It’s reported that mobile sales account for 16.6% of all online sales (link), and that 17% of them come from in-app purchases (link).
Mobile retargeting is all about following your visitors across various online sites they go to, and the various things they do on those sites. Having this user path at your disposal, you can display targeted advertising when the time is right, and cash in on your user’s behavior.
To some extent, this is exactly how it works on mobile. But there are some challenges.
The main problem with tracking anything on mobile is that there’s no easy way to follow someone across various apps they interact with.
If your visitor checks out your site, and then goes to a different site through the same mobile browser then identifying this is simple…
But if a visitor checks out your site, and then fires up a totally different app, it will be very difficult for you to pinpoint that specific person (and that’s even if that app offers any form of advertising).
There are some companies that try to tackle this – like ActionX – but the technology isn’t 100% fail-proof yet.
Basically, the company gathers behavioral data, creates a profile with it, and then segments those profiles. For example, it can give you access to everyone who’s left $200 in their shopping cart. You can use such profiles to deliver your ads based on specific behaviors.
Best of all, the ads can be displayed across different apps and even different devices that the person uses. “Being followed” like that may seem creepy, but it does work in the long run.
It’s been proven that showing relevant products through retargeting boosts CTRs for whoever is participating in the practice.
When we think about it, that’s the whole idea of retargeting…to deliver the right ad at the right time. Context is everything for advertising online. Years ago, we had AdWords and their search ads to be the grand slam of context. These days, it’s retargeting.