Last year, retargeting ads was a popular topic, making its way into marketers’ conversations and budgets. In 2015, fine-tuning this practice to match an ever-changing industry is what many marketers are aiming for, including using mobile ad retargeting capabilities and attribution management.
According to a report from retargeting firm Adroll and third-party research company Qualtrics, 71 percent of the 1,000 U.S. marketers surveyed said that 10 to 50 percent of their digital marketing budgets goes toward retargeting, up from 53 percent in 2013. And they’re pretty happy with the results: The State of the Industry report found that more than 90 percent of respondents attest that retargeting performs equal to or better than search, email and other displays.
“Today’s marketers are becoming more like analysts, using technology to understand and react to always-on consumers in real time,” the report said. “It’s only natural that they’ve begun to demand tools that support their vision for a full-funnel, multi-platform, data-driven marketing strategy.”
With multi-device consumers increasingly accessing media on mobile devices, it is only fitting that retargeting capabilities be expanded to mobile. Ad fraud has been a concerning issue in the past year, but there are still companies paving the way.
Using Twitter’s expanded audiences retargeting program, companies could already target consumers based on website visits and customer databases; a recent expansion allows for retargeting based on app activity.
As TechCrunch reported, the move makes it easier for developers and publishers to ensure “their ads aren’t shown to people who’ve already installed the app, or they could target ads specifically to those who have installed their app but never made a purchase.”
The changes come on the heels of Twitter’s acquisition of tech start-up TapCommerce last June. The young company helps mobile businesses retarget ads based on previous user activity.
The next phase in retargeting ads may be through attribution management, which allows marketers to better justify spending, prove results, and create more impactful campaigns. The Adroll white paper found that 91 percent of marketers recognize the importance of attribution and 35 percent consider it a critical component of their plans.
AOL purchased attribution modeling company Convertro for approximately $101 million, reaching into the bank to try out this trend. Convertro’s capabilities, as Ad Age reported in May, integrate into AOL’s Adlearn Open Platform by ingesting data and shifting budgets to the most effective media. The desktop-to-mobile bridging technology allows marketers to track consumers along their journey and adjust accordingly—and that’s what makes the future of attribution so appealing.
