Google Algorithm Change History

Each year, Google changes its search algorithm around 500–600 times. While most of these changes are minor, Google occasionally rolls out a "major" algorithmic update (such as Google Panda and Google Penguin) that affects search results in significant ways.

For search marketers, knowing the dates of these Google updates can help explain changes in rankings and organic website traffic and ultimately improve search engine optimization. Below, we’ve listed the major algorithmic changes that have had the biggest impact on search.

2018 Updates

"Medic" Core Update  —  August 1, 2018

Google confirmed a "broad core algorithm update," with wide reports of massive impact. It rolled out over the period of about a week, but peaked on August 1-2. This update seemed to disproportionately affect sites in the health and wellness vertical, although large-scale impact was seen in all verticals.

• Google's August 1st Core Update: Week 1 (Moz)
• Google Medic Update: Google's Core Search Update Had Big Impact On Health/Medical Sites (SER)
• The August 1, 2018 Google Update strongly affected YMYL sites (MarieHaynes.com)

Chrome Security Warnings (Full Site)  —  July 24, 2018

After warning users of unsecured (non-HTTPS) forms months earlier, Chrome 68 began marking all non-HTTPS sites as "not secure." The changes rolled out on July 24, but rely on users installing the latest Chrome version, which can take weeks or months.

• A milestone for Chrome security: marking HTTP as “not secure” (Google)
• Chrome starts telling users HTTP sites are not secure (SEL)

Unnamed Update —  July 21, 2018

Algorithm trackers and webmaster chatter signaled heavy rankings flux, but Google did not confirm. MozCast recorded its highest temperature in 2018 at 114°F.

• Google Search Algorithm Update Saturday July 21st? (SER)

Mobile Speed Update  —  July 9, 2018

Six months after announcing it, Google rolled out the mobile page speed update, making page speed a ranking factor for mobile results. Google claimed that this only affected the slowest mobile sites, and there was no evidence of major mobile rankings shifts.

• Using page speed in mobile search ranking (Google)
• It's Live: Google Speed Update Now Rolling Out (SER)

Video Carousels  —  June 14, 2018

Google moved videos from organic-like results with thumbnails into a dedicated video carousel, causing a shake-up in results that were previously tracked as organic. At the same time, the number of SERPs with videos increased significantly (+60% in MozCast).

• Google Is Replacing Video Thumbnails with A Desktop Carousel (RankRanger)
• Trapped In Google’s New Video Carousels – A Dangerous SERP Feature For Some Ecommerce Retailers (GSQi)

Unnamed Update  May 23, 2018

Algorithm tracking tools and webmaster chatter showed heavy activity, but Google did not confirm an update. MozCast showed very high temperatures over a 3-day period, peaking on May 23.

• Is Another Google Update Happening In May? (SER)

Snippet Length Drop   May 13, 2018

After testing longer display snippets of up to 300+ characters for a few months, Google rolled back most snippets to the former limit (about 150-160 characters).

• Google confirms it shortened search results snippets after expanding them last December (SEL)
• How to Write Meta Descriptions in a Constantly Changing World (Moz)

Unnamed Core Update  April 17, 2018

MozCast picked up heavy algorithm flux that peaked on April 17 and continued for over a week. Google later confirmed a "core" update, but didn't provide any specifics and the update wasn't named by Google or the SEO community.

• Google confirms rolling out a broad core search algorithm update earlier this week (SEL)
• Google Ranking Algorithm Update Continues On For Over A Week (SER)

Mobile-First Index Roll-out  —  March 26, 2018

Google announced that the mobile-first index was finally "rolling out." Since the index has been in testing for many months, and Google has suggested they are migrating sites gradually, it's unclear how much impact this specific roll-out had on the overall index. Webmaster should begin to see notifications within Google Search Console.

• Rolling out mobile-first indexing (Google)
• Google begins rolling out mobile-first indexing to more sites (SEL)

Zero-result SERP Test  —  March 14, 2018

On a small set of Knowledge Cards, including some time/date queries and unit conversion calculators, Google started displaying zero organic results and a "Show all results" button. A week later, Google stopped this test, but we believe it is an important sign of things to come.

• Zero-Result SERPs: Welcome to the Future We Should've Known Was Coming (Moz)
• In-Depth Look at Google’s New Zero Result Search Results (SEM Post)

"Brackets" Core Update  —  March 8, 2018

Google confirmed a "core" update on March 7th, but volatility spiked as early as March 4th, with a second spike on March 8th, and continued for almost two weeks. This may have been multiple updates or one prolonged, rolling update. The "Brackets" name was coined by Glenn Gabe; no details were provided by Google.

• The Brackets Update – Analysis and Findings From The March 7, 2018 Google Algorithm Update (GSQi)
• Google Confirmed Weekend Algorithm Ranking Shift As "Core Update" (SER)

Unnamed Update —  February 20, 2018

Rankings showed a spike in volatility (across a number of tools) around February 20th, which quickly settled down, sometimes signalling a targeted algorithm update. Google did not confirm any update in this time period.

• Google Algorithm Update Chatter & Signals February 20th (SER)

Resource:- Google Update

5 Essential SEO Techniques To Master In 2015.

SEO has truly come into its own as a marketing channel, but columnist Jim Yu argues that that doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels.

Each year, SEO evolves to become a more sophisticated discipline. As marketers refine their skills sets, as search engines improve their search products, and as brands across industries continue to see the impact that organic search can have on their growth, search engine optimization has come from humble beginnings to become a recognized strategic field of marketing.

Organic Search Past & Present

Industries across the board benefitted from SEO in 2014, and there is no sign of this slowing down in 2015. According to this study by the National Retail Federation, search marketing — including SEO — was the most effective source for acquiring new customers in 2014 for 85 percent of online retailers.

Other data points last year showed that organic search was a key starting point for brands to put their products and services in front of the target customer. According to this data from Kenshoo, search is the starting point for the majority of people looking to book travel (58 percent of leisure travelers and 64 percent of business travelers).

In a study conducted by BrightEdge (my employer), we discovered organic search was the largest driver of traffic and revenue for almost every industry analyzed. For B2B marketers, organic search drives over 51% of traffic.

So, what can SEO practitioners do to keep the momentum going in the new year? Following are five areas in SEO that should be on every marketer’s list to master in 2015.

1. Map Strategy To Audience & Competitive Insights

Over the years, SEOs have become really good at understanding keyword intent and segmenting the marketing strategy to match intent.

With the loss of keyword data in Google Analytics, and the general progression of SEO as a discipline, we are starting to merge more traditional marketing concepts into SEO to create a new way of segmenting audiences.

Now, we must merge quantitative data around the topics that are driving search demand and pair that with market insights about who our personas are, and what types of information is useful to them on their buying journey.

In addition, we need to gain an understanding of what the competition is doing for those topics driving demand, because as we know, search is a zero sum game.

That means finding data points that can help us:

• Identify new ways to tackle adjacent markets
• Discover new keywords to target
• Understand what types of content perform
• See where the competition is doing well, and where you can do better

Progressive SEO means technical, analytical and traditional marketing all rolled into one.

2. Align Your Content & SEO Teams

Your SEO efforts are really only as good as the experience you’re creating for your target persona. That’s why great SEO needs to work in tandem with great content. If you’ve taken the time to explore Step 1 in this article, you have a good foundation for content and SEO alignment that’s focused on the user.

Data coming from the Content Marketing Institute in 2014 show that B2Bs and B2Cs are embracing content in the form of blog posts and web content as a key facet of their content marketing.

Many of us believe that that the best approach is to start with strategic content and apply SEO best practices to help maximize its value and visibility online. Google algorithms like Panda tell us that user experience and quality are what we should all be striving for.

And while recommendations on making creative content and technical SEO come together sound great in theory, many brands are still struggling with which department or team does what and in what order.

I talked about this in a 2014 article on content and SEO, where I touched on one solution to ensure that the creative and technical teams are working in tandem: Establish a clear workflow from content creation to optimization.

I’ll mention again one important takeaway from that discussion for brands that are trying to define how technical and creative teams can work together: Uncover all the roles and skill sets on the digital marketing team, and discover where overlap and cross-training opportunities exist for creative folks to learn SEO, and SEO folks to learn creative.

For more insights on creating value through your content in 2015, I would recommend reading this recent article over on Marketing Land.

3. Make Mobile SEO A Priority

We’ve been hearing about it for years: Websites and brands should have a mobile marketing strategy. In 2015, it’s safe to say that the year of mobile is well upon us.

In fact, mobile has surpassed desktop in digital media time spent by device, according to comScore:

May [2014] turned out to be a banner month for mobile as it delivered on some huge milestones which underscored just how impressive the medium’s ascendance has been in the past few years. Mobile platforms – smartphones and tablets – combined to account for 60% of total digital media time spent, up from 50% a year ago.

When it comes to search engine optimization, creating a mobile site should be at the core of any solid SEO plan in 2015. But be careful in your configuration — research from BrightEdge last year found that mobile configuration errors resulted in a 68 percent loss in smartphone traffic on average.

And even though Google recommends a responsive design, you may find that a hybrid approach suits you best for your marketing needs.

And remember that whichever route you choose, Google wants sites to render above-the-fold content in under one second. Slow sites could negatively impact mobile rankings.

4. Find Measurement & Reporting That Works

While the research studies we read on the impact of organic search are important for gauging how we’re doing as an industry, we still struggle as brands and marketers to measure results, quantify our efforts, and continue to prove our position for SEO budgets.

Even back in 2013, we were talking about the need for marketers with analytics skills. And in fact, according to the CMOSurvey.org, 44 percent of survey respondents said they lacked the metrics to demonstrate the impact of marketing in 2014.

This sentiment was echoed in an Adobe survey in 2014 that showed 49 percent of marketers used intuition, not data, when thinking about where to invest marketing spend.

Reporting does not have to become increasingly complex. In 2015, SEOs should focus on simplifying their data sources and work to uncover the right information via structured data sources.

That means identifying the KPIs that truly matter to prove marketing efforts (those that impact the business), and obtaining the technology that can pull multiple data sources into one platform to provide real insights in performance.

5. Integrate SEO Data Across Teams

Don’t forget that the SEO practitioner or team is working towards some of the same goals as other teams are. When these various marketing teams share their learnings and work in tandem for cross-channel marketing, the concerted effort can be much stronger than when performed alone.

Take SEO and PPC as one example of two channels that have a symbiotic relationship. SEO data can inform PPC, and vice versa. Reports from Google, Kenshoo and others show just how much organic and paid search can impact one another’s success.

In 2015, are there ways you can share your SEO data with other teams to create a concerted effort in your marketing campaigns?

Making Small Steps Toward Mastery

The old saying that “life is a journey, not a destination” can also be applied to SEO.

Search engine optimization should be a part of a website for its lifetime, continuously improving its ability to make a brand (and its content) be more visible and to create a better experience for users.

You can’t master SEO in a day, but you can resolve to make small steps in each of the areas of SEO that will make your site better and your efforts more impactful in 2015.

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Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

5 types of retargeting every marketer should know of.

Digital marketing is a fast paced field. Even if new marketing technologies tend to be slowly adopted (think marketing automation, programmatic ad buying), digital marketing concepts and tactics spread easily.

If you need proof, think how fast viewability became one of the buzzwords for 2015 advertising predictions after Google dropped the bomb that only 54% of online ad impressions are viewable.

Even if retargeting has been around for some while, the concept has changed, grown and adapted to fit many tactics. If you don’t want to appear silly, read on and get acquainted with all the available retargeting forms.

RETARGETING INCEPTION

Retargeting was first introduced by Google in March 2010. Since then, Google has grown and adapted the tools it offers marketers.

Facebook joined the party in December 2012 when they launched FBX – the platform that allows advertisers to use third party data to target users on Facebook inventory. Thus social retargeting emerged and Twitter followed in on the trend in 2014.

Ok, so why the short history lesson? That’s how site, social and search retargeting emerged. Let’s take a look at all the different types of retargeting and what they stand for.

1. SITE RETARGETING

This is the one that started it all. Site retargeting is the process of showing ads to people who have visited your site, but left without converting. This is the broadest definition of retargeting because it doesn’t take into consideration the inventory where the ads are displayed.

It simply refers to the process of using data to bring your visitor back to reduce shopping cart abandonment, increase conversions and drive brand awareness.

2. EMAIL/CRM RETARGETING

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.

3. SOCIAL/SOCIAL MEDIA RETARGETING (FACEBOOK AND TWITTER)

Social/ social media retargeting is displaying ads on social networks to, you’ve guessed it – people who visited your site without converting.

While the name encompasses both platforms (Twitter, Facebook – Linkedin, at the time of writing, does not allow retargeting), it does not imply that you’re running ads on both platforms. You could be running retargeting ads only on Facebook or only on Twitter for instance. However, it’s good to know the term – you never know when you might need it.

What’s different between site retargeting and social media retargeting? Like we mentioned earlier, site retargeting only mentions the process, it doesn’t say anything about the channel. Before the Facebook Exchange, the default channel for retargeting ads were banner ads displayed on websites. With social media retargeting, you’re specific about where you’re having your ads shown.

4. REMARKETING LISTS FOR SEARCH ADS

While the other types or retargeting are available from multiple companies, remarketing lists for search ads are available only in Google Adwords. With it, you can use your current remarketing lists and reach site visitors when they go back to Google to make a search. Instead of showing banner ads, you show your users classic search text ads.

Because there’s been less talk about it, remarketing lists for search ads is not as popular as other types of remarketing. Like with social, still, it’s good to know the term and what it actually refers to.

Remarketing lists for search ads sometimes gets confused with search retargeting because they both use “search” and “retargeting”. However, they couldn’t be more different. Remarketing lists for search ads allows you to show search engine text ads to users who have been to your site. Search retargeting allows you to show banners and Facebook ads to people who have never visited your site, but have searched for relevant keywords and phrases, more on it belo

5. SEARCH RETARGETING

Even if it contains the word “retargeting”, search retargeting is very different from the other types mentioned. While all the others are ways of getting users that you have somehow came in contact with (either they visited or subscribed to your website), search retargeting allows you to reach highly potential, entirely new customers for your business.

Search retargeting allows you to show your ads to users who have previously searched for keywords that are related to your business, but have never visited your website. For instance, if you have an online shoe store, your ad could appear to users who have searched for  “high-heeled shoes” or “Red shoes”.

Search retargeting is a great way to reach users beyond their initial search. Because it targets recent interest, it’s also highly effective. Ads can be displayed both on Facebook and the web.

Now, back to you. Are there any other types of retargeting that you know about? What else would you want to know about each type?

6 Types of Retargeting Every Marketer Should Know

When it comes to the topic of retargeting, most marketers instantly think of search retargeting, which they happen to already be running at least one campaign for. Hard to blame them, since search retargeting is, in fact, the fastest growing type of retargeting and has proven to have some of the highest returns.

But the truth of the matter is, highly effective marketers explore other types of retargeting to acquire and engage potential audience. During the “PPC Beyond Search” panel at SES San Francisco 2012, Dax Hamman broke down six different types of retargeting every marketer should know.

1. Search Retargeting

When using search retargeting, you’re essentially going after individuals on search engines who have searched using keywords or phrases relevant to your business. Keep in mind that when deciding to use this type of retargeting, you're making assumptions based on the searcher’s intent.

Just because they searched a term that is relevant to your business, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are ready to make a purchase or be bombarded by “buy now” banners. Be sure to take intent into consideration and serve your creative accordingly.

2. Site Retargeting

Think of site retargeting as one step closer contact, since the searcher has actually landed on and visited your site at this point. Once they do so, you can tag them and follow them around the internet with your messages.

The most important thing to keep in mind when deciding to use site retargeting, is to identify certain actions as “tag-worthy.”

Let’s say you sell PPC management software. Would you tag someone who visits your blog to read a post and someone else who watches a video of an online demo the same way? Would you tag the blog reader at all?

3. SEM/SEO Retargeting

SEM/SEO retargeting is closely related to site retargeting and has to do with the search terms used prior to clicking to or arriving on your site. Couple someone’s search term used to land on your site with the actions they take on it and you have given yourself a whole new level of insight into their intent. Use this to refine your creative and perfect your message to them.

4. Email Retargeting

As apparent from the name, it allows you to retarget people based on actions they have taken on your emails. Engagement levels are important to take note of in this case, since someone opening an email should not be treated as someone else who clicked a link, forwarded it, or didn’t even open it at all.

5. Contextual Retargeting

In all the sessions I’ve moderated, never have I heard an “oooooh” from the audience as when contextual retargeting was introduced. In essence, it involves exchanging pixels between sites that are highly relevant to a searcher and targeting to each others’ visitors. For example, think of an airline and local hotel site targeting each other’s audience based on destinations that were searched or booked.

6. Engagement Retargeting

Perhaps the least commonly used by the average advertiser, this type of retargeting works exceptionally well with those who offer channels of engagement like videos, rich media, Flash games, etc. Based on the type of action the user takes, advertisers can infer things like intent and level of engagement to serve highly targeted display ads.

Summary

With so many different types of retargeting, advertisers are finding more ways (and more importantly, a second chance) to reach their target audience. When used correctly and with the right creative, advertisers can expect large boosts in CTRs and conversions for their campaigns.

Apart from search, have you used any of the other forms of retargeting? Which ones have proven to be the most effective for you? Share your thoughts and comments below.

An In-Depth Comparison of Remarketing and Retargeting Services.

A customer steps into your shop, inquires about a particular product, and then leaves without buying. You know there’s a potential sale, and there’s every chance that person will be buying a similar product sooner rather than later.

How would you like to send some of your sales people to follow that visitor, reminding them of your business wherever they go? In fact, reminding them to the extent that your business/brand is the first and only name that comes to mind when they are about to make a purchase?

Sounds like an insane idea in the real world. Even if your sales staff doesn’t get beaten up for stalking, the cost alone would make it impossible to pull off.

But that’s exactly what remarketing (a/k/a retargeting) services enable you to do in the online world.

Remarketing is great for many reasons. For example:

• Reduced cost per impression
• Better conversion rates
• Improved ROI
• Precise targeting
• Cost effective branding

It’s no wonder remarketing has been taking the online world by storm.

But… It just seems so difficult, so hard to understand and set up.

Is it?

Reeeeallly?

Truth be told, setting up a killer remarketing campaign is surprisingly easy. As long as you understand the basics, there are great remarketing platforms out there ready to help you smash your ROI targets. These platforms take care of all of the technicals, like leaving a cookie to earmark visitors, monitoring their behavior, making guesses about their intent, or working with a “display network” or “Real Time Bidding exchange.” Pretty cool, really, because they leave you more time to work on strategy and branding while they handle all of the technicalities.

Let’s dive in and take a look at some of the main platforms you can use.

AdRoll

AdRoll has been providing various online advertising options to businesses for more than five years, but they are best known for their retargeting plans. And while it’s not always a testimony to the efficacy of a service, with companies like Moz, Levi’s, Red Vines, and Salesforce using the platform, you can think they must be doing something right.

• AdRoll works with advertising partners like Facebook Exchange, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, allowing you to reach 98% of sites on the Internet.
• Speaking of ROI, AdRoll retargeting customers earn $10 for every $1 spent on average. (At least that’s what they claim on their website.)
• The guys at AdRoll are really good at advance targeting techniques, likecustomer segmentation, geo targeting, and more. Using their platform, you can target or exclude site visitors based on their actions, create groups of users based on purchase intent (like adding a product to a shopping cart), and set up advanced conversion tracking rules. Check out the image below to see a quick snapshot of this in action:

Customer Segmentation – AdRoll

• AdRoll makes retargeting quite simple with features like easy-to-read analytics. And for sites with over 60k uniques per month, they also offer their Liquid Adsservice. LiquidAds enables advertisers to personalize each impression based on the product pages that an individual user visits.

The image above shows the dynamic elements of an AdRoll LiquidAd. Each element can be tailored depending on your targeting preference.

• AdRoll is an official Facebook partner and provides one of the best and easiest-to-use platforms for customer retargeting on Facebook, especially the news feed ads.

A Facebook Newsfeed ad powered by AdRoll. Yep – AdRoll can remarket to your potential customers who left your site and went to check Facebook.

• Setting up a Facebook news feed campaign is quite simple. All you need to do is choose your weekly budget, schedule, targeted locations, and max CPM bid. Then select your visitor segments. Your ads will start appearing in their news feed. The ads will start showing to anyone who has been cookied on your website, regardless of whether they liked or interacted with your Facebook fan page. The ads will start showing in the person’s news feed simply because they visited your website in the past and you have targeted them in your ad campaign. Pretty cool!

• AdRoll has good transparent pricing and solid customer support, both in terms of responsiveness and level of expertise.

AdRoll in a nutshell: Easily the frontrunner when it comes to retargeting platforms. While it is a little on the pricey side, the service and ease of their platform make it worth your marketing dollars.

Chango

Chango specializes in search retargeting (though they are offering site retargeting solutions as well). Search retargeting doesn’t require a potential customer to visit your website before your ads start appearing on their screens. Instead, customer interest and relevancy are decided by a recent search they performed on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

So, if someone performs a search for a product/service on a search engine and lands on a website that is part of Chango’s data network, Chango will earmark the user and let you advertise to that user with a customized ad promoting relevant products and services.

• Chango has a massive network of data partners. You will get access to more than 8 billion search events and search data from Google, Bing, and Yahoo, which means you also can get some great keyword ideas or suggestions.
• You will get a dedicated account manager, meaning you won’t have to waste countless hours trying to set up, optimize, or manage your campaigns.
• You can target customers from some of the best markets like US, UK, and Canada.
• Chango has certain indicators and scores allowing you to assess each visitor according to what they do before, during, and after visiting your website. They call it “intentscore,” so you can target the visitors who seem to have the “intent” of buying a particular product.
• If you’ve got a product feed, Chango offers dynamic creative for online stores, allowing you to create ads with recently viewed products the customer browsed at your e-commerce store.

Chango points to take home: Chango prides itself on having a huge network of data partners. Using their search retargeting option to target potential customers with an intent to buy, will give you an upper hand over your competitors when it comes to SEM.

Chango isn’t for the fainthearted, and their minimum price is 10k to set up a campaign. If you are just taking your first steps in the remarketing world, it might be wise to use one of the other platforms before you dive into the deep end with Chango.

Perfect Audience

The guys at Perfect Audience provide a retargeting platform for those who’d like to keep it as simple as possible. All you need to do is insert a script/code in the body section of your website, create lists of visitors’ types to retarget, design campaigns to target certain segments in your retargeting lists, and your ads will start appearing on visitors’ screens, so it’s as simple as ABC (and D).

• You get to remarket your products or services to lost customers on Facebook, a platform with a user base of more than 950 million people. When a visitor leaves your website or a certain page without ordering, you will be able to retarget that visitor on Facebook. Similar to AdRoll, Perfect Audience offers both standard Facebook ads and the ability to retarget in the Facebook news feed. Check out this ad they actually ran themselves when they started their beta testing:

A Perfect Audience Facebook Newsfeed ad

• For online stores using platforms like Shopify, 3dcart, Magento, andVolusion, Perfect Audience offers practical solutions to retarget visitors who are leaving without buying anything.
• You don’t need to pay a setup or maintenance fee, which makes it an ideal choice for small businesses with tight budgets.
• Their “site reports” actually show you the names of websites which your ads have been served on, how many impressions were served, and how many clicks were attained. Using this data, you can easily see where your ads are performing the best and where your target users are spending most of their online time. Further to this, if you notice that one or a few sites aren’t performing well, then you can “blacklist” that site from your campaign to focus on more profitable exposure.
• As suggested earlier, Perfect Audience focuses on keeping it as simple as possible. They even have a 5-minute quick start guide with instructions for setting up and starting to use their platform in a matter of minutes.
• If you are sending emails or newsletters to a list of subscribers, you can retarget recipients who’ve opened the email. All you will need to do is place an image pixel on your HTML email template. Then anyone who opens your email in HTML format will be cookied and on your remarketing list. Of course, this opens a plethora of marketing opportunities. If you are a little creative, I’m sure you can think of a few fun ways to use this feature. The great part is its simple to build out your list. Take a quick look at this shot of me creating a remarketing list of past buyers of an e-commerce business:

With Perfect Audience you can target people who have open your emails.

• Perfect Audience also has a huge knowledgebase with short to-the-point manuals, quality guidelines, video tutorials, and dynamic ads.

Perfect Audience points to take home: Perfect Audience is a great option for small businesses that are keen to learn a bit more about online advertising without spending massive amounts. The range of options is great for e-commerce stores using third party platforms like WordPress, Shopify, Magento, or 3dcart.

Triggit

Triggit has many different advertising options for their clients, but, like Perfect Audience, they seem to be focusing more on Facebook ads. That’s mainly because they strongly believe in the power of social media when it comes to converting a visitor into a prospective buyer. So, you will find many tools and features made specifically around the Facebook Exchange.

• You can set your own budget, frequency caps (so that people don’t get annoyed by your ads), maximum bid, and a lot more while retargeting your visitors on Facebook and around the web.
• While their reach doesn’t quite hit the highs of AdRoll or Perfect Audience, Triggit more than makes up for it by offering more advanced targeting features like frequency caps, bidding rules, and campaign goals
• The Dynamic Creatives feature allows you to use custom heading, custom dates, and custom images in your Facebook ads to improve click through rates (CTR.) Not only can you retarget with products that the visitor has recently browsed on your website, you can integrate your product feeds and the software will dynamically create multiple ads for the same purpose.

• In addition to the basics, there also are some advance retargeting options available, like targeting the people in your remarketing list according to their location (i.e., FBX Geo-Targeting [advertising to Facebook users according to their location]), one-off product marketing, custom reporting, customer segmentation, and creating unique strategies for different segments.

A Geo-Targeting Campaign in Triggit

• Triggit claims having access to more than 10 billion impressions a day, from millions of websites around the Internet.
• Triggit is one of the oldest DSPs in the market, so they have plenty of experience when it comes to the art of retargeting.

Triggit points to take home: Triggit specializes in retargeting via Facebook Exchange, and that is where their strength lies.

ReTargeter

ReTargeter is comparatively new, but it already has shown itself to be a strong contender when it comes to remarketing platforms. Retargeter offers a wide range of marketing and remarketing solutions, including site retargeting, Facebook Exchange, CRM Retargeting, email retargeting, search retargeting, and short tag (you can use a custom link shortener and when you post that link on social media, anyone who clicks on it will see your full ad popup AND be cookied for later.), to name a few.

• The service is aimed at sites with over 30,000 unique visitors per month.
• You can create target ads according to the demographic, geographic, income, or intent of your customers.
• Since they are not focusing more on a certain type of retargeting, you can choose from a variety of options; for example, retargeting visitors who have browsed your website, subscribers who have opened your newsletter, or people who’ve engaged with you on social media.
• ReTargeter does not restrict their inventory based on spending level, so you will get full network access.
• You can use frequency capping; for example, showing users 15-20 advertisements per month, so that they don’t start getting annoyed by your ads appearing left, right, and center.
• Their services start at $1500 per month (and you will get up to 175,000 impressions for that price), and all the campaigns are managed by a dedicated account manager.

ReTargeter points to take home: A great solution for larger volume sites. ReTargeter has some unique advertising solutions which will put you ahead of the pack.

Google

Since we’re talking about retargeting, we’d better take a quick look at what the big “G” offers. With a massive display network encompassing more than a million websites, videos, and apps, there are plenty of opportunities to retarget successfully with Google.

The service can be set up easily from inside your Google AdWords account. All you need to do is add the remarketing tag to your website, build your ads, set up your campaign, and off you go.

In your AdWords account, head to the shared library (from campaigns tab) to create a list of people visiting a certain section or page of your website. Check out this image below to see exactly where to go:

Once in the shared library, click on “view” under Audiences as per below:

• Google offers super simple targeting options. You can target people depending on their actions, time of visit, and the specific pages they landed on. Take a look below to see a real life example of this:

• Google has recently introduced remarketing lists for search ads (RLSA) with the aim of allowing advertisers to craft campaigns aimed at people who have searched for a particular keyword, regardless of whether they have visited your site or not.
• Google remarketing takes place on the Google Display Network. This means you can reach close to 10% of the internet through their platform.

Google points to take home: A simple solution for users who are comfortable with the AdWords platform. It is limited to the Google Display Network and doesn’t offer any Facebook retargeting options. This service is great for people looking for an easy, quick solution without any headaches.