# Remarketing

**Category:** general  
**Short Description:** Targeted advertising to users who have previously engaged with a brand.  
**Last Updated:** 2026-05-30T00:00:00Z

## Definition

Remarketing is a sophisticated advertising strategy that targets users based on their previous interactions with a brand across various digital touchpoints. This approach uses behavioral data to deliver personalized messages that nurture prospects through the conversion funnel, often incorporating dynamic content and sequential messaging to increase conversion probability.

## Examples

- Dynamic product ads showing items from abandoned shopping carts
- Cross-platform sequential storytelling campaigns
- Custom audience targeting based on website behavior segments
- Email remarketing integrated with social ad campaigns

## FAQs

### What is remarketing?

Remarketing is re-engaging people who previously interacted with your brand — site visitors, customers, or subscribers — to bring them back to convert or re-purchase. The term is often used interchangeably with retargeting, though 'remarketing' (notably in Google's terminology) can also encompass email-based re-engagement of existing contacts, not just ads served to prior visitors.

### What's the difference between remarketing and retargeting?

In practice they're largely synonymous and frequently used interchangeably. Where a distinction is drawn: retargeting usually refers specifically to serving ads to people who interacted with you (via pixels/audiences), while remarketing is sometimes used more broadly to include re-engaging existing contacts through other channels like email. Google uses 'remarketing' for its ad-based re-engagement; many marketers treat the terms as equivalent.

### What are the main forms of remarketing?

Ad-based remarketing (serving ads to prior site/app visitors and engaged users across display, social, and search — including dynamic product remarketing), and email/CRM remarketing (re-engaging existing subscribers or lapsed customers with targeted emails). Some also include list-based remarketing (uploading customer lists to target or suppress) and search remarketing (adjusting search bids for prior visitors, e.g. RLSA).

### When should I use remarketing?

Whenever you have warm audiences worth re-engaging: cart and checkout abandoners, product viewers who didn't buy, lapsed customers, trial users who didn't convert, and engaged visitors. It's most efficient at the lower funnel, converting existing intent, and for retention/win-back. As with all warm-audience marketing, tailor the message to the prior interaction and stage rather than reusing cold acquisition creative.

### How is remarketing affected by privacy changes?

Like retargeting, ad-based remarketing that relies on cookies and cross-site/app tracking has been constrained by privacy controls and cookie deprecation, shrinking audiences and match rates. Email/CRM-based remarketing (using consented first-party contacts) is more durable. The trend is toward first-party data, server-side signals, and platform-native audiences for ad remarketing, plus leaning on owned channels like email for compliant re-engagement.

## Related Terms

### Parent Terms

- **[Retargeting Creative](/resources/glossary/creative/retargeting-creative)**: Personalized ad creative optimized for remarketing audiences

### Child Terms

- **[Customer Journey](/resources/glossary/general/customer-journey)**: Strategic context for remarketing activities

### Component Terms

- **[Conversion Rate Optimization](/resources/glossary/general/conversion-rate-optimization-cro)**: Optimization of remarketing campaign performance