What Retargeting Actually Is, and Whether Your Business Needs It

Most people have had this experience. You look at a pair of boots online, close the tab without buying, and then see those boots in your Facebook feed, on a news site, and next to a recipe you pull up three days later.

That’s retargeting. It’s a common type of digital advertising, but it’s not always well explained. Because of this, many local business owners think it’s just for big national brands, or they’ve bought it without really understanding what it is.

How it actually works

How it works is actually simpler than it sounds.

You add a small piece of code to your website. Meta calls it a pixel, and Google calls it a tag. When someone visits your site, this code tracks the visit and adds that person to an audience list. You don’t know their name or who they are. You just get an anonymous list of people who have visited your site.

After that, you can show ads just to this list, on Facebook, Instagram, Google’s display network, or YouTube. Your ads can be general, or you can match them to the page someone visited. For example, if someone looked at your roof replacement page, they’ll see a roof replacement ad instead of one about gutter cleaning.

There’s another way to do this. Instead of tracking website visitors, you can upload a list of your customers’ email addresses. The platforms match these to user accounts and show ads to those people. This is helpful for sending reminders, encouraging repeat orders, or promoting seasonal services.

Why it tends to work

Retargeting focuses on people who have already shown some interest. They found your business and checked it out through a search, a print ad, a friend’s suggestion, or even an AI tool like ChatGPT or Perplexity. They just haven’t taken action yet.

That’s normal for many purchases. Most people don’t replace a heating system, book a wedding venue, or choose a new dentist all at once. They look around, compare options, get busy, and might come back later if they remember. Retargeting helps keep your business in their minds during that time.

Retargeting also works well with print ads. For example, a magazine ad might get someone to check out your website. Then, retargeting follows up with them online over the next few weeks, even while the magazine is still on their coffee table. You don’t have to rely on just one channel to do all the work.

Where it falls short

Retargeting does have its limits, and these are often more important for local businesses than for national brands.

You need enough website traffic for retargeting to work. Ad platforms require a minimum audience size, usually at least a few hundred recent visitors, before they’ll show ads to your retargeting list. If your site only gets a few dozen visits a month, it might not qualify, or the list may be too small to make a difference.

Retargeting can’t create interest on its own. If people aren’t finding your website to begin with, there’s nothing for retargeting to follow up on. You need to get that first visit from somewhere else.

Whether your business needs it

You can figure out if retargeting is right for your business by asking three quick questions.

Do your customers usually take more than a day to decide? If most people just walk in and buy, retargeting may not be useful. But if they research, compare, and return later, retargeting can really help.

Does your website get enough visitors? Retargeting usually starts to work well if you have a few hundred visits each month. If you get less than that, it’s often better to spend your budget on getting more people to find you first.

Is there a clear next step on your website? Retargeting brings people back, but if your site doesn’t make it easy to call, book, or request a quote, their second visit will end just like the first.

If you answered yes to all three questions, retargeting is probably worth trying. And you don’t need a big budget to get started. If you answered no to any of them, focus on fixing that area first.

Before you spend any money on retargeting, make sure your website is getting enough of the right visitors to make it worthwhile.