friend on Yahoo Messenger. As he chats, he sees an ad from the telephone company. Later, he goes to a news site to read the news and, again, there is an ad for the telephone company. He sees ads for the telephone website as he visits his regular Formula 1 blog and as he visits his favourite social forum. He is the only person seeing these ads as he visits these web sites.

Ad networks with retargeting capabilities make retargeting a ‘deadly' solution as they enable you to target visitors to your site across hundreds of sites.

The buzz effect

1. The message about the brand is reinforced across hundreds of sites, creating a credibility channel for the brand.
   
2. John is likely to warm up to your brand or even to buy as your brand will appear to be more familiar than competition.
   
3. John gets the impression you have massive budgets to afford advertising across a set or hundreds of websites, creating an image of a large brand.
   
4. You create a buzz of your brand to John as an individual.
   
5. Now the real issue lies in the ability to scale. If you can do this to every visitor to your site, you can create a cumulative buzz that is likely to result in engagement and a long-term relationship.
   

Pre-requisites for success

1. Good traffic to marketer's website.
   
2. Well-defined segment and a retargeting strategy and plan
   
3. A large publisher network with massive reach to retarget previously identified prospects in large numbers.
   

Retargeting creates a unique form of buzz that can make brands more popular in a safe and smart way.