Those ads for new shoes or a new car or for your favorite store may be following you. They’re known as retargeting ads and you may be seeing a lot more of them on your computer and now your smartphone.
The company behind a lot of those ads, AdRoll, recently announced $70 million more in funding led by its primary shareholder, Foundation Capital. Fortune magazine reports that the company plans to use that funding to expand its mostly computer and laptop-based Web browsing service to mobile devices.
Retargeting ads work by literally following consumers around the Web, wherever they browse. If a consumer searches for new sneakers on a site like Zappos but doesn’t make a purchase, there’s a good chance they’ll see a Zappos ad somewhere else on the Web very soon. Here’s a video from from AdRolls to show how the service works:
You can see how this might work when promoting your website or online store, too. It would be great if your visitors received little reminders to return and visit you again…and maybe make a purchase. If AdRoll has its way, they may soon be getting those little reminders on their smartphones and tablets, too.
TechCrunch says that AdRoll currently has 15,000 customers. Many of those customers are demanding that they reach Web users no matter where they go.
AdRoll is already working on mobile integration of its product. The company says that it has deals with Twitter and Facebook. In these arrangements, AdRoll can follow consumers from their laptops to their smartphones or tablets. The company will be able to show your ads to them in all those places. That includes on social media mobile apps, too.
In addition to bridging its ad service between home or office and mobile environments, AdRoll also plans to use some of the $70 million on acquisitions of other companies.
Though this may seem a pretty narrow niche, AdRoll is seeing some competition from another company, Dispop. which also provides a one-stop-shop for banner ads. We recently spoke with Dispop regarding the perceived ease of use of its product. Small businesses can quickly create banner ad campaigns through Dispop. These can be targeted or retargeted ad campaigns.
Image: Adroll
Retargeting is getting more and more of the digital marketing budget, and digital marketing budgets have been growing like crazy. Another interesting note is that Facebook now allows people to do retargeting directly through Facebook whereas you used to be required to use 3rd party platforms like AdRoll.
This is great for advertisers as it offers retargeted ads on more platforms. However, for me, as a consumer, I find it a tad claustrophobic. I wouldn’t want to be followed from a laptop to a smartphone/tablet with ads.
Aira Bongco
That’s quite cool as you are marketing to a really hot lead. This means that there is an even greater chance of getting them to purchase. I just hope the ads are not too intruding especially on mobile phones and tablets.
attitudez
Concept looks good but I see one drawback. Though I may be interested in the product but I don’t want to buy it but still the ad will keep following me in the all the websites I visit. A week back I visited a software product website just to check what kind of product is that and from that day I see its ad and it keeps following me on every website I visit, now after reading this article I got to know that it’s a retargeting ad.