Like site and search retargeting, email retargeting relies on cookies—but, in this case, cookies are triggered by a tracking pixel located in the signature of an email.
The tracking pixel is activated when a recipient opens that email, resulting in a cookie being place on the recipient’s machine, which essentially tags the person who opened the email so that he or she can be retargeted while they browsing the internet later on.
Email retargeting is extremely effective for both prospecting and retention.
It can be also used to reach company consumers beyond their emails. Imagine, for example, sending out a holiday product promotional email. Anyone who opens the email can be retargeted, which allows marketers to appeal to customers browsing the net. It’s an invaluable tactic for holiday season when sales are at their peak.
Even if email alone is a very strong driver of sales ($44 ROI for every dollar invested) and a very popular channel among marketers (according to a Forbes study, 67% of marketers say that it is key for attracting and engaging prospects), there is plenty of room for improvement. Enter: email retargeting.
Email retargeting allowed you to show ads to users or subscribers who have opened your emails. It worked like traditional site retargeting. When an user opens the email, a cookie is stored in his browser. Using that cookie, the user is identified when he browses other websites or social networks and sees your ad.
However, email retargeting stopped being a viable solution once Google changed the way it display images. Because Google caches images, the retargeting pixel can’t be dropped into the users’ browser. Without that, you can’t build lists of users to show ads to.
The alternative all previous email retargeting providers adopted is CRM retargeting. With CRM retargeting, you can show ads to users based on their email address. All you need to do is upload the email address list to your retargeting provider. They do the hard work of matching the data you provide with data from other online/offline CRM to identify the user and show him your ads. Automatically, of course.
This type of retargeting is similar to Facebook custom audiences. With custom audiences, you need to upload a list of emails, phone numbers or users ids. Facebook does the matching, identifies the users and shows them your ads.
With CRM retargeting, the success rate depends on the match settings you select when you upload your data. Also, if you want to run this type of retargeting, you need to choose a company that provides this service such as Ad Roll or Perfect Audience.