When something works in the advertising industry, agencies tend to stick to it and repeat. It’s the age-old idea of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The problem is that overuse of a great idea can be the very thing that breaks it.
This might be just the thing that is happening to online ad retargeting right now. Retargeting is the act of directing online advertisements towards consumers based on their previous online activity, most often their browsing of a product without a purchase. When advertisers over use the practice of retargeting, consumers can feel creeped out by the ads’ cyber-stalking and get annoyed by the repetition. Some industry leaders are wondering if retargeting will go the way of pop-ups.
Consumers don’t have an issue with retargeting as a tactic, it's just that many brands are executing it wrong. By employing multiple firms, brands lose control of the cap on number of displays per person. One consumer may be shown the same retargeted ad what seems to them like an endless number of times. There is also evidence of retargeted ads following consumers around for weeks after they have already purchased the item featured in the ad.
Consumers' annoyance with the bombardment of retargeting and the push from policy makers and corporations for Do Not Track legislation puts the practice of retargeting in danger. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox have both implemented default settings meant to stop cookies and advertisers from tracking users’ information. Contrary to their honorable intentions, this move may have backfired, as many advertisers have vowed to ignore the default do not track features of those browsers because it is not a consumer choice. This means that users who leave the default do not track settings on may be tracked against their will by advertisers who ignore the settings.
In addition to the roadblocks retargeting as a practice is facing, retargeting vendors are running the risk of marketers cutting back on their spending. The reason retargeting is a popular practice is because vendors can claim a large percentage of last-click attribution, but as marketers improve their abilities to track the return of top-of-the-funnel activity, the value in retargeting is likely to drop.
The issue of waste is another deterrent to brands using retargeting methods. The over-saturation and duplication of ad placements is an obvious waste of funds and time for marketers. Not only that, but by their very nature retargeted ads are often directed at consumers who have done research on the product and have often already made a buying decision. Advertising to already-decided consumers is undoubtedly a wasteful practice.
So far, the criticism coming directly from consumers has been minimal. Seeing ads for the same item pop up during all their surfing sessions is mostly just a minor annoyance. Marketers will likely continue to push dollars into retargeting programs as long as they still return profit, but it would be foolish to ignore the potential fall out from consumer criticism. Even if consumers and legislation were out of the picture, the wastefulness of retargeting may help the practice dig it’s own grave.