When running display retargeting campaigns through the Ad Experiences platform, there are several steps Terminus customers can take to ensure their tactics are serving and spending as expected. This article can be used as a guide for launching new retargeting tactics, or optimizing existing retargeting tactics.
Related articles:
- Display Retargeting with Terminus Ad Experiences: Overview
- How to Launch and Archive a Retargeting Tactic with Ad Experiences
- Retargeting Tactic Reporting & Settings
1. Ensure your Retargeting Tactics Source URLs have Wildcards that are configured correctly.
- If you would like to retarget visitors to all pages beginning with a certain path, the “*” should be added without the “/”. Example: terminus.com/blog* as opposed to terminus.com/blog/*.
- Note that we automatically wildcard anything before the root domain. Example: *apple.com
2. Check the pages you are targeting to ensure the Visitor ID (VID) Script has been added to the page.
- In order for visits and impressions to be tracked, the VID script must be added to the page you are retargeting.
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Unsure if the VID has been added to your webpage? To check, you can:
- Take your source URL(s) and plug it into your browser
- Open your browser's console (In Chrome, right click and select “Inspect”
- Select the “Network” tab
- Search for “t.gif”
- Refresh the page. If “t.gif” does not show in your network activity, that means the VID script is not installed or firing correctly on your page.
3. For best performance, we recommend retargeting pages with high traffic, or adding additional URLs to your Retargeting Tactic.
- The more pages you add to your Source URLs, the greater the chances of meeting your spend and impression goals.
4. Be wary of UTM parameters included in your Source URLs
- In order for someone to be retargeted, that person has to land in that exact URL. When using UTMs, you miss out on retargeting people who came to your website, but possibly through a different path.
- As an example, you add “example.com/blog?utm_source=Blue” as your Source URL. If someone lands on example.com/blog and doesn’t get to your page in a way that would append the UTM parameter, that person will not be retargeted. If you do include Source URLs with UTM parameters (example.com/blog?utm_source=Blue), we suggest that you also include the core page (example.com/blog) as a Source URL.
5. Double check your Source URLs for errors!
- It’s very easy to make a copy and paste error, or mistype the name of a website. We recommend always double checking the source URLs you’ve input to ensure that you avoid retargeting a broken page.
6. Select non-gated URLs for your Source URLs
- By nature, gated pages tend to receive less traffic because of completion requirements. For example, a type of goal/task first (click, form fill, etc). If your goal is to retarget gated pages, please understand that your tactics' performance will likely fall short of a tactic that targets un-gated pages.
7. Ensure your Total and Daily budgets are set accordingly.
- The number of impressions realized on your tactics often has a direct correlation to the budgets you set for them. If you consistently hit your daily budget but would like to get more impressions out of your tactic, we recommend raising your daily budget. If you hit your tactics' total budget and would like your tactic to keep running, we suggest raising your total budget.
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If your tactics are underspending toward their daily budget, there are two options to address this:
- Add additional Source URLs. This helps traffic for your retargeting tactic.
- Reallocate the daily unspent funds to a tactic with a larger audience.
For more more advice on your digital strategy and optimization needs, please reach out to your Terminus Digital Media Manager.
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